TAMWORTH’S Labor candidate says a second police station for the city was on the cards if the party succeeds at the March election.
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Stephen Mears officially launched his campaign on Monday although the cat has been out of the bag for a number of weeks after he claims the National Party “outed” him to the media.
Mr Mears laid out some of the policies he will be campaigning on with law enforcement and public service jobs featured prominently.
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The Tamworth candidate had spoken to the shadow police minister Guy Zangari, as well as vowing to back the Police Association of NSW’s petition to employ 2500 more cops across the state, and he said a 24/7 station in South Tamworth was on the cards.
“There’s other issues with the police station as well, they’re running out of room and they’ve put forward a plan to fund either renovation works and or a new police station in South Tamworth to provide greater response times to the region,” Mr Mears said.
“The station is now bursting at the seams, so some of the non-core function sections like police radio, radio network services, we may be able to provide secondary accommodation for those units and we’d also like to man that as a 24/7 police station in the south of Tamworth.”
Labor has also pledged to create a $4.1 billion regional jobs fund off the back of the Snowy Hydro sale.
Working with Public Service Association, Mr Mears said he has spoken workers across the region who were “just getting sick of losing jobs”, particularly in TAFE.
“They never get a chance to sit down and do the job they are paid to do,” he said.
“They are looking over their backs wondering they’re got a job today or they’ll be on the unemployment list tomorrow.”
Labor has never held the state seat of Tamworth and current opposition MPs are aware of the challenge ahead.
“We, in Country Labor, are not naive about how tough this contest is going to be,” MLC Daniel Mookhey said.
“We’ve been listening to regional NSW and we’ve heard just how angry regional NSW is about always coming in second place behind Sydney. “We heard that in Orange, we heard that earlier this year in the Riverina in Murray and Cootamundra and just two weeks ago in Wagga Wagga.”
The Shooter, Fishers Farmers’ Jeff Bacon is the only other registered candidate, while Kevin Anderson will stand for pre-selection unopposed this weekend.
Jacob McArthur
Jacob McArthur is opinions editor for The Canberra Times and Australian Community Media. As part of the Canberra Times' production team, he helps the people of Canberra and beyond get the stories they need, when they need them across a range of platforms, while helping maintain a high editorial standard. Before moving to Canberra in 2020, he started with Australian Community Media in 2015 as a journalist for The Northern Daily Leader in Tamworth where he kept a close eye on Tamworth Regional Council. Jacob was also the co-host of ACM's Water Pressure podcast where he and Jamieson Murphy took a deep dive on issues and key decisions arising during one of the region's worst droughts on record.
Jacob McArthur is opinions editor for The Canberra Times and Australian Community Media. As part of the Canberra Times' production team, he helps the people of Canberra and beyond get the stories they need, when they need them across a range of platforms, while helping maintain a high editorial standard. Before moving to Canberra in 2020, he started with Australian Community Media in 2015 as a journalist for The Northern Daily Leader in Tamworth where he kept a close eye on Tamworth Regional Council. Jacob was also the co-host of ACM's Water Pressure podcast where he and Jamieson Murphy took a deep dive on issues and key decisions arising during one of the region's worst droughts on record.
