Mr Maher said he would pick up the petition, which was signed by 11,000 people, and continue the push for reconditioned hospitals in Inverell and Glen Innes.

“If people have taken the trouble to think about their needs as far as the hospital goes, then my priority would be to go over there and talk to the health management, talk to the doctors and get a sense of what their issues are,” Mr Maher said.

“I don’t think there’s been much money spent there since my days as chairman. We did put in a new maternity ward at the time, as I recall, and did improvements to the emergency and we put new xray equipment in and so on.

“If there is a need for an injection of funds to significantly improve the facility the time has come and the same is true of Glen Innes. I’m sure those hospitals are getting a bit tired now and the community deserve their fair share of the health dollar.”

Mr Maher made it clear that if elected he would be fighting to make sure Northern Tablelands got its fair share of funding across the board and said he did not feel as though he would be  coming in beneath the shadow of Mr Torbay.

“I think I have a reputation of being an extremely hard worker, since I’ve been mayor of Armidale I’ve kicked some goals,’ Mr Maher said. “There’s been a lot of good few things that have happened over here in a short space of time, so I’ve got the drive, energy, understanding and experience to put the case on behalf of communities like Inverell to the government.

“I’ve worked in health with Ministers from all sides of politics and I’ve had the respect of those people.

“I believe that you can even have members in the government who don’t necessarily get much for their electorates, they’re taken for granted.”