The Liberal candidate gave up a corporate career to set up an agricultural business in Robertson, making a range of cheeses from sheep milked on the farm.

The business is called Pecora Dairy and their cheeses have won awards at the Royal Easter Show and are available from their cafe and bar in Robertson.

For Mr Cains, a May election was perfect because it fit in with the sheep's routine.

The ewes give birth in late winter and raise their lambs through to about April. At that time, with daylight hours growing short, the sheep's milk dries up and so both animal and farmer get a break from milking for a few months.

Read more: Where you can vote in the Highlands on May 21

"It just so happens that there was the opportunity to have a federal election in our off-season," Mr Cains said.

"It was a really good opportunity for me and I really wanted to take it with both hands."

Mr Cains, who grew up Kanahooka and elsewhere in the Illawarra and still has family in the area, decided the time was right to run in Whitlam - and not just because of the sheep.

"We've had some success with agriculture and our children are 16 and 18 so I think for me this is really the time that I can stick my head up from growing a business and raising kids and really start to look at what I can give back to the community," he said.

Read also: Get to know your Whitlam candidates ahead of the May 21 federal election

With Labor's Stephen Jones holding a 10 per cent margin in Whitlam, Mr Cains acknowledges he has "a lot of runway" to make up, but he's confident that changing demographics will challenge the notion that it is a safe Labor seat.

"I definitely think that Whitlam is the marginal electorate that doesn't really know it yet," he said.

"We've just seen huge urban expansion and rapid population growth in Whitlam, even just over the last five or six years."

With the Liberal-held area of the Highlands and the Labor stronghold of Dapto, Mr Cains thinks it's the new residents in and around Albion Park that will decide who wins the seat. The people who just last year voted for Independent Chris Homer as Mayor over Labor's Marianne Saliba.

Read also: Hume election snapshot: Candidates detail policies as poll near

Whether or not he wins the seat of Whitlam, Cains is hoping to make people the electorate differently.

"I'm absolutely playing to win," he said.

"I would love to turn Whitlam into a Liberal seat. I'd really love to have a crack at working my backside off for the community.

"But I know that a 10 or 11 per cent margin is a long way to make up.

"But if Antony Green stands up there on election night and says that Whitlam is now a marginal electorate I'll take that as a mark of success for our campaign."

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