As the youngest candidate in the race for Cowra Council, Erin Watt says the decision to put her hand up for December's local government election is a matter of making a positive impact on her community and, ultimately, diversity.
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"I think that young people and people in the community can only imagine what they can see," she said.
"If you can't see people that look like you in positions of leadership in the community, you won't imagine that that can be your future."
A former captain of Cowra High School, Ms Watt has spent the last decade working in different levels of government and advocating for social change.
She said she hopes to bring her skills and experience to council and the wider Cowra community.
"Since I was very young, I've had this weird obsession with wanting to make the world better and when I surprisingly came home last year, which was not at all my life plan, It reignited a strong connection back to Cowra," she said.
"I want to be able to bring my skills in advocating and interrogating to Cowra and make it a better place."
Like a number of other candidates, Erin says tourism is high on her list of priorities.
"We've got so much to offer from the Garden, and the Peace Precinct, to Wyangala Dam to the wonderful Cowra lamb and, growing up on a local sheep farm producing some of that quality lamb, I'm definitely proud of that," she said.
"I think there's a lot more that we can do as council and as a community to encourage people to come here and see the amazing things in Cowra."
If elected, Erin also hopes to improve business and development in the shire.
"Something I'm really keen to get the council to commit to is a Local Procurement Policy, what that means is essentially they would have to hire local and if they can't, articulate why," she said.
"And also, just getting the town moving a bit quicker. A lot of people I talk to struggle to get development applications (DA) through.
"I think a lot of that is actually about the process rather than what's going on in council but councillors have a really big role in interrogating that timeline as well, so something I'd advocate for would be council running information sessions and support for people before they put in the DAs."
She also hopes to revitalise Cowra for the youth, including adding lights at the skatepark, which she helped establish during her schooling years.
"It's been a problem since I was a young person in Cowra," Erin said.
"I want to take direction from the Youth Council and the rest of the youth community but that means things like connecting them with employers and supporting them in getting further education, recreation and finding ways to keep people in town rather than always going out of town.
Inclusion and reconciliation are also focal points for Erin.
"I think there's so much we can do to bring the community closer and also make everyone feel welcome in the community," she said.
"It's really important to me that we take action to make our community more inclusive... things like inclusive playgrounds, to make sure council buildings meet code around access.
"The other side of that being our relationship with the First Nations community here and making sure they've got a stronger voice in what's happening in the community.
"It's disappointing to see council doesn't currently have a Reconciliation Action Plan, which is now a pretty standard element of any business or organisation."
Sustainability is also important to Erin.
"One of the first things I got really agitated about and literally stirred my engagement in politics is when I learned about climate change," she said.
"I want a world where my future grandkids can enjoy all the wonderful things that we can like seeing Wyangala as full as it is now.
"That's also about making sure the council is able to provide for the community going forward... The MRF is already doing really awesome work around the Container Deposit Scheme, I think that's a really great economy that we can keep pumping through in the town."
Erin is the Chief Operating Officer at Fred Fahey Aerial Services and, despite this workload, Erin says if elected she looks forward to contributing to the community through council.
"I'm very lucky that the family business I work in is very supportive of me spending time on that but I've also got a decade of experience working in the space and understand the kind of time and interrogation you need to allocate to really understand the decisions that you are making," she said.
"I'm really keen to get into this and my experience in boards and in project and people management, makes me equipped to give it all to the Cowra community and hopefully I can get there to do it."
Erin said she was also encouraged by the amount of women choosing to run for council.
"I think it's absolutely amazing that there are almost enough women running to fill the whole council," she said.
"Women are always underrepresented in politics, in position of leadership in the community but often they're the people who are behind the scenes, doing the work to get there.
"There's a lot more we need to do to make sure there's more young people on the council, that's there's people with different experience on the council and that our First Nations and other cultural groups are represented there and feel like they have an advocate for them."
She also addressed her political affiliation.
"I've been a member of the Labor Party for almost a decade now and I have worked on a national, state and council level for that political party and that's taught me so much about developing policy and what government can do for the community," she said.
"The decisions councillors make are very separate from party politics and I'm not an endorsed candidate from the party.
"We come with our values and our experience and what our community tells us is important."