The Federal election was announced for May 18 yesterday and the candidates contesting it have already left the starting block.

Academic, Dr Antoinette Holm, has thrown her hat in the ring for Labor in the seat of Gippsland, pitting herself against sitting member, Darren Chester, from the National Party.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Dr Holmgave contesting the Federal election serious thought.

She believes the issues confronting “Gippsland and the nation are more important” than her personal sacrifice to contest the forthcoming election.

“I looked outside my window at the drought and thought I have to do this,” Dr Holm said.

Dr Holm, who resides in Churchill, is married to historian and the director of the Gippsland Studies Centre, Eric Eklund.

The couple has two adult children.

“Driving between here (Bairnsdale) and Churchill is a landscape of devastation,” she said of the current crisis facing farmers.

She nominates water security and water usage as important issues.

Dr Holm is an Honorary Research Fellow at Federation University.

With a PhD in philosophy, she is an independent scholar and teacher with expertise in curriculum design.

While reluctant to be drawn into the current social media chatter about Australia’ s education curriculum needing to reflect more Aboriginal history, Dr Holm said Indigenous history “is something we should be proud of and should be able to celebrate”.

“Aboriginal history is Australian history and when we begin to understand that, we begin to study ourselves,” she said.

Dr Holm says education will play a role in the forthcoming election and knows firsthand the struggles of “young people making their way on their own”.

Her son has just finished his degree while her daughter has just started.

Health will also play a role and Dr Holm took the time to meet with Bairnsdale Hospital executives while in town.

The Federal seat of Gippsland is currently held comfortably by Mr Chester for the National Party, who has held it since 2008.

Dr Holm is modest about her chances of unseating Mr Chester.

“It’s not my job to second guess the electorate, this is a democratic process and it should be allowed to play out,” she said.

“I am standing because it’s important and I am standing because people should be allowed to have a choice... and because I believe it is time for change.”

PICTURED: Dr Antoinette Holm (right) has thrown her hat in the ring for Labor in the forthcoming Federal election, on Saturday, May 18. She was pictured in Bairnsdale on Monday talking with Work Solutions job coach, Belinda Dawson.