Fairfax Digital Media Central West has given Parke's Federal Election candidates the opportunity to answer the questions our readers posed to them via our social media sites.
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In the lead up to the election we will run a question each day, with the responses we received from candidates.
Each candidate was contacted via phone and email. Their responses are below.
What will be the first thing you do if you're elected?
* Mark Coulton (The Nationals)
The first thing I will do if I am re-elected would be to thank my supporters, campaign workers, my family and my wife Robyn for the help and support that they have given me. They have offered me support not only for the campaign but for the last 6 years.
In terms of parliament, the Coalition has made a number of commitments that will need to be addressed immediately if we are elected to form the next Government.
This includes repealing the carbon tax, paying back Labor’s debt, providing incentives for business to grow, reducing the cost of living and addressing border security issues.
If I am elected as a part of a Coalition Government I will be ready to step forward to make the sensible and responsible decisions to end Government waste, and to implement the plans that we have outlined to lift the economy.
* Matt Parmeter (The Greens)
Firstly, thank the volunteers who have given up their time and handed out flyers for me on election day.
Then I’ll head to Canberra, and do the best I can for all of our community.
I want to see Aboriginal people recognised in the Constitution as the traditional owners of our country.
I don’t want to have asylum seeker kids in detention.
The Greens are calling for no new coal or CSG approvals.
We have released “Our food future”, a plan for food security. And have measures to assist farmers, including $300 M in increased commonwealth government funding for agricultural R&D.
There are many things on the “to do” list.
* Neil Gorman (Palmer United Party)
We have two policies I would to see put in place straight away.
One is that at least 25% of federal taxes collected in a region should be spent in that region. (The rest is Federal matters like defence,social security, education etc.) So on election I would ascertain from Treasury how much that is and ask people what they would like that spent on.
The other thing is to start pressuring the government - easy if it is my party or we hold the balance of power - to establish downstreaming businesses.
If raw materials are produced in Australia let's reduce our tendency to sell them to China and Japan who turn our raw mareials into manufactured goods and sell them back to us. This is true of wool, cotton, coal, iron ore and many other things.
It costs Australia money and it costs Australia jobs.
And in the regions if someone set up a factory manufacturing woollen or cotten clothes it would create wealth, create employment and have a significant effect on urban drift because the factories would obviously be set up near the raw materials.
* Michelle Ryan (Christian Democratic Party)
If elected, I will fight for the encouragement and growth of small businesses. Red tape needs to be reduced, and legislation streamlined. We want to see businesses being able to concentrate on providing their services to the community, by eliminating time wasted on paperwork.
Major overhauls are needed regarding taxes which affect small business.
Some these reforms include: reducing the payroll tax - our small businesses should not be penalised for employing people - and repealing the fringe benefits tax.
I want to see more investment in Australian inventions/ innovations, protecting patents from foreign buyers. I would also seek to restrict any further selling of Australian land or property to overseas investors – only allow leasing.
Promotion of Australian produce and products and incentives to buy them should be a priority.
Small businesses should have access to a larger share of the market, preventing big business from dominating the market.
* Brendan Byron (Labor)
My first priority for the Parkes electorate is to improve access to health services in the Parkes electorate among the area’s smaller towns.
This can be achieved by expanding e-health services and fighting to get a better share of health resources - something that can only be achieved by representing Parkes as part of a re-elected Labor government.
TOMORROW: What will you do for individual towns in your electorate?