March 25 2019

The NSW election came and went, Labor didn’t make enough gains to take power and so the Liberal Party and the National Party are in charge again.

There is one big change and that is the seat of Murray now has somebody who isn’t a Liberal or a National for just the second time since 1980.

Helen Dalton won pretty easily over the Nationals Austin Evans to give the Shooters Fishers and Farmers Party (formerly just the Shooters) their second seat and the potential of having three in Parliament.

The SFF ran a smart campaign, they campaigned on something that Deniliquin really wants and that is water for their farms and they stuck with the candidate that give the Nationals a run for their money in 2017 and counted on the Nationals not improving.

It didn’t help the Nationals when Austin Evans said he didn’t need to win in Deniliquin to win the seat of Murray, that oozed cockiness and Australians hate cocky politicians, they want somebody humble for every vote.

Meanwhile for around half the counting, One Nation was actually ahead of Country Labor and they ran second in two of Deniliquin’s four polling places, was this because One Nation found good policy or was Pauline’s brief stop in Deniliquin the cause of the surge of interest?

There is a drawback to the SFF and that is unless the Government is in minority it really isn’t a win for locals as the Liberals and Nationals aren’t obligated to give the SFF the time of day.

However if the Liberals and Nationals are interested in taking back Murray in the next election, they would be wise to listen to ideas and then improve on them and sell them to the public.

If we were the likes of Pauline Hanson, Mark Latham, Bill Shorten etc, it is probably wise to visit towns along the Murray and Edward Rivers over the next couple of months if they want to steal seats from the Coalition in the Federal Election.

The Liberals and Nationals are now disliked in Deniliquin and surrounding towns and so if they want to win the seat of Farrer then they have to get sensible on water or the seat and perhaps the Government will be gone.