Farrer incumbent and Liberals candidate Sussan Ley, Farrer Australian Labor Party candidate Darren Cameron and Greens Senate candidate Amanda Cohn formed the panel for the discussion — with Ms Cohn stepping in to take the spot on the panel for the Greens from the party’s Farrer candidate, Eli Davern, an 18-year-old youth mayor in Albury.
Other issues up for debate on the night were climate change and housing affordability.
To start the night, each candidate told the small in-persona audience, plus the online audience, a bit about themselves.
Ms Ley spoke of how she was standing in her eighth election for Farrer and the half a billion dollars she had secured for Farrer since 2019.
For Ms Ley, the important issues for the electorate were mobile coverage, rural health and the Murray Darling Basin Plan.
Mr Cameron, an Albury City Council councillor and Australian Workers Union organiser, told attendees he was running “to make sure people can make an informed choice”.
The main issues he saw for the electorate were the need for equity and fairness in health and services, issues with health that include problems of communities not being able to attract doctors, as well as “telling the truth” about the Murray Darling Basin Plan.
Ms Cohn, a doctor who has also previously served on Albury City Council, told the audience she lived in the Farrer electorate.
She said she became interested in politics when she saw the issues that were affecting her patients — including lack of housing, family violence, and young people leaving communities.
She said people wanted to see change about the climate, inequality and housing crises.
Water was one of the main topics for the discussion with both the presenter’s questions and some of those from the audience focusing on it.
Buybacks in the Murray Darling Basin was a hot topic.
Mr Cameron said buybacks would “never be compulsory or mandated” under a Labor government.
He said talk from the Environment Minister that Labor was going to buy-back 450 gigalitres of environmental water was a “misrepresentation”.
He said Labor would be “implementing the plan”.
Ms Cohn said she thought by-backs “have to be part of it (the plan) to help regional communities”.
Ms Ley said under the Liberals there would be “no more buybacks”.
When questioned about regional health, Ms Cohn said the Greens wanted to implement things such as free dental and mental health appointments.
Mr Cameron said Labor was looking to boost the number of rural GPs and restore medical items that had been removed from the medical benefit system.
For Ms Ley, the Liberals wanted to make changes to the priority area classifications for doctors.
There were also plans to meet some of the training costs for doctors and nurses who came to rural and remote areas to practice for a specified amount of time, as in incentive to attract them to the country.
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