00:00It is now almost 30 years after One Nation was officially launched in the state of Queensland.
00:06Pauline Hanson's party is within reach of what would be a significant political victory
00:11in the state of New South Wales. One Nation is contesting the Farrah by-election which takes
00:17in a large swathe of southwest New South Wales bordering on Victoria. Independent Michelle
00:22Milthorpe is another key candidate in the running. The seat is up for grabs tomorrow after former
00:29opposition leader Susan Lee resigned last month. Farrah has been a safe coalition seat since its
00:36inception in 1949. That looks like it's set to change when polls open tomorrow morning in Farrah.
00:43Anthony Bunn is the senior political reporter for the Border Mail based in Albury and joins us now.
00:49Welcome to News Radio. Good afternoon Sarah, how are you going? Yeah well thank you. Can you run us
00:55through some of the key local issues that are likely to be top of mind when Farrah locals head
01:02to the polls? Well it's as you mentioned it's a big electorate and it's a diverse electorate so
01:07there's sort of different issues in different areas. Probably the big issue in the western part
01:13of the electorate is the water issue with irrigation and water buybacks and the role of water for the
01:20environment as opposed for farming. So that's a very strong issue around areas like Griffith and Leighton
01:26and further south in Danilipun which is a big rice growing area and then in Albury which is the biggest
01:32population centre that the biggest issue has tended to be the hospital issue which is subject to a lot
01:39of debate in terms of investment for the local hospital with a proposed new hospital or an upgraded
01:45hospital at Albury being contested in terms of whether it's enough and where there should be
01:51federal support for it given the unique circumstances in terms of Albury-Wodonga being on a state border
01:57and sort of having contested funding from Victoria and New South Wales for its health service.
02:03And I mean polls are notoriously difficult to sort through in terms of you know what actually
02:11happens when people collect their ballot paper but Michelle Milthorpe the Independent and David
02:17Farley for One Nation are widely you know expected to be neck and neck. Do you think One Nation will
02:24break through and take the seat of Farrah? Well you'd have to say they're the favourites at this stage
02:30with the preference as coming from the Liberals and the Nationals in terms of placing them highly
02:35which would give One Nation a boost whereas Michelle Milthorpe doesn't have that ready backing with
02:43preferences so she's going to have to do very well on the primary vote to sort of stave off that
02:50conservative numbers that are there. But it's yeah sort of again it's a contrast in the electorate a bit
02:57with Michelle Milthorpe's very well supported in Albury but the further away you go from Albury the
03:02more it looks like it'll be One Nation predominating. Okay now the party not running the largest party
03:11not running is Labor. Was it a surprise to you that Labor decided not to stand up a candidate?
03:18Well it was probably a surprise in terms of me being a resident of the area and feeling as though
03:23that Labor should care about the area even though they may not win the seat and have never actually
03:29won the seat. But yeah feel as though the party of government should be interested in getting some
03:36feedback from the electorate even though that feedback might be negative. But the flip side of
03:41that is that the political hardheads would say well there's no point in them running in Farrah
03:46because they were never going to win and never going to be popular with the voters. So you've
03:52sort of got that divide I guess. Now tell me as a local how are locals feeling about there has
03:59been
03:59so much attention on this by-election. We had someone else from Farrah a week or two ago who said
04:06it was actually quite novel that there was a real contest shaping up in Farrah for once because it's been
04:11such a safe seat and people were you know sort of quite perked up about that about you know
04:17being courted by all sides. Then we had Barry Cassidy on the show yesterday who said
04:22he spent some time in Farrah, he watched some local TV and he noticed in a single ad break there
04:28were five political ads. Are people still feeling special or are they a bit over it by this point?
04:34Yes you certainly can't miss the advertising on television. There wouldn't be an ad break that
04:38goes past that you don't see an ad and similarly online when you're online with pop-ups and so on
04:44even my 13 year old son was saying that he was getting ads popping up while he was on the
04:50iPad
04:51doing his business so it's targeting everybody there is in whatever form they can be targeted
04:57and certainly yeah the media contingent today is probably the biggest I've seen in 25 years of
05:03being in the area in relation to the number that have descended today with Angus Taylor in town and
05:09Pauline Hanson and Matt Canavan all sort of making their last minute pictures to voters so I think
05:16there's probably a bit of fatigue in relation to people sort of having had the campaign now for
05:21five or six weeks but at the same time it does put the error in the spotlight I guess that
05:26the issue
05:27is how much notice will be taken once the caravan moves on. Now there's been you know a bit of
05:34drama this week there was a scuffle at one of the polling booths earlier this week there's also been
05:39pre-poll locations in Albury signposted with election signs in support of Ben Robert Smith
05:44who was recently charged with alleged war crimes. This is a pretty extraordinary lead-up to an election
05:51and faro isn't it all sorts of national issues are suddenly playing into this by-election.
05:58Yes it's unusual I guess with the Ben Robert Smith one we do have a large army base just over
06:06the
06:06border in Victoria at Bandiana so I imagine that may be behind some of their thinking and there are a
06:12lot
06:12of army people that retire in Albury-Wodonga after having done their service so I'd say they would know
06:19that there's a bit of a demographic on that side of things that that may appeal to but yes there's
06:26a
06:26lot of debate again about truth in advertising and and what should be a fair game or not because
06:34Michelle Milthorpe who describes herself as a community independent as being branded a teal off
06:40the back of funding from Climate 200 and there's a lot of ads in that direction and then there was
06:47also the sign the other day that prompted that scuffle which was a national party sponsored
06:52sign showing David Farley pulling his shirt open in a doctored photo and revealing he had a Labour
06:58t-shirt underneath and a matching Labour hat so certainly it's coming in all directions for the
07:04candidates. All the tricks. All right Anthony Bunn I'm not going to ask you to put any money on this
07:10but if you had to pick one who do you think is going to clinch it tomorrow? Well it's hard
07:15to say
07:16but I guess yeah that the bookies have got one nation ahead so I guess it's the faith you put
07:23in
07:23the bookies but yes it could easily go to preferences and easily be a counting game but we'll just have
07:30to
07:30wait and see. Fascinating. Anthony Bunn thank you very much for joining us here on News Radio.
07:35Terrific thanks for that Sarah.
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