00:00The Nationals leader David Littleproud continues his wombat trail.
00:05Today he's in the marginal seat of Cowper on the mid-north New South Wales south coast.
00:12He's in Coffs Harbour, he's pounding the pavement and visiting businesses in a local business
00:17precinct downtown.
00:18At the moment he's in a motorbike shop and he's been talking to businesses this morning
00:23about the opposition's plan to halve the fuel excise, so effectively giving people a discount
00:29at the Bowser.
00:30That seems to be going down with the types of constituents that the Nationals are speaking
00:35with specifically here today.
00:38Business owners are also talking about some of the challenges they're facing in this cost
00:42of living crisis, so staff shortages but also the cost of staff and generally just everything
00:48going up in price.
00:50The Nationals seat of Cowper is an interesting one.
00:53It's the one that they are most concerned about out of all their seats across the country.
00:57Of course those seats are in the more rural and remote and regional locations.
01:01This one faces an interesting challenge from an independent by the name of Kaz Heiss.
01:07Kaz Heiss contested this seat in the last election and she is doing so again this time
01:11round.
01:12She managed to reduce this margin to just 2.4% at the last election, so the incumbent
01:19Pat Conahan, a former police prosecutor, does have a challenge on his hands.
01:24He'll be hoping that coalition policies like the plan to halve the fuel excise will help
01:30his chances.
01:31But the Nationals are certainly also playing into issues around cost of living like housing.
01:37There's going to be a housing announcement later on today, $11 million to extend and
01:43implement sewerage works for housing out at Bellingen, outside of Coffs Harbour.
01:49The other big issue around in this electorate is local crime.
01:53So particularly youth crime, home invasions, burglaries, a local issue but it will be interesting
01:58to see how that plays out federally at the ballot box.
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