DEAR News Of The Area,

THANK YOU Keith Bensley (‘If the Nationals are not reflecting community views, have your say’, p27, Coffs Coast NOTA, April 28 Edition) for generously suggesting I join the National Party where, as a member, I could directly influence the party’s direction and policies.

Unfortunately the issue, as I see it, is that the party system is broken.

Political parties are beholden to large corporate donors to support the campaigning and election of their candidates – this is an untenable conflict of interest.

Headquartered in capital cities and isolated in the halls of parliament, the parties seem to spend their time arguing with each other and doing very little of significance for their constituency.

Cowper has a housing crisis, a climate crisis, public schools desperate for more teachers, and a crisis of access to essential health services – I had to pay privately for my hip replacement or, at 83 years of age, wait three years on the public hospital waiting list, by which time I’d be very unlikely to ever get back on the tennis court.

I worry when I talk to my neighbours and the renters say they will have to move because they cant afford the latest rent increase – rents have gone up but wages have stagnated.

I worry when not all in my neighbourhood can afford to get their storm-damaged homes repaired.

I worry for my grandchildren and great grandchildren who are growing into a world more divided between the haves and the have-nots.

Perhaps the problem is the size of the electorate.

When Ian Robinson won Cowper for the Country Party in 1963, there were 40,000 voters.

Cowper now has 125,000 voters.

Perhaps my ideal of a local member who can hear the concerns of the Cowper constituents is now naïve.

I want a MP who will hear the concerns of my neighbourhood.

The existing party system cannot deliver that.

I don’t know if the teal independents are the way to go but I reckon being beholden to the electorate rather than to the party has to be an improvement on what we’ve got now.

Thankyou,
Colin GRANT.