The police officer this week declared he would be a candidate, with Liberal Party incumbent Greg Aplin then saying he would stand again.

Before Mr Aplin’s vow, Cr Mack had suggested he would consider Liberal Party preselection but on Friday he said he had not been serious.

“I’m not a Liberal Party person,” Cr Mack said.

“I just wanted Greg to come out and be clear on what he was doing, so that I know in terms of my position as an independent who I could potentially be contesting with.”

Cr Mack said infrastructure in Albury had been “underfunded for a lot of years” by the state government.

“If you provide a marginalised view of this seat, suddenly money starts flowing and I think that was proven up in Tamworth and I think it stands the test of time,” he said.

“We need a member for Albury, not a member for the Liberal Party and that’s really what we get.”

Cr Mack would not rule out standing for mayor again next year and continuing to lead Albury up to the state election in March 2019.

“I don’t think in the last 15 months I’ve done much wrong, we’ve done a lot of great things in the last 15 months, but that’s reliant on the votes of the council at this point,” he said.  

“It would be certainly in my mind, but at the moment I would have to discuss it with them.”

Cr Mack said he been approached with offers to fund his campaign and would also consider crowdsourcing, which was used successfully by independent member for Indi Cathy McGowan.

He described himself politically as a “social conservative” who wanted to look after the “blue collar people” in Lavington and the “farmers out on the flat plains”.

Fellow councillor and Labor Party figure Darren Cameron said his branch would be scrutinising Cr Mack over coming months as it looked at election preferences.

He said the party wanted to determine if Cr Mack’s values “aligned” with Labor or conservative forces.