With the by-election done and dusted, time will now tell whether or not the National Party will regain the trust of Cootamundra voters after a swing against the party.  

That being said, the Nats won more convincingly than I imagined they would (given the results in the Orange by-election), with Steph Cooke receiving almost double the amount of votes then her two nearest rivals – Country Labor’s Charlie Sheahan and Shooters, Fishers and Farmers candidate Matt Stadtmiller – at the time of publication. 

I’m going to use this space to say a very simple message – the same message I would give any candidate, regardless of who won on the day. 

Please, don’t just play party politics.

We’ve seen it again and again, politicians, in all levels of government, who would rather appease their own party’s policies and ideologies than listen to their constituents. 

The cost of this? Schools go under-resourced, hospitals go understaffed, and infrastructure and essential resources go unmanaged simply because politicians do not want to risk their own short-term future. 

Schools across the Cootamundra electorate are facing major repair backlogs, Cowra’s schools alone face a backlog of $955,777 worth of repairs which, based on the current rate of funding, will take an average of 11 years to complete. 

People are having to wait months in local hospitals or drive thousands of kilometres for treatments in metro hospitals, I know this firsthand with relatives who need to travel to see specialists in Sydney. 

I’m not naive of course – the demand in the bush isn’t as large as the demand in city hospitals. But resources follow funding, the more money splashed in our hospitals, the more doctors we will get out here. 

And one of the hot topics at the Young Witness’ candidate Q&A I attended a couple of weeks ago was the need for better roads and lower electricity prices. 

Our new candidate need not look any further than her predecessor Katrina Hodgkinson to see what it means to stand up for the voters. Ms Hodgkinson crossed the floor over the greyhound ban – it cost her position in the party but she did what she thought was right by her constituents. 

Steph – I wish you the absolute best of luck, you’ve already shown a passion for this electorate. Now the hard work begins. 

Kelsey Sutor