Tania Rattray says she will fight for better access to health services and improving telecommunications infrastructure in the state's North-East after yesterday's declaration of the polls for McIntyre.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Ms Rattray was officially returned to Tasmania's Legislative Council for another six-year term after obtaining 60 per cent of the primary vote over the weekend, beating out independent David Downie and Tasmanian Greens candidate Mitchell Houghton.
Ms Rattray, who was first elected to the upper house in 2004 in the former seat of Apsley, said she looked forward to resuming her work and representing the community as best as she could, highlighting regional access to GPs, community car access and providing adequate internet as key issues to be addressed.
The returning member said that with many GP clinics closed and ambulance services strained in regional areas, many Tasmanians were reliant on a churn of locums to fill the void.
She said a lack of access to community cars also compounded the issue.
"People don't necessarily have family and friends that they can rely on to take them to a medical appointment," she said.
"We need to make sure that we've got those wonderful volunteers in our community that drive those community cars, and deliver them to appointments".
Another point of concern for Ms Rattray was providing access to phone and internet services, which she said was "not acceptable in this day and age".
"There's some really terrible mobile phone service and the internet is sometimes non-existent when you're in some of my more outlying areas," she said.
Tasmania's Legislative Council has six independent members, something that Ms Rattray sees as a strength.
"I'd like to think that ... we still obviously have an opportunity to hold the government to account when it comes to legislation," she said.
Tasmania's Legislative Council has had independents hold the balance of power in the past, with 14 independents coming through the upper house throughout the past six-year election cycle that ended in 2017.
But with Labor's Josh Willie re-elected in Elwick, and Toby Thorpe holding a narrow lead in Huon, it seems likely that the number will remain at six.
Ms Rattray said that the number of independents in Tasmania is a sign that voters want to connect more directly with their candidates.
"I always listen to what's been put forward, then engage with my communities," she said.
"A lot of people say how lucky we are in Tasmania, that we actually know our elected members of parliament, and we actually can meet them and we can have conversations with them".
Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:
- Bookmark www.examiner.com.au
- Make sure you are signed up for our breaking and regular headlines newsletters
- Follow us on Twitter: @examineronline
- Follow us on Instagram: @examineronline
- Follow us on Google News: The Examiner