Minnamurra Progress Association’s Tuesday night forum was a chance for the Kiama by-election candidates to connect with the locals.

Six of the 13 candidates were in attendance and independent candidate Andrew Thaler used his allocated five minutes to launch a tirade against the four frontrunners for next Saturday’s poll.

Thaler has been suspended from Snowy Monaro Council for two three-month periods after he made abusive social media posts which included referring to a fellow councillor as a “fat dumb blonde”.

Labor’s Katelin McInerney, Liberal Party’s Serena Copley, Community Independent nominee Kate Dezarnaulds and Dr Tonia Gray from the Greens were the only candidates invited to speak at the Shoalhaven Business Chamber event earlier in the week, which set the tone for Thaler’s contribution to the Minnamurra forum.

“Now these women preach tolerance and inclusion and if they actually had a backbone, they would have said ‘no this is not right, we should have other candidates there as well’,” Thaler said.

“Yet they didn’t speak up.”

Thaler seemed to have forgotten that there is no love in politics, but said he had checked with “every other candidate” to ask if they knew which events were happening during the campaign.

“Let’s establish communication, I share information [and] I believe in equality and inclusion.”

Legalise Cannabis party member Don Fuggle told the Forum that he helped establish the organisation more than 25 years ago in Nimbin, originally known as the Hemp Party.

“We ran it against John Howard in the 2000 election and nearly got a candidate up in the Senate.”

Dr Gray spoke on issues about climate action in the region, public infrastructure, environmental issues and integrity in politics, imploring the responsibility is on voters.

“You are in a real important sweet spot to make change; this is an election like no other,” Gray said.

“If you’re as disenchanted as I am with the two major parties, then it is time that we really step up and look at social justice and accountability.”

Copley spruiked the recent announcement about a pilot program called Active Seniors and provided a strong advocacy position for the future of the Kiama electorate.

“We need to look to the future and protect that for them. We all live in this part of the world because we love it, we treasure it, and we want to protect it in our lifestyle and the culture that we enjoy today for future generations,” Copley said.

Dezaranaulds used her opportunity to set the record straight that she is not affiliated with the teal independents, which Thaler alluded to, and while she spoke about a range of issues, she gravitated to political integrity.

“Our community really wants to see integrity back in politics,” Dezarnaulds said.

“They want independently minded, courageous, hard-working, energetic, responsive, members who will actually listen to them, who will do the work and who will go and fight the good fight.”

McInerney provided a clear and concise overview of her campaign trail, focusing on infrastructure.

“One of the things that I was told was we need to have that basic infrastructure and those essential services in our community,” McInerney said.

“The NSW Minns Labor government is going to continue to build the infrastructure we need alongside communities as they grow.”

Thanks to the great moderating efforts of MPA’s President Graeme Collinson-Smith, the night flowed well and even finished 10 minutes early.

In sports betting for the Kiama by-election, Labor is $1.05. There is not much between the Liberals and Independents at $9.00 and $10.00 respectively.

The Greens are considered ‘bolter’ odds at $51.00.