From inside the busy shop - which houses a cafe, grocery and office space - the retirees requested the 14 hopefuls provide clarity on their refugee policies.

A former teacher from Murrumbateman, Ms Johnston said so far the campaign had been all water, roads and hospitals. Acknowledging all three were important, she said they weren't the only important issues. The candidates' refugee responses would sway her vote.

Ms McLeod will vote Labor. Having moved to Yass after a career in community cultural development in Canberra, she said she hoped Kristy McBain would fight for a bipartisan approach to refugee settlement in Australia, emulating Malcolm Fraser's policies after Vietnam.

"We'd also like our candidate to be a strong voice for blocking Peter Dutton's bill to have mobile phones banned in detention centres," Ms Johnston added.

Ms McLeod said Eden-Monaro had the highest number of Rural Australians for Refugee associations in the country, with seven separate groups working collectively across the electorate.

"It's having a big impact but it's quiet, so we just keep it up. We keep going with it," Ms McLeod said.

Co-owner at the cafe, Sophie Peer, moved away from her refugee policy career in Sydney to "impact change on a micro level" in the Yass Valley.

Ms McLeod said she was voting for the Greens, while acknowledging she wasn't particularly hopeful of them getting up.

"It's a message. It's a message about refugee policy, it's a message about climate change, it's a message about fast trains for the region, the economy of this region and leaving behind refugees in the JobSeeker and JobKeeper payments," she said.

Ms McLeod said the election campaign had felt disrespectful of voters in the Yass region.

"I am sick of announcements about our hospital and I am sick of announcements about the Barton Highway, we know they need fixing," she said.

"We agree they're important issues. Just for god's sake get on and do it. I don't care who or with what funds - the funds are there - we need healthcare so stop having photo ops and telling us you're going to do it," she said.

Over a second round of coffees and while grandpa popped in to nurse baby Sophie, Pene Butt and Georgina Scroope discussed why the environment was the biggest factor influencing their vote.

"Climate change and climate action is very important. It's easy to move onto the next issue and forget about the fires but in terms of our day-to-day - it's not going away," Ms Scroope said.

She said going along party lines, the Coalition was generally fractured in its approach to environmental policy, which would likely sway her vote away from Liberal candidate Fiona Kotvojs.

"I suppose the same issues exist within the Labor party, but Kristy McBain has never shied away from saying it's an issue and we need to grapple with it. I suppose the experience of the fires in her community is a constant reminder," she said.

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Ms Butt works in education in Canberra. She said her husband's family was an old Yass family and the pair had lived in Yass for a long time.

She said like her daughter she was sick of the fighting between political parties, particularly when it came to climate change.

Ms Butt thought the best representative would be a young candidate who brought fresh ideas to the region.

"I think we actually need to take a bipartisan approach to this now and just sort it out because it's going on and on and on and on and that's costing the country dearly," she said.

Down the street long-time Liberal voters Tina and David Fraigneux were catching up with "unionist" Kenn Debnam.

A retired antique upholsterer and a retired curtain-maker, the Fraigneuxes immigrated from England to Bowning almost 40 years ago.

Was Mr Fraigneux concerned about the candidates' stance on climate change?

"No," he said. He was absolute on that, too.

Mr Debnam said it was important to him.

"I've lived and worked all over Australia, mate," he said.

"I've never seen anything quite like this last summer."

All three agreed, though, that the Yass Hospital needed a low-risk maternity ward, which they believed Kristy McBain was more likely to deliver.

"My granddaughter lives another 35 kilometers away and when she was having a baby she went all the way to Canberra and was told to go home again. Then she had to go all the way back. It's a long way for young kids who have never had a baby before," Mrs Fraigneux said.

Last year NSW Labor pledged $4.7 million to build the ward if elected. While the NSW Liberal government did not match that promise after it won, state health officials are investigating the need for a facility, following an ongoing campaign from Yass women.

"We're Liberals but this time I'm voting for the socialist. I've never voted for a socialist in my life. I know nothing about the Liberal candidate - I think they just take us for granted down here," Mr Fraigneux said.

"As for the Barton Highway, we immigrated here from Kent in 1975 and we were told then that the highway would become double lanes - parts of it are still like a goat's track.

"I could never understand how you could have a major thoroughfare to a national capital look like that - it's embarrassing."