Riverina MP and deputy prime minister Micahael McCormack has delivered his first address of the 2019 federal election campaign on Thursday morning.
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The Nationals MP spoke to media outside his electorate office in Wagga at 9am, just an hour after prime minister Scott Morrison called the election for May 18.
The five-week campaign has officially begun, and the calling of the election leaves voters with about a week to enrol to vote or update their enrolments with the Australian Electoral Commission.
It's been less than three weeks since the last election endured by many Riverina voters.
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The May vote will be the third time Wagga voters have headed to the polls since September, when a state byelection was held following the resignation of long-serving Liberal MP Daryl Maguire after an anti-corruption hearing brought his political career to an end.
Just six months after the byelection, voters were back at the ballot box for the general state election.
The local taste for the major parties seemed to have dissipated, with independent MP Joe McGirr comfortably retaining the seat he won at the September vote.
It was not a happy ending for the Nationals at the state election, where the party lost two heartland seats - Murray and Barwon - to the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers.
At the federal level, the coalition will head into the election with 73 seats to Labor's 72.
Neither party is win majority control of the Senate.
More to come.
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