‘I help veterans’: why this former army officer is running for council

August 20 2024 – 4:00AM by Tom O’Callaghan | Journalist, Bendigo Advertiser

Source: https://www.bendigoadvertiser.com.au/story/8734229/

Mary-Ann Martinek is running for Bendigo council at the 2024 election. Picture by Darren Howe

A former army officer wants to bring skills honed helping veterans get entitlements to Bendigo’s council table.

Mary-Ann Martinek is running for council and said her focus if elected would be finding ways to help resolve people’s problems.

“I just go and find out ‘what do you want, what are we not doing, how can we do it better?’ And I think those are the kind of things I would bring to the council,” she said.

Independent for Golden Square

Ms Martinek is running as an independent for the Golden Square Ward, where she lives.

The electorate is one of nine being formed for October’s 2024 election. and stretches from Ironbark’s Mickey Mouse Hill down to Quarry Hill and Golden Gully, and out to Alder Street in Kangaroo Flat.

Here’s a map of the new ward boundaries.

2024 new VEC precinct boundaries for Bendigo

Ms Martinek lives in the ward and is a complex case researcher and project manager at the Long Gully Veterans Centre.

“I help veterans as they go through various stages of putting their cases to DVA [Department of Veterans’ Affairs] for claims,” she said.

Defence experiences shaped Martinek

Ms Martinek joined the army in the early 1980s. She served for two decades in a variety of roles including investigations, personnel and logistics.

She left in the early 2000s and found herself dealing with post traumatic stress she linked to her time in the defence force.

“I thought that I could just get out of the military and just become an artist, or something like that, because that’s my training,” Ms Martinek said.

“I had such a struggle just to get my own injury claims through DVA – it took me 18 years,” she said.

‘Bring together people’s views’

Ms Martinek said the skills she had learnt in that time would be an asset when Bendigo councillors dealt with planning disputes and other matters.

“What I bring is the ability to bring together people’s views, take it to council, and keep it within council,” she said.

The election campaign is still in its early days but Ms Martinek said in many ways success would not be defined by whether she won a seat.

“It’s about showing these veterans that they can do it, because I’ve done it,” she said.