MEMBER for Wannon Dan Tehan faced his challengers in next month’s election for the first time on Tuesday night, in a candidate forum in Ararat.

ABC Ballarat’s Steve Martin chaired the debate, and remarked at the crowd size, which was well over 100 people, being significantly larger than expected.

By Thursday, more than 1500 had viewed the video recording on The Ararat Advocate’s Facebook page, which is still available to watch.

Most candidates were present, with the Greens candidate Hilary McAllister, independent Alex Dyson, UAP’s Craige Kensen, Liberal Democrat Amanda Mead, and Labor’s Gilbert Wilson joining the incumbent.

Organisers said they were unable to contact independent Graham Garner and One Nation candidate Ronnie Graham to invite them to participate.

Each candidate was given three minutes to introduce themselves and their platform before the floor was open for questions from the audience.

The forum was calm, with candidates barely acknowledging each other when they had the microphone, and allowing each other to speak without interruption. Only once was there an interjection from the audience, regarding one of the Liberal Democrat candidate’s answer to a question on carbon tax.

The incumbent, Mr Tehan, was up first speaking about the importance of businesses as taxpayers and employers, to allow government to invest in local infrastructure, roads and environment.

“We’ve been able to do a lot, but now as we come out of the pandemic, we need to do a lot more,” he said, mentioning road and rail upgrades in the Ararat area, as well as the Jobkeeper program.

Ms McAllister spoke predominantly about a need for increased climate action from the Federal Government, as well as a change to refugee policy and the introduction of a “billionaires tax” to pay for expanded welfare programs.

Mr Dyson said he was standing to listen to the issues facing electors and their solutions, as well as expert opinions, rather than presenting his own ideas, highlighting housing and more equal grant allocation between electorates as major concerns of Ararat residents and also noting his support for removing the temporary reduced speed limits on the Maroona to Portland rail.

Both Mr Kensen and Ms Mead’s introduction centred around their respective demands for the withdrawal of vaccine mandates, and the Liberal Democrat candidate went on to further outline her party’s “libertarian philosophy,” and promise to never raise taxes.

Labor’s challenger, Mr Wilson, spoke in his introduction about his party’s plan to “restore” welfare programs such as the NDIS, Medicare and pension.

Although the audience was asked to frame questions from an Ararat perspective, most were largely around national issues, including the re-introduction of a carbon tax, free trade agreements, national security, and the education curriculum.

The strongest supportive reaction from the crowd came from Mr Dyson’s response to a question about national security, when he said that politicians need to listen to the experience of defence chiefs “tone down the rhetoric…that is designed to win an election,” saying that Labor would be using the same tactics as the LNP if they were in power.