North Coast a key battleground for parties fighting over government
THE NSW election will be won and lost on three fronts – the north coast, the bush and the city – with Labor expected to make historic inroads in electorates outside Sydney.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Nationals leader John Barilaro’s desperate efforts to hold on to these seats have been complicated by hyperlocal issues that have eroded support for the coalition.
The North Coast seats of Tweed, Lismore and Ballina are key marginal battlegrounds and if Labor snaps up all of these they are halfway to loosening Ms Berejiklian’s tenuous grip on power and forcing minority government.
Lismore is the most marginal seat in the state, held by just 0.2 per cent, with the Greens nearly snatching the seat in 2015 over CSG issues before the Nationals scrambled at the last minute to shut down the scare campaign that they would open up new wells. It led to a crushing 24 per cent swing against them.
Polling this month showed Labor was ahead 51-49 in the seat with voters angry at the Nationals handling of flood mitigation after the town flooded in 2017.
While Labor and the Greens plague the Nationals on the North Coast, in the far west of the state the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers are eyeing off the seat of Barwon.
The SFF were closely trailing 49-51 in a poll conducted by News Corp with water management harming the Nationals. There is also speculation Labor could take the Upper Hunter from the Nationals, an electorate they have held since it was formed in 1962.
If that happens and Tweed, Lismore and Ballina fall it would represent a massive setback for the Nationals. At present Labor’s only regional seats are Cessnock, Maitland and Port Stephens but it also has outside hope of snatching Goulburn from the Liberals.
While the Nationals try to hold on to the regional and rural seats, the Liberals are fighting on multiple battlefronts in Sydney over complex local issues in seats with wafer-thin margins. Polling in Penrith showed Stuart Ayres just ahead on 51-49.