In the NSW central west, the talk once again is of shaking the Nationals’ grip on Calare

The identity crisis of the Liberal-National Coalition around climate change action and a federal integrity commission is writ large in the New South Wales central west electorate of Calare, where a community independent has revived memories of a longstanding former representative.

Calare covers a diverse rural area west of the Blue Mountains, spanning farming country and mining towns such as Lithgow and Mudgee, which are experiencing an infusion of post-pandemic tree-changers.

Although Nationals' incumbent Andrew Gee has a margin of 13.3%, community independent candidate Kate Hook believes constituents - including farmers and workers in mining and manufacturing - are demanding change to future-proof their livelihoods.

At this week's candidates' forum at Hotel Orange, constituent Rurik McKenzie said he was there "testing the waters".

"I think there's a strong general drift away from parties; and to that end, an independent is a really good thing," he said.

"This seat's been in an independent's hands before."

Television journalist Peter Andren was Calare's independent federal member from 1996 to 2007, championing local issues and speaking out on matters of conscience, such as the treatment of asylum seekers and reconciliation.

Peter Holmes, the moderator of the forum and editor of the Orange Examiner, created a genial atmosphere by asking the audience to provide a show of hands on different issues.

When it came to the need for a federal anti-corruption body, the sold-out crowd raised their hands; and when Holmes turned the question to the candidates, Gee raised his, too.

Guardian Australia asked Gee if the National party put him in an impossible position to deliver on the community interest in climate and a federal Icac.

He said he was on the Icac committee when he was in the New South Wales parliament, "so yeah, I believe that there is value in Icac".

Hook says the most common question she hears about the Nationals is: are they still the party of farmers, or are they the party of mining companies?

"The farmers are saying to me, I can't vote for the Nats any more because their climate policy does not respect the fact that we struggle with droughts, bushfires, etcetera, year in, year out," says the local businesswoman who was selected as a candidate by Voices for Calare.

According to Hook, the electorate is experiencing the real-time effects of the lack of action. The wine producing region of Orange lost out economically when the vintage was spoiled by smoke in the black summer bushfires.

Two towns in the electorate, Lithgow and Mudgee, are dependent on the mining industry, but Hook says the workers have accepted the need for transition.

"They just want a plan," she said.

Ashley Bland, a renewable energy consultant in Bathurst, says the reluctance of the federal government to get involved in the transition to renewables has meant regional communities have missed out.

He says there is deep concern in regional communities that "multinationals come to town, they build massive power plants to keep the lights on in Sydney [so] Armidale or any of these regions get a handful of jobs for a few days, and then, you know, some multinational is the beneficiary of mining the sunshine".

If the government had been more active, he says, it could have overseen a policy where renewable energy was operated by local communities and the money could have stayed in the towns.

Independent candidates' accusations that Scott Morrison is using the trans issue as a political wedge took on a personal note at the forum when audience member Zac Lewis asked: "How are you going to protect me as a queer person and other queer people in Calare?"

Gee said he didn't agree with the Liberal candidate for Warringah's description that gender reassignment surgery was mutilation and sterilisation.

"I think it's just about having respect for each others," he said.

However, Hook told Lewis: "Unfortunately, with the party system, if you're voting for our local member, a vote for Andrew is a vote for Barnaby Joyce and a vote for Scott Morrison. That is how it plays out.

"So I think if you want to think about how to protect yourself at that level, you need to realise that your vote is one of the biggest levers that you can pull to make change," she said.

United Australia party candidate Adam Jannis was booed by the audience after saying that as soon as one young person undergoes gender reassignment surgery, others follow because "it becomes a fashionable thing".

Gee has put Jannis second on his how-to-vote card.

Hook says it's hard to tell how much of a dent her campaign is putting in Gee's margin.

"I'm not really a Sportsbet girl but apparently a month ago we were 34-1, and are now 6-1," she said.

On the edge of the electorate in the town of Geurie, Shawn Wilson says he will decide his vote on election day, depending on who he believes can provide better roads and drainage for the area.

ABC data shows at the last election, the only two polling booths that did not favour the Nationals were in Lithgow and Bathurst, which registered Labor majorities.

Lithgow GP Madhu Tamilarasan says Lithgow is "the odd man out" in the electorate, as being on the edge it often gets moved in terms of health and electoral boundaries, "we get shunted left or right or east or west," she says.

"I don't think it's as safe a National seat, as you know, our current incumbent member thinks it might be," Tamilarasan says.

Elaine and Nick Burnett of the Wellington region are farmers and Nationals voters who are considering a change. Elaine says she is voting for Hook, who she believes is "fresh".

Nick says he sees both major parties as the same, and is considering voting for the independent just to "shake up" the Nationals, so that even if Hook doesn't get in, "the Nationals seats aren't so safe and taken for granted".

Former Indi MP Cathy McGowan told Guardian Australia as part of a live Q&A session there was a large number of traditional Liberal voters in Calare who will support Hook "because they really don't like being represented by a National".