Local Miranda Fry has joined State Member for Barwon Roy Butler’s electorate team and commenced working out of the Cobar electorate office last week.
Miranda explained her new role as a Barwon Senior Electorate Officer is apolitical, meaning she’s employed by NSW Parliament to work for the local member, Mr Butler.
“My role is about being the face that’s here,” Miranda said.
“Barwon is a very big electorate—13 Local Government areas that cover 44 per cent of the state.
“It’s a huge area to cover, and Roy can’t be everywhere so it’s making sure there is someone for people to speak to, someone they can meet with face to face,” she said.
As well as finding out what issues are concerning local residents, Miranda said part of her role is also promoting the good things that are happening in the electorate.
Miranda said it was Roy’s passion for regional issues that attracted her to the role.
“Both Roy and his team are passionate about rural and remote (and the differences between those) and that’s also important to me.”
Miranda believes her recent role as the workforce development manager for RDA Orana will be of help in her new position.
“The role’s quite similar, in the way that it’s about helping regional Australians with regional issues and going out and meeting with people and finding out what’s happening,” she said.
“For the past four years I’ve been spending my time with businesses across industry and I think I already have a pretty good feel of what’s happening on the ground and what affects those people the most.”
In addition to representing Cobar, Miranda will also be covering other shires in the Barwon electorate including Lachlan, Bogan, Bourke and Brewarrina which will mean spending a bit of time on the road.
She said talking to people in different towns will help her to see “the big picture” in the electorate, ie Are people across the electorate experiencing the same issues? And if they are, have they already solved those issues? Or are those issues ongoing?
Miranda said the important contacts she has made throughout the region in her role with RDA Orana and also in her previous roles as the Projects Officer with Cobar Shire Council and manager at The John Mitchell Pharmacy, will also be of benefit in her new role.
“I also think that the work that I was doing with submissions and advocacy moves me into this position pretty smoothly,” she said.
“I really think that my biggest asset in the role is that I’m a local, I live locally and these issues affect me too,” she said.
“I’m hoping I can help make a difference.”
