AS of March 2015 Cootamundra locals may well be seeing their state member of parliament along the main street more often than not.
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Member for Burrinjuck Katrina Hodgkinson has her sights set on Cootamundra as a place of residence and as an electorate office if she is re-elected.
After election day on March 28 the seat of Burrinjuck will no longer exist, Ms Hodgkinson will run for the seat of Cootamundra.
Currently living in Yass, Ms Hodgkinson feels that it is imperative to move, as Yass will be part of the Goulburn electorate.
While “nothing’s in concrete yet” Ms Hodgkinson and her family are preparing for a new chapter of country life.
“The whole electorate is beautiful, but I am looking at Cootamundra,” she said on Thursday.
“It is a very beautiful shire."
Settling in should come naturally for Katrina, who is well acquainted with community groups and has a number of friends and relatives living in the area.
“It’s also quite quite an accessible place, an easy drive to other towns in the electorate.”
If elected Ms Hodgkinson would like to retain her position as Minister for Primary Industries.
“It’s a wonderful portfolio,” she said.
Ms Hodgkinson is looking forward to representing farmers by reducing red tape, driving up profits, increasing yields at a local level and increasing exports, and believes that her ministerial role can facilitate that.
With a number of achievements under her belt, including the recently-released Agricultural Industry Action Plan, Ms Hodgkinson is compelled to continue the job.
“There are a couple of pending pieces of legislation I would like to see passed.”
In the 2011 state election Ms Hodgkinson won the seat of Burrinjuck quite comfortably with an 80.6% majority, gaining on her previous majority by 13.3%.
Support for the state Labor party crumbled in the lead up to the election and the Liberal and National party coalition took the lead in perfect timing to claim a significant majority of seats in the lower house.
It was a statewide blitz as the safe LNP seats like Ms Hodgkinson’s became safer, many ALP seats fell to LNP members and the marginal LNP seats became safe seats.
Political spectators anticipated that the LNP’s popularity would slip over its first term and it has; on a two party preferred polling shows that their 2011 majority of 64.2% has now slipped to 55%.
As the shine wears off, Ms Hodgkinson is still confident she will have backing from residents in her electorate, most of whom are aware of the work she has done over her 16 years in parliament.
Ms Hodgkinson says she will continue to represent regional people, and on Thursday she was at the electoral office consulting with community members.
Also by adopting technology Ms Hodgkinson is able to communicate remotely, attending interstate meetings via Skype and being available for the local community.
Ms Hodgkinson says she is prepared for the new challenge.
“I’m used to covering a really large electorate, and I’m no stranger to redistribution as I was there for the incarnation of the seat of Burrinjuck,” she said.
