The invitation to attend the meeting follows a poor turnout of candidates at a forum held in Orange for the candidates last week.

Tonight’s Canowindra meeting will be held at the Canowindra Community Hall from 6pm.

Those attending the Meet the Candidates forum in Orange last Wednesday night only heard from half the Orange byelection hopefuls, with three missing.

Labor candidate Bernard Fitzsimon, The Greens’ Janelle Bicknell and independents Scott Munro and Kevin Duffy faced questions from the 80 people at the Orange Senior Citizens Centre.

Absent Nationals candidate Scott Barrett said he had a meeting regarding funding for the region, Shooter, Fishers and Farmers candidate Phil Donato said he had a family engagement, while a spokesman for the Christian Democratic Party’s Dianne Decker said she had not been invited.

The remaining candidates addressed questions on palliative care, water security, strategic planning for Mount Canobolas and Orange Airport and the resettlement of 6000 Syrian refugees in NSW.

Mr Fitzsimon said he supported re-homing refugees in Orange provided support services were implemented.

“We’re talking about dumping people in an area starved of services that doesn’t have decent public housing and [English] teachers are gone and haven’t been replaced,” he said.

On palliative care, Ms Bicknell said people wanted to die at home but few did.

“Hospitals should be for the acute patients – palliative care is about spiritual care as well as medical care,” she said.

On water security and the proposed Cranky Rock Dam, Mr Munro said he supported dams.

“Now we have 35 dams and during the last drought when Suma Park Dam almost dried out, we had water,” he said.

Speaking on strategic planning, Cr Duffy said he opposed both an industrial rezoning proposal at Orange Airport and a mountain bike track at Mount Canobolas.