State election 2023: Tamworth electorate Labor candidate Kate McGrath campaigns to strengthen health and education

"The further out you go, and the smaller the community is that you live in, the worse that becomes," she said.

The Gunnedah Shire councillor and early childhood educator said at her campaign launch on Wednesday, that the coalition government's privatisation of services is the root of issues facing the community.

Her campaign will largely focus on health and education, which she said have been decimated.

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NSW Labor plans to remove the wages cap for public servants such as teachers, enabling them to bargain and negotiate their wages.

Removing the wages cap will mean that the incentivisation that currently exists for people to leave public systems and work in private systems in order to attract a fair wage, will balance, she said, and stop those systems being weakened.

Rural communities aren't a viable market for privatisation, she said, because the supposed benefits of a competitive market driving prices down don't happen if populations aren't enough to justify business.

As a member of the Gunnedah Community Roundtable, Ms McGrath gave evidence to the NSW Upper House Inquiry into Rural and Regional Health Outcomes.

She will not support the single-employer model putting trainee rural GP's into hospitals until Labor can access the information they haven't had while in opposition.

"The first starting point is to do those audits," she said.

Ms McGrath is the only candidate living outside of the city of Tamworth. She grew up in Manilla, went to school in Tamworth and now lives in Gunnedah and advocates for the town on council.

"Our councils really need for those state systems to be robust in order to ensure the health of our communities," she said.

She will go up against incumbent Kevin Anderson, Independent Mark Rodda, and Greens Ryan Brooke.

Labor has committed to cut administrative hours for teachers, make 10,000 temporary teachers permanent, restrict the use of mobile phones, end overseas recruitment programs and redirect funds to recruiting NSW teaching students.

Plans to strengthen health include recruiting 500 paramedics to rural and regional areas in the first term of government if elected, ensure NSW will be the first state to receive free breast cancer care, and implement minimum and enforceable safe staffing levels to public hospitals, starting with Emergency Departments.

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