Voters in three New South Wales state seats go to the polls on Saturday, with most attention focussed on the potential damage to the Coalition government in the safe Nationals seat of Orange.
While other towns in central western NSW such as Bathurst and Lithgow have swung to Labor at times, the Nationals have held Orange continuously since 1947.
But the Baird government has faced criticism over its recently abandoned plan to ban greyhound racing and its planned amalgamations of councils. The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party, which normally avoids standing in lower house seats, is running in Orange and preferencing Labor.
While the Nationals are likely to hold on, the threat from Labor and the Shooters should be making the party nervous. Defeat would make the Baird government’s position look shaky.
The government came out of the 2015 election in a strong position, despite losing 15 seats. Its majority was still reasonably solid (with 54 out of 93 seats) and Baird remained popular.
Since then its support has declined. In late 2015, Roy Morgan and Newspoll put support for the Coalition at between 56% and 60% after preferences – higher than the 54% polled at the 2015 election. But a ReachTel poll in August put Labor and the Coalition at 50% each, and in October Roy Morgan had Labor in the lead for only the second time since 2008.
The other seats up for grabs on Saturday are Wollongong, held by Labor but with a strong independent candidate, and Canterbury, a safe inner-city Sydney Labor seat – there is no Liberal candidate in either seat.
Canterbury and Orange were vacated when the local members resigned to run (successfully) for overlapping federal electorates in July. Wollongong Labor MP Noreen Hay resigned at the end of August.
Labor should comfortably retain Canterbury, with the Christian Democratic party likely to come second.
Labor has a much tougher challenge in holding Wollongong. Hay has held the seat since 2003, and at the last two elections faced down serious challenges from independent candidates. Local religious minister Gordon Bradbery came within 700 votes of winning the seat in 2011, before being elected lord mayor of Wollongong later that year.
In 2015, local union leader Arthur Rorris took up the independent mantle and polled just over 41% of the vote after preferences.
The Greens are also running, and have done well in the Wollongong area in the past. Michael Organ was the party’s first member of the House of Representatives when he won a byelection in the seat of Cunningham, based on Wollongong, in 2002. While the Greens have high hopes for the area, their best booths in Wollongong are all in the northern suburbs, outside the Wollongong state electorate.
Hay was a contentious and divisive local member, but the new Labor candidate, Paul Scully, does not carry the same baggage. The Greens have chosen to preference Labor over Bradbery.
The Labor candidate is likely to top the primary vote, and the optional preferential voting system makes it harder for any rival to catch up on preferences.
Labor is likely to hold on, but the area’s history of support for Greens and independents means no one should take the seat for granted.
