Labor has preselected Wagga businessman Mark Jeffreson as its candidate for the Riverina electorate at the next federal election.
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Mr Jeffreson announced on Monday that he would take on the incumbent Nationals MP and Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack, following the Greens announcing Michael Bayles as their candidate on Friday.
Mr Jeffreson is runs a financial services firm with this wife and has lived in Wagga since 1987 and was born at Holbrook.
“The main issues (for my campaign) are public health and public education, and the pressure that is on family budgets at the moment,” Mr Jeffreson said.
“There’s no wage growth. Inflation is low, which is terrific, but prices keep going up a bit all the time and wages are always a little bit behind.”
Mr Jeffreson said ordinary Australians were not getting a decent share of the nation’s “extraordinary” 27 years of economic growth.
“If you’re a pensioner, sick or old, not working full time, if you’re part of the casualised workforce, which is an increasing part of the workforce, you are missing out on a lot,” he said.
“There is no real reason, with the economic strength, why we should argue for funding for schools and hospitals; it should be just happening.”
The date of the next federal election has not been called, but it is expected by May.