What are your priorities for the campaign?

Wagga has been a Liberal Party seat for the last 70 years and this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Wagga to get its share. That’s why I threw my hat in the ring.

For me, there are three main issues that I want to cover in this campaign.

One of them is drug and alcohol services in Wagga.

Everyone knows a family touched by ice. Ice is indiscriminate and these families are going through tremendous traumas with loved ones under the influence of that.

There are not many services in Wagga that will help people before they get to crisis point.

I would like to actually call on the community to see if we can have a Wagga drugs summit, because it is actually a community problem.

The next issue is our roads and our infrastructure.

I have made comments about driving around Wagga being like driving a billycart on a dirt track.

The roads in Wagga are atrocious and it’s not just Wagga, it’s in our satellite towns as well. We have a growth area in Estella that is rapidly developing. Everyone I’ve spoken with agrees that the Gobba Bridge should be dual carriageway all the way through to the Estella turnoff.

We also have the intermodal freight hub in Bomen and the council has recently reached agreement with Visy that they are going to support that. To get the full benefit from that, we need to upgrade the Eunony Bridge. 

The last thing is our satellite towns are lacking basic services, such as sewerage, decent internet connections, mobile phone reception and things like flood mitigation.

So I’d like to say to the people of Wagga ‘make it marginal’. Let’s get some money into Wagga like when Orange changed hands to the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers. Money poured into Orange.

I was going to ask you about the Orange byelection. What do you think the issues were? Was it greyhounds and council amalgamations and are they relevant in this byelection?

We do receive very strong support from the greyhound community.

But I do think the major parties are starting to get on people’s nose. For myself, I have’t felt represented by a major party for quite a long period of time. It’s one of those things.

I think that’s where the minor parties are starting to pick up because they do actually represent people’s interests.

Who are the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers? How do you see the party’s beliefs and its contribution?

The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers are a small party. We don’t have any factions or anything like that. We don’t have any allegiance to Liberal or Labor so we do what is right for our community.

We are basically an outdoor recreational party. We are not a single issue party.

How do you think the Shooters differ from the Liberals and more so, The Nationals, because The Nationals were perceived to be the party for the bush.

The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers are what I believe The Nationals should be. I believe The Nationals have lost their way, and – this is going to be a bit inflammatory – are Liberal Party lapdogs.

I think they’ve lost their way. I don’t think they represent the people in the bush.

I think they have compromised too much to the Liberal Party. We look at this Liberal government that is happy to spend $2 billion pulling down stadiums in the city when you’ve got people screaming for services in the bush.

Why doesn’t the government actually put some services in the bush? Our satellite towns are struggling. They don’t have decent services like health and decent schools for the kids.

That means people are leaving town to access services.

Are forced council amalgamations an issue in this campaign?

We are against forced amalgamations. Now looking at the Tumut and Tumbarumba situations, there are still some very concerned members in Tumbarumba, which falls outside our electorate.

At the moment, with Snowy 2.0 coming – I have seen some of their concerns, and I do need to go and talk to them – I do think together Tumut and Tumbarumba are stronger and can deal with the challenges posed by this together – with a greater population – than separate.

How big an issue is the cost of living?

I am particularly conscious of the cost of living. I think the price of electricity is ridiculous.

Personally, I am a supporter of renewables. I have solar and batteries on my house. I am fortunate enough to be able to do that.

I do also recognise that electricity requires you to have a stable baseload system, so where we say ‘go renewable, we want to be as clean as possible’, I do also recognise we need to have to have a stable baseload.

I’m a realist. Coal does also have a part to play. We can also look at things like thermal power, where it is appropriate. There’s also other technologies like molten salt and everything like that.

What about nuclear power?

My personal belief is that we need to have it on the table. We are one of the more stable tectonic countries.

I think we need to put everything on the table. Take away the fears and the biases and have an objective decision about what is going to provide the best services.