With just two weeks to go before the NSW election, health and jobs have emerged as the flashpoints in the seat of Bega.
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Now is the chance for voters who care about these issues to lay the pressure on both sides.
Both sides, right now, are listening closely to each other, if only to wait for a gap so they can say how wrong the other is.
Yet, regardless of the numbers war both the major parties are waging, they are listening even more closely to you, the voter.
With the NSW election going much closer to the wire than anyone would have predicted before Labor’s surprise victory in Queensland in January, no party can take the electorate for granted.
While Barry O’Farrell four years ago led his party to a smashing victory over a self-mutilated NSW Labor machine, there is a different climate in the state today.
Both sides have now been tainted by evidence in the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC).
Labor’s efforts to escape the stench of Obeid et al were helped immeasurably when ICAC claimed the scalp of Mr O’Farrell and other Coalition MPs.
Statewide, they are also appealing to their traditional heartland on the proposed lease of 49 per cent
of NSW’s poles and wires’ electricity infrastructure.
The parties must manage their own fortunes.
The voters, however, have a huge say in policy direction - never more so than now.
It is an old political adage that good things come to those who live in marginal seats.
Andrew Constance holds Bega comfortably - but as a tumultuous year has already shown - in the bigger statewide picture, assumptions would be dangerous.
There has never been a better time to push both parties for action on health and employment.
The Greens, too, play a role here.
The issue of Unity Mining’s proposal to process gold using cyanide in the headwaters of the Eurobodalla’s water supply has not really registered yet on the radar of the major parties.
While unlikely to win a bush seat in their own right, The Greens can be a spoiler for both major parties, particularly on issues such as mining, as conflict over coal seam gas has shown elsewhere in the state.