Nats vow to defend territory

As the still-unregistered Country Party and independent candidates claim a groundswell of dissatisfaction with The Nationals, the party itself believes it is the only one with the breadth of policies to truly represent rural NSW.

"We've seen these sort of protest groups and independents pop up for 100 years," said former NSW Nationals chairman Niall Blair.

"They don't stay around for long, usually.

"They talk a big game, but they don't have a broad base of policies to deliver."

Mr Blair said one of the biggest challenges for the party was the huge range of issues that could touch a nerve in the various communities across rural and regional NSW.

One example was differing opinions on the desirability of wind farms and mining.

"Farmers in the southern part of the State are against wind farms, and in the north it's all about coal seam gas (CSG)," he said.

"People get disgruntled over individual issues... we have to have a full range of policies to represent the broad range of communities."

Country Party chairman Pete Mailler said rural voters in NSW had gone far beyond being "disgruntled" and were instead feeling "betrayed" by The Nationals.

"In NSW the promises ahead of the last election by the Nats have not been delivered," Mr Mailler said.

"After so many years with a Labor government in NSW the expectation was very high in rural communities and the sense of betrayal is now profound and deservedly so.

Mr Blair said the Nationals had delivered in some areas, but admitted there were others where more work needed to be done should the government win a second term.

One of these was the Native Vegetation Act, which many Nationals voters expected to see scrapped when Labor was turfed out of office in 2011.

While the government initiated the Biodiversity Legislation Review in 2014, which ultimately recommended the Act be replaced, the hated legislation is still on the books as the new election nears.

"We didn't get to where we want to be on that," Mr Blair said.

"We get reminded every time we go to a branch meeting by our members that we're not where we need to be."

Mr Blair said taking the recommendations of the Biodiversity Legislation Review and forming new legislation on native veg would be one of the top priorities of the party after the election.

Another problem area was mining and CSG, particularly following the recent Planning Assessment Com-mission (PAC) approval of the Shenua coal mine on ridges above the Liverpool Plains.

"I understand the concern the people on the black soil plains have... (but) PAC, acting as an independent referee, came down on the side of the mine."

Mr Blair pointed out the Shenua project was initiated by the former Labor government, and now PAC had approved it, the Coalition would make sure all environmental conditions on the mine were strictly adhered to, if the mine was also approved at a federal level.

Mr Blair said the Nationals had delivered for rural infrastructure.

For health, $1.7 billion has been spent on hospital infrastructure in rural and regional NSW in places such as Wagga Wagga, Tamworth, Dubbo, Parkes, and Forbes.

Mr Blair said money on roads such as the Cobb Highway and Silver City Highway made a big difference for their regions, and positive feedback from the bush was also being received for other roads and bridge repair programs.

Rest of NSW Incorporated chairman Bob Wheeldon was less enthusiastic about rural infrastructure spending from the government.

Mr Wheeldon was a Nationals member before forming Rest of NSW Inc, and said all major parties including the Nationals were simply too focused on Sydney.

"Voters in the rest of NSW were expecting a fresh start in 2011 but nothing much has changed," Mr Wheeldon said.

"Infrastructure spending is dominated by Sydney projects and small communities still need to deal with red tape designed to fix Sydney problems.

Mr Blair said the government stood by its economic record in returning the State to the top of "all key economic factors" such as employment and economic growth, in comparison to other States.