He joined the Nationals after leaving school. He handed in his resignation letter six weeks ago.

"It's [coal seam gas] and mining; a total disregard for our concerns," says the beef producer from Gulgargambone. "They're being smothered [by the Liberals]".

As the major parties try to distance themselves from CSG, independents in rural seats are trying to use the issue to wrest support from the National Party.

"If you go from east to west or west to east water is the common denominator," says Rohan Boehm, who is challenging for the seat of Barwon with support from people such as Mr Lyons. "I'm a country conservative; I wouldn't be doing this if they weren't working directly against  [the country's] interests."

Mr Boehm is campaigning on fears that CSG extraction techniques, which can involve disturbing gas seams with chemical injections, could contaminate ground water on agricultural land.

But seats don't come much safer than Barwon.

The sitting member and Minister for Water, Kevin Humphries, enjoys a margin of 25 per cent.

He represents a little less than half of NSW, stretching 350,000 square kilometres from Broken Hill – a former Labor stronghold added this year – to Narrabri in the east.

The government has been pumping hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure promises into the area. On Friday Mr Humphries announced a $1.25 billion water security initiative for regional centres.

While the Coalition government sees CSG as the future to energy security it has also been busy cancelling licences this week and has committed to halting the practice until regulations are reviewed. "No-one has put in more safeguards for water than our government," Mr Humphries said.

Labor – which dispensed several licences when last in office – has committed to a moratorium on the state's north coast, where it also hopes to challenge the Nationals.

A National insider says the party's polling shows it should not worried about the challenge in Barwon.

But it privately concedes a serious threat a couple of hours east, in the seat of Tamworth.

Independent Peter Draper is challenging again for a seat he held for eight years before copping a 12 per cent swing in 2011.

The driving school instructor says he was pushed out at least partially because of a broader image problem for independents, after federal MPs Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor installed an unpopular Labor government.

"That anger has dissipated," he said. "Maybe people figured out what Tony Windsor meant when he said he didn't want to inflict Tony Abbott on the nation".

The Nationals' rode that dissatisfaction at the 2011 election, knocking off independents in Dubbo, Port Macquarie and Tamworth, and boosting their seats in Parliament by almost one-third to 18.

Tamworth aside, the party does not admit to being vulnerable in any, but worries independents may establish a beachhead of support on which to seize office in 2019.

Mr Draper says that the government's approval of a $1.2 billion mine open-cut coal mine, to be operated by Chinese giant, Shenhua, is voters' single biggest concern.

Mr Humphries says the mine is actually on the ridge, not the plain.

Besides, he says, the Nationals have historically always needed to balance tension with the Liberals and agricultural and mining interests. Doing so now is vital to the survival of thinning bush communities, he says.  "Everybody has the right to participate in the wealth of this country not just a few, if you want to keep country areas strong we have to diversify sensibly".

Seat by seat guide to the NSW election

<a href="/interactive/2015/nsw-election/electorates/electorates.html?el=Barwon" _rte_href="/interactive/2015/nsw-election/electorates/electorates.html?el=Barwon">Key facts on NSW electorates</a>