As NSW voters get ready for the poll on March 23, seven candidates have put their hands up for the seat of Wagga. Independent Matt Quade has drawn the number two position on the ballot paper.
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Matt Quade announced online last year that he was intending to run for the seat of Wagga and, after ruling himself out of the byelection because of work, he has now fulfilled that commitment.
Mr Quade said while he is "under no illusions" as to his chances of being elected this time, next time he "will be starting much earlier and will be going for much longer".
"I understand not enough people understand my position. A lot of people that I have come across have said 'yes, well I agree with that', but not enough people have heard," he said. "I understand and recognise that. It's going to continue after the election."
Mr Quade says many of his views on the issues worth taking to an election were formed by his work overseas.
The Tallimba-raised father of three has a five-year stint in the French Foreign Legion on his CV, along with overseas positions with private security firms in countries from Iraq to Libya, Somalia and Haiti. He is also a registered nurse.
"I spent years living in Europe and the UK. A lot of the things I have seen there, I see us blindly walking toward the same problems here," he said.
"There seems to be a lot of naivety, I suppose, on essential issues from both Labor and the LNP. Things that are not being dealt with.
There seems to be a lot of naivety, I suppose, on essential issues from both Labor and the LNP. Things that are not being dealt with.
"I was at the Anyone But Nats night a few weeks ago and one of the issues that came up was the size of Wagga, and the planning that Wagga will grow to 100,000 people; no planning, no funding, nothing at all behind it.
"We already know in Wagga that there are already issues on our roads and things like that.
"So, there are a lot of issues, for example, in places I lived, and my in-laws lived, in Paris and places like that. When you have a large influx which is not dealt with properly, what ends up happening is that, for example, the federal government loses control of that issue. That's what happened in Europe.
"So instead of even just the state level governments, what ended up happening was the mayors of towns and cities, they were the ones who started jacking up before the state governments did because they had to deal with infrastructure issues and planning, and all that stuff.
"Here, I believe it is not handled as badly as Europe, but we are going down the same path in terms of the rate, the speed, at which they're doing it.
"I think - I would say - the vast majority are against the rate, probably a certain amount to the type of immigration as well, but certainly the rate."
Mr Quade also believes energy security will increasingly become an election issue. But looking within the Wagga electorate, he sees health as a big concern for voters.
Mr Quade, who has published two books based on his experiences, wants to see a coronial autopsy facilities in place at Wagga Base Hospital.
"When they build the new hospital, they built a morgue. That morgue is now being used as a glorified storage area," he said, adding that bodies needing coronial autopsies were being sent to Newcastle or Glebe.
"It's an issue that really needs to be brought to the fore. It's causing a lot of distress for families. They can't plan funerals."
Mr Quade wants more action on nurse ratios, but believes there is another issue to be tackled first: The attrition rate in nurses.
He suggests one way to stop nurses leaving the system would be to help more reach the level of nurse practitioners, who could then have increased options to work in the community.
The secondary benefit, he sees, is more elderly people being able to stay in their own homes longer, particularly in smaller rural communities.
"There are many nurses who either can't or won't work in hospitals. They love the job, but they can't work in hospitals," Mr Quade said.
"Unless we give our seniors - with a defined scope of practice - the ability to work autonomously from their own homes, we will never deal with the attrition rate."
Mr Quade also advocates some changes to policing in Wagga.
He believes the police station is located away from the areas most affected by crime and argues there is a need for smaller stations in the city.
"I agree the law should be imposed. But to me, until we look at reducing or cutting welfare payments to repeat offenders, we will never deal with this issue.
"Even harsh sentencing won't resolve the problem. It needs to be a multi-pronged thing. A lot of people will not like that."
Mr Quade's wife Aurelie is one of the founding members of the recently formed Uranquinty CWA branch and, he said, this has him thinking about the state of rural communities.
"We are losing all that grassroots stuff we have had for decades," he said.
"Pubs were literally the community centres for years, for decades - we never really thought about it, that's just the way it was.
"Now what's happening is that they have made life difficult for genuine legal operators, who have to jump through all the hoops that all those pubs/community centres are closing down. We are losing that fabric.
"We are losing so much in the rural areas now, where things are becoming so fragmented and they wonder why we have all these issues with isolation, loneliness."