Mr Latham announced in November he had joined Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party and will run for the NSW Parliament in March. 

As part of a trip across the region to promote the party’s priorities ahead of the election, Mr Latham was also introducing Tom Weyrich as Murray’s candidate for One Nation. 

The pair both gave the Nationals a fierce tongue-lashing, saying they had failed residents in the bush. 

“This is a seat where I think the Nationals haven’t properly represented the people here,” Mr Latham said. 

“There was a big swing against the National Party in the (2017) by-election, so we’re hoping with One Nation in the field with Tom we can start making a difference to people’s lives here. It’s going to be an interesting contest.”

The former Labor Party man laid out One Nation’s biggest priorities, which included water, decreasing electricity bills, 

through getting rid of a “climate change tax”, to transfer “wasted money” in Sydney to regional NSW and to fight hard for “great Australian values”. 

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“So many of the things that we love about our country are under threat,” Mr Latham said. 

“Who would have thought these ‘lunatics’ would be out there trying to get rid of Australia Day?

“We should all feel proud of Australian habits – the fair go, resilience, love of country. We’ll always defend those values and beliefs.”

My Weyrich, 62, is a self-employed motor mechanic and lives in Echuca-Moama and has experience in local government having been a councillor for almost 20 years before a forced amalgamation. 

He has also been mayor and deputy mayor of Murray shire. 

Mr Weyrich said water was his big-ticket item and getting a fairer go for irrigators in the Murray electorate was his number-one priority. 

“As Mark has said, this whole water situation has almost reached disaster level,” Mr Weyrich said. 

“Everywhere I go, everyone I talked to is concerned about water. The city-based people don’t understand what we have to deal with in country NSW.”

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