Lockhart Shire Council Mayor, Greg Verdon, reacts to potential federal electorate boundary change

Off the back of a push made by the Federal Liberal and National Parties to have the Lockhart Shire Council merge with the electoral division of Farrer and out of the Riverina electorate, Lockhart Shire Council Mayor, Greg Verdon appeared on the Country Viewpoint program this week to air his thoughts on the issue.

Photo credit: Lockhart Shire Council Facebook page

Verdon made it clear on the airways that he was strongly opposed to the proposal which was underpinned by the need to .

"In New South Wales, they have to lose one seat and so it's all about evening out the populations or the numbers in each electorate, it's interesting that the National Party put up, obviously they never discussed it with their local member who was quite indignant that we were being mooted to be pushed into Farrer," Verdon said.

"It just doesn't make sense from our perspective, in that Wagga is our community of interest and that's where we have all our medical, educational, purposed shopping and employment wise, we're a member of the regional organisation of councils where the majority of those councils are located within the Riverina electorate.

Verdon also pointed to the inconvenience an electorate redistribution would bring about for local residents with regards to accessibility of services and other logistical issues.

"We're also within a planning group of Wagga City...we're zoned within the Riverina electorate for our fire zone," Verdon said.

Our local member, a state member is the member for Wagga Wagga and you know, when you live at the Rock, you're 20 minutes from Wagga and probably 40 minutes from Lockhart, whereas you know, that would be an hour or an hour and a half if we were transferred to the Farrer Electorate."