To help you get to know them, we've asked some key questions - including why they're standing and what they believe are the biggest issues in need of attention.

Incumbent Nationals MP Michael McCormack, 57, is coming off a fourth term as the region's representative in the federal parliament.

The lifelong Riverina local is now hoping for a fifth.

Mr McCormack said he's running on a track record that began when he was first elected in 2010, including a stint as Deputy Prime Minister, and on issues such as cost of living, housing, labour shortages, national security, health and education.

Lake Albert.

All my life. I've never been anywhere else. I've lived in Wagga Wagga since I got married in 1986. Before that, I was on a family farm at Junee for 18 years. Before that, I was on a family farm just outside Marrar for four years.

My very first job was the ground announcer at Eric Weissel Oval when I was 16. I started at The Daily Advertiser when I was 17 and did the four full years as a cadet. I worked at The Daily Advertiser full time from 1981 through to 2002, the last 11 years of which I was the editor.

Then I started my own small business in partnership with two others called MSS Media. [I] did that for eight years and then put my hand up for politics.

I always had an interest in politics. Mum and Dad discussed politics around the table and we weren't allowed to watch television and those sorts of things, because there were no mobile phones back then. There was to be no distraction at mealtime, it was discussion about topics of the day.

When I was a newspaper journalist, I liked to find campaigns, as good journalists do. I liked to advocate for causes - comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. I suppose it was just a natural progression from debating at school, to journalism, to the editorship.

Kay Hull approached me very early in her 12-year tenure as the member for Riverina to sound me out about the prospect of perhaps succeeding her when her time was through.

Wal Fife was somebody who was a huge figure in this area because he had represented Wagga Wagga at a state level for 18 years and then a similar number at a federal level. I always admired the way Kay Hull represented the area.

On a national level, I suppose, even as a young journalist, John Howard was the prime minister and while he got a bad rap ... he was a prime minister who made several important reforms. I have to say, whilst I wouldn't have voted for him, Paul Keating was quite a formidable figure.

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I think every election should be about the candidate who is going to best serve your interests in the local electorate.

This election is a hyper-local election, in as much as people do look to their local persons, even more so in regional areas. I've gone to any number of schools this week with a kindergarten kid saying, 'there's Michael McCormack' - I was pretty impressed with that name recognition. But you wouldn't get that if you're a metropolitan member, where sometimes they turn up on polling day and a lot of people don't know who they're voting for. They just know they're going to vote Labor or they're going to vote Liberal.

I've been very fortunate, I've been given four terms and I'm hoping for a fifth. I don't take anything for granted. I've never, ever taken anybody's vote for granted and I try and treat everybody as equals.

I suppose, at the end of the day, the only person who you really know their voting intentions is that person who comes up to you and says, 'I'd never vote for you in a million years' - you certainly know they're not going to vote for you. But a lot of people tell you they're going to vote for you. I'm just fortunate enough that, in the past, I've got some good, solid support from the electorate.

Labour, first and foremost. I had a person in the [Sturt] Marketplace [last Thursday] talking to me about the lack of nurses. But it's not just a lack of nurses, it's a lack of everybody in every sector.

Housing affordability is also a very big issue but we're attempting to address that. I know social housing is the state's responsibility, more so. We'll work with the states and local councils too, they've got a part to play with land releases and subdivisions and getting those through quicker. So, it's a whole government approach - it has to be.

But also cost of living. It's a big issue for people in the Riverina, not just housing. And petrol - obviously, we've addressed that with the 22 per cent fuel excise [cut]. But when that comes off, that'll be an interesting week because there'll be a campaign to continue it for another six months and we'll see what happens in that regard. You can get a dozen people in a room and ask them for their number one issue and you may well get 13 responses.

I think it does and if you look at some of the programs I put in place here, the formula that I put in place, say, for the local roads or community infrastructure, were based on the population, the road network that they had and the needs that they had. There were a whole heap of parameters around it, but each and every council got a very good piece of the pie.

The mayor of Bland Shire, Brian Monaghan, said that he'd never seen the amount of money washing around local shires than ... under my stewardship.

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