Some 200 people filled the Workers Club auditorium, many armed with questions to ask the panel.

Incumbent Liberal MP Angus Taylor, Labor candidate Aoife Champion, the Greens’ Michaela Sherwood, Citizens Electoral Council’s Lindsay Cosgrove and Christian Democrat Adrian Van Der Byl all attended. Bullet Train For Australia’s Trevor Anthoney sent apologies. 

A question on Israeli settlements into Palestinian land kicked off the second half of the forum.

“Would you undertake to raise with your party the question of expansion of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land? United Nations resolutions have condemned this encroachment, but Australian governments and politicians have been reluctant to speak out,” Helen Rainger of Goulburn asked.

Mr Taylor was the first to respond.

“This is one of those great questions…” he said.

“I think it is very difficult from Australia and indeed from here to solve a problem which the Middle East, the UK and the US have been trying to solve for decades.”

Mr Van Der Byl said he had received many emails on this question over the past few weeks.

“It’s not going to be an easy one to fix,” he said.

A question on live exports had the panel musing on quality of life.

Lee Stanton submitted the question to all candidates except Greens’ candidate Michaela Sherwood.

“Of those candidates present for their parties tonight, only The Greens are active in attempting to abolish the live export trade.Do the other parties have no sense of humanity towards the abominable suffering inflicted on animals by this trade, that no mention is made in campaign speeches or materials?” he asked.

Mr Van Der Byl answered first, pushing the issue back to halal processes. He asks back, if you were to sell the animal to an Islamic country “is it theirs or is it ours?”.

Mr Taylor said animal welfare was a serious issue, but so too was the welfare of farmers.

“We have to take it seriously and we do (but) when we saw the live export trade taken away a few years ago we saw a complete collapse of the cattle market.”

He said the answer was in high quality accreditation. 

“That is a very very important part of the animal welfare solution.”

Mr Cosgrove agreed it was a “serious issue” but didn’t go into policies. 

Ms Champion said Australia faced some tricky decision making on this issue - one that other nations do not face.

“Australia has tried several times to deal with it, and as it’s been said it does affect our farmers and our cattle industry. We are between a rock and a hard place.”

Ultimately, she said that the government needed to “put people first”.

The electrification of railway between Sydney and Canberra was next on the list. 

“What will you do to get this project implemented?” the Southern Tablelands Rail Users Group asked.

Ms Sherwood said she was a regular user of the train from Bundanoon to Sydney and said the service was “woeful”, but would prioritise the development of a high speed rail with commuter services over the electrification of the line.

Mr Taylor said if the electrification of the line, and the high speed rail project, were to be conducted in stages rather than all at once, it could work.

“It’s my responsibility to look at this and work on this,” he said of his role as Assistant Minister for Cities.

Ms Champion said she would like to see a feasibility study. 

As for immediate problems, she said the diesel rail services do not leave at appropriate times and mending this would make a big difference to commuter-friendly transport. 

Mr Van Der Byl said the fact that the NSW Government has given priority to freight on the Southern Tablelands line made it “difficult”.

Ms Champion said Labor would fully fund Gonski, in response to a question on education policies.

“We started funding Gonski and we were interrupted. That won’t continue to be the case,” she said.

Mr Taylor said there had been a growth in public education funding. 

“What is very clear now with education is that we need to get the debate beyond funding,” he said.

“The secret is setting loose great teachers. It is about great teachers. We want to reward, we want to encourage and mobilise great teachers.”

Mr Cosgrove and Ms Sherwood said they would support funding of Gonski, while Mr Van Der Byl said he wasn’t aware of funding dispersal details.

Bill Dorman asked of science and education, listing concerns about funding cuts to CSIRO and support for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education.

“How is it we call this the innovation nation?” he asked.

Ms Champion said STEM was an important element of schooling, and that she would hope to see more women take up coding in the future.

“This all needs to start before university but once you get to university you need to be able to afford it,” she said.

Mr Taylor said the single biggest issue regional students face is affording to live away from home. He said the government had announced a “significant increase in the youth allowance” to ease the pressure.

Mr Cosgrove said a government-run public bank would be “one answer to all of this”.

Ms Sherwood said a start-up incentive for science and technology innovators would be of great benefit.

“We need an innovation start up fund so people who have a great idea are able to get that idea up and running,” she said.

Mr Van Der Byl would not draw into a debate centred around the “so called science of climate change”.

Mr Cosgrove called for the taxation of “financial speculation” in response to a question by Christine Bentley.

“We are constantly hearing that the government can’t afford to fund increases… these things could be affordable if we tackled tax reform. Would you look at changing the rules so, perhaps, you could negatively gear one, two, three or four houses but not 55 as people are now? Why should we be subsidising these people?” she asked.

Mr Taylor said investment, jobs and growth was reliant on pulling the “right tax levers”.

Ms Sherwood said the Greens supported a complete “phase over” of negative gearing. 

“We disagree with the idea that that is going to create a collapse of house prices and that is borne out of modelling by various financial institutions,” she said.

Further, the Greens would like to see “the very wealthy people and the companies paying no tax, pay their fair share”.

Mr Van Der Byl said those who go into negative gearing take upon themselves “a certain amount of risk”.

“They do it for the benefit of others and particularly the economy,” he said.

Mr Taylor said the first NBN fibres would be switched on in Goulburn in the coming weeks.

This was in response to a lengthy question from Alex Ferrara.

“How do you justify people in your electorate, some as little as three kilometres away from the centre of Goulburn, paying for a satellite service that is twice as expensive for 20 times less data allowance than nother residents?” he asked.

Mr Taylor said the towers were moving south progressively, from the Wollondilly down.

“It will be here in the next few weeks,” he said.

Ms Champion claimed prime minister Malcolm Turnbull “decided he couldn’t afford you”.

“Repeatedly I am seeing a Jedi mind trick going on… ‘these are not the speeds you are looking for’... everybody knows what is going on,” she said.

Ms Sherwood said she would call for “an immediate, urgent review of the NBN rollout in regional, rural areas”.

The aged was an overlooked issue, audience member Phil Thomson claimed.

He asked what candidates would do to ease rent assistance pressure on pensioners.

Mr Cosgrove said he would “do as much as possible”.

Ms Sherwood admitted she herself was on the pension, although suspended her payments to stand as a candidate.

“I’m very concerned about the plight of the elderly people in Australia,” she said.

“We are facing a situation that is going to be critical in the coming decades, and that is the elderly population… and nobody is talking about this in the election.”

Mr Van Der Byl said a “new mindset” had to be developed that leant away from welfare benefits.

Ms Champion said “it’s not right”.

Mr Taylor drew on the issue of housing access. 

“Houses will continue to become more expensive and less accessible… I’ve made it my mission to focus on how we get more accessible housing,” he said.

* This article is a re-purposed piece from the Goulburn Post’s forum blog. Head to www.goulburnpost.com.au to read the full wrap-up.