He's just taken the reigns of an electorate larger than Victoria and Tasmania combined, but the new Shooters, Fishers and Farmers (SFF) MP says his top three priorities are water, healthcare and drought assistance. A clear message was sent from the west after Saturday's election when Roy Butler, who promoted the message 'Barwon deserves better', wrestled the seat from the 70-year reign of the Nationals. Mr Butler said he is "humbled" to have won the seat and is looking forward to representing Barwon and giving people what they deserve. "The regime of travelling and visiting communities, that you've seen me doing for the past months, that's what I think the job is, it's being out in those communities talking to people and finding out what's going on and that's what I intend to continue to do," he said. The SFF released a 10-point strategy on Murray Darling Basin and said it is key to preparing for future drought, and Mr Butler said he has been very clear in what he hoped to do. "First and foremost I want to get water back on track," Mr Butler said. "That 10 point strategy that we've issued … we think that is a solid blueprint to at least pull the leavers that need to be pulled to restore water back into a healthier system. "We acknowledge though that unless there's meaningful rain in the catchment, there's no water to manage. "But at the moment what we want to do is get the system right for when the water comes so that we can manage that appropriately. "We need to prepare for what's happened now, to happen again. "We need to be ready to not be taken by surprise, so if this rewrites the history books in terms of what we can expect for drought, then we need to be prepared for this kind of drought to happen again." Mr Butler also said he hoped to improve health care for those living in the far west of NSW. "Life expectancy has gone backwards in the far west. NSW Health's own data that shows between 1996 and 2016 if you live in the Far west of NSW your life expectancy went backwards 1.5 years, where in the city in the same time it went up by 6.9 years," Mr Butler said. "That's petty damning and shows our health policy settings are wrong and the idea of stripping the guts out of our hospitals so that only major centres have the services I think that's been proven to be disastrous for our health outcomes." For Mr Butler, drought assistance needed to be better managed to help stimulate local economies, which are also suffering as a result of the drought. "We need to get better with drought assistance and economic assistance into regional communities, which is more than just giving money for people," he said. "I think the drought dollars system is a better system than trucking in dry goods from Sydney, I mean both are great … what I'm saying is businesses in town are suffering just like the farmers are and one of the best things we could do instead of trucking in the goods, is actually allowing people to use a voucher system to spend donated money in the local shops, so we can stimulate their economy as well." Mr Butler said he believed the backlash against the Nationals comes from a sense that people were feeling "abandoned and ignored". "I don't think that they were listening, people were asking them to do things and they weren't doing them, people asked them to stop doing things and they didn't stop doing them," he said. "They just didn't pay attention." Despite being a minor party in a coalition government, Mr Butler said his background working as a public servant in militaristic-hierarchical environments such as corrective services and police has equipped him to get people to pay attention to the important issues. "I've always been able to work with people in those environments, I've got good communication and relationship skills, and if that doesn't work though, if they don't want to play nice after all that, we just use the minor parties in the upper house to block them, until they start listening to us," he said. "We didn't get the balance of power in the lower house, but we do have people in the balance of power in the upper house and that's going to be an exercise of minor parties helping each other out to get things that are important to them through. "So our water plan is something for example that we would seek to use that balance of power int he upper house to get government to pay attention to it." On winning the seat Mr Butler thanked everyone for the support he has received. "We've had an incredible amount of support whether it's been people who gave me a bed or a meal throughout the campaign, or whether it's the people who volunteered to hand out at pre-poll on election day, they are just incredible people and it's very humbling to have that level of support across such a large geographical area," he said. "I just really want to acknowledge the work they did because those people, without them nothing would have changed."
He's just taken the reigns of an electorate larger than Victoria and Tasmania combined, but the new Shooters, Fishers and Farmers (SFF) MP says his top three priorities are water, healthcare and drought assistance.
A clear message was sent from the west after Saturday's election when Roy Butler, who promoted the message 'Barwon deserves better', wrestled the seat from the 70-year reign of the Nationals.
Mr Butler said he is "humbled" to have won the seat and is looking forward to representing Barwon and giving people what they deserve.
"The regime of travelling and visiting communities, that you've seen me doing for the past months, that's what I think the job is, it's being out in those communities talking to people and finding out what's going on and that's what I intend to continue to do," he said.
The SFF released a 10-point strategy on Murray Darling Basin and said it is key to preparing for future drought, and Mr Butler said he has been very clear in what he hoped to do.
"First and foremost I want to get water back on track," Mr Butler said.
"That 10 point strategy that we've issued … we think that is a solid blueprint to at least pull the leavers that need to be pulled to restore water back into a healthier system.
"We acknowledge though that unless there's meaningful rain in the catchment, there's no water to manage.
"But at the moment what we want to do is get the system right for when the water comes so that we can manage that appropriately.
"We need to prepare for what's happened now, to happen again.
"We need to be ready to not be taken by surprise, so if this rewrites the history books in terms of what we can expect for drought, then we need to be prepared for this kind of drought to happen again."
HEALTH CARE
Mr Butler also said he hoped to improve health care for those living in the far west of NSW.
"Life expectancy has gone backwards in the far west. NSW Health's own data that shows between 1996 and 2016 if you live in the Far west of NSW your life expectancy went backwards 1.5 years, where in the city in the same time it went up by 6.9 years," Mr ButlerRead More – Source
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