The One Nation candidate for the seat of Murray Plains addressed supporters during his first formal event in Echuca on Tuesday night, staying afterwards to mingle with the around 35 voters who gave up their evening.
When pushed for details by attendees on One Nation’s plan to address Victoria’s debt, Mr Smith conceded it was hard to come up with a comprehensive, costed plan without knowing the breakdown of the current government’s spending.
He said One Nation’s plans were qualitative, not quantitative and focused on getting out of as many Big Build contracts as possible, cutting public servants, investing proportionally in regional areas and increasing regional productivity.
“You can get bogged down in the figures, but principles matter a lot,” he said.
“Anyone who’s run a business or even a household knows money has to go where you get the best return on it ... you need to invest in the things which generate your income, and that’s what we need in our regional areas.”
When asked after the event if he was concerned about One Nation’s Victorian policies not having been independently financially tested, he pointed to his background and experience on council.
“As an economist and someone who’s done accounting and business, I’m the complete opposite (of concerned),” he said.
“I’m not worried about it because I’m confident that, as Garner Smith, I’ll make it work.
“The thing is, One Nation actually does have policies — you say One Nation’s policies aren’t costed, well they don’t have the resources to (cost them), so it’s a bit difficult.
"What’s happening now isn’t working so we need to do something different.“
Figures from The Age indicate the quantifiable savings laid out in One Nation’s current policy platform over the next parliamentary term would fall around $4 billion short of funding one of the party’s three big proposed tax cuts, but Mr Smith is confident if elected he can balance the books.
“It’s why you have a budgetary process,” he said.
“You (look at your policies) and go you’ve got this much money to do this ... it’s how the pie is divided.
“You can have all the reason, logic and justification in the world, but when you’ve got a political problem (like the majority of the state’s infrastructure budget being invested in metropolitan areas) you have to deal with a political problem.
“Right now the pie isn’t being divided up with reasonable logic; it’s divided politically.”
Mr Smith wants his supporters to know change is about long-term progress, not quick fixes.
From his time in politics he says he knows making legislation is a slow process and it’s near impossible to get everything you want to do done.
“The bottom line is with One Nation, you will get a change of direction,” he said.
“Whether we hit every single goal we say we’re going to hit, well, no-one’s achieved that since the dawn of time, but there will be change, and there will be a different attitude.
“The government should be there to serve the people, not the people there to serve the government.”
