GUILDFORD resident and former Geraldton MLA Ian Blayney is spearheading  the Nationals WA’s push into metropolitan seats for the first time in over a hundred years.

The Nationals WA leader Shane Love and Mr Blayney met with Echo News this week to speak about representing Forrestfield and he said the role meant quite a lot to him as it’s a first and a strategically strong move.

“You don’t get many opportunities in life to do something for the first time,” Mr Blayney said.

“I’m a member of Rotary and I’m a member of a church in Guildford, so there are a couple of interests I have in the community.

“I’ve run for seats in parliament four times and three times successfully.

“But this is very different because obviously I live near it and I’ve been living around here for four years, but it’s different to where it was in Geraldton.”

Mr Blayney said he had lived in Geraldton for most of his life and despite the differences, there were similarities between the two areas as well.

“Geraldton’s a service centre for the Midwest, which is predominantly mining now, and the similarity here is that a lot of people in Forrestfield are either involved in the mining industry as fly-in-fly-out workers, or they’re involved in the trucking industry, and there’s a lot of people here in the trucking industry and there’s a lot of people involved in the small business sector.”

“But I’ve been struck a little at the similarities of most of the area to some of the suburbs in Geraldton, in particular the suburb called Allendale in Geraldton.

“It reminds me a lot of Allendale, which has got a very similar sort of demographic with a lot of young families generally involved in either small business, mining or agriculture.”

He spent a lot of time dealing with housing and medical issues when representing the residents of the Geraldton  electorate and wanted to bring his experience to Forrestfield.

Mr Love and Mr Blayney both wanted to be a voice for the firearm owners who were impacted by the latest round of legislation for reforms of the Firearms Act.

“I have an open-door policy: if you’ve got a problem, come and see me and I’ll do what I can to help you.

“I work hard and I’m not here for myself,” Mr Blayney said.