SHE has been a vocal advocate for an improved air service to Moree and disability support for rural children, now Holly Hughes is looking to take those agendas to the NSW Parliament.
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Last week Mrs Hughes was preselected to run on the Liberal/National senate ticket for next year’s state election. She’s 10th on the ticket, meaning her chances for a seat in Macquarie Street remain in the balance.
“What that means is that I’ve probably got a 50-50 chance, but last election we had 11 Coalition candidates elected… so the vote can drop a little bit,” she said. “It will just depend on what happens in March.”
If she were to be elected that would take the number of Coalition seats to 21 in the upper house, giving the Baird government half the senate. Currently it holds 17 seats and must to negotiate with minor parties and independents. Mrs Hughes said her election would provide a chance to give rural emphasis to the Coalition’s agenda on infrastructure, something she listed as a major priority.
“I think the poles and wires program that Mike Baird is suggesting is a once in a lifetime opportunity to invest $20 billion in infrastructure – it’s an absolute game changer for NSW and I think its important that it is a game changer for all of NSW. In Western Sydney, the traffic is woeful. I spend a bit of time there for my son and I understand how horrific the traffic and lack of infrastructure is down there. But NSW is not just Sydney.
“There’re too many people dying on country roads. The country needs to ensure that it gets its fair share of new infrastructure and that we are in there fighting for what we need west of the Great Dividing Range. It’s not all about the coast and the Sydney basin.”
Regional infrastructure has been a major concern for Mrs Hughes since she devoted herself to politics in 2001. She said that a senate seat would allow her to work on those policies in depth.
“There are a lot of committees and inquiries that occur within the upper house framework,” she said. “So, for example, we just had one on the rural and regional airlines, an inquiry which brought the committee here. A lot of that was on the back of Brindabella collapsing, and how communities were without an airline and most of them, except Moree, still are.”
She also listed improving educational cohesion between states and disability support was on her agenda. Both are issues which she has dealt with personally. Born in Adelaide, Mrs Hughes moved to Perth with her family as a child and then to Sydney half way through Grade 11.
“We might not be able to get together on national curriculum but it would be great if we could get together on what age kids start school and call the years by the same name,” she said. “If you’re moving state or, say, sending your kid from Moree to Toowoomba for boarding school, you almost need a statistics degree to work out what year they go into.”
Mrs Hughes’ middle child, Fred, has autism and Mrs Hughes founded and chairs the Country Autism Network (CAN). She has served on Liberal Party State Executive for nearly a decade and is currently its country vice president.