NSW Election 2015: The interesting bits...
IT’S not a real election day in Bondi unless someone turns up to vote in a pair of budgie smugglers and this year didn’t disappoint.
NSW Votes
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IT was a battle of man versus machine.
Tipped off that Premier Mike Baird was bombarding voters’ phones with pre-recorded “robo-calls”, Labor launched an unprecedented army of 7000 human volunteers to personally phone and doorknock marginal electorates in an 11th-hour bid to warn against Coalition plans to privatise power.
The State-wide assault — the largest of its kind in NSW — seized on opinion polls that showed support for plans to lease poles and wires was far from universal.
A Labor source said the calls were ramped up in the final 72 hours based on evidence showing 14 per cent of voters only decided how they would vote in the final three days of an election.
The return to old-school campaigning after almost a decade of social media methods was based on techniques and training models recently adopted in the US.
“The final 72 hour project included a mixture of doorknocking and phoning,” the source said.
“More calls and doorknocks occurred in NSW at this election than ever before in a state election in NSW, using the organising model to engage with supporters and build our base, and using techniques and training models from the US.”
FIRIES IN TROUBLE OVER LABOR SUPPORT
SOME Fire & Rescue NSW firefighters may have landed themselves in hot water after they were caught handing out how-to-vote flyers for their Labor colleague on the Central Coast.
The firefighters were photographed in their old uniforms, including helmets, wearing shirts emblazoned with ‘Firefighters say put the Liberals last’ and handing out Labor voting flyers.
Besides the how to vote pamphlets they were handing out another flyer which read on one side ‘it’s only a matter time before somebody dies’ and on the other ‘save our fire services put the Liberals last’.
The firefighters were spotted at polling booths at Chertsey Public School, Erina High School, Davistown and Kincumber Public School in the Terrigal electorate.
Labor’s candidate in Terrigal is Jeff Sundstrom a firefighter at nearby Kincumber fire station for more than 30 years.
Like employees of all government departments firefighters are supposed to appear in public as apolitical and are not supposed to be seen supporting any particular party or candidate while in uniform.
ONLY IN SYDNEY...
IT’S not a real election day in Bondi unless someone turns up to vote in a pair of budgie smugglers and this year didn’t disappoint.
WHAT TO WEAR WHEN YOU’RE HANDING OUT HOW TO VOTE CARDS
Neil Keene
THERE’S always the quandary of what to wear when you’re manning the polling booths on Election Day.
Too subtle, and you’ll likely go unnoticed - just blending in with wall-to-wall posters and flyers and sausage sizzle marquees.
Too in-your-face and you’re likely to scare off the swinging voter.
That is, unless you’re Gwyllam Roberts.
The 50-year-old volunteer for the Shooters and Fishers Party got out of bed this morning and decided the best way to win the swinging vote was to go with a more-is-more approach to fashion.
That meant bright yellow boots, fluoro orange tights, yellow turtle-neck skivvie, green spray-painted chest webbing and a conical green and gold hat topped with a Shooters and Fishers cap.
The colourful ensemble certainly turned the heads of some voters, though few seemed too interested in accepting Mr Roberts’s how-to-vote cards.
Not that it dampened his enthusiasm.
“I’ve been involved in outdoor sports - especially fishing, but some hunting - all my life, since I was pretty tiny so I am interested in shooting and fishing issues,” he said.
Of course, there were some favourite, albeit predictable, wardrobe choices for other parties.
Aqua blue was the pick for Liberal volunteers in Newcastle, while, who’d have guessed it, green was the order of the day for the Greens.
Christian Democrat volunteers wore orange T-shirts so fluorescent they almost glowed, while Labor’s faithful wore a shade of red that some pundits looking at the party’s recent history could be forgiven for likening to blood.
GREENS SEEING BLUE IN BALMAIN
VOTERS in the inner-city seat of Balmain could be forgiven for thinking they were being tricked with another of those colour ploys today.
Many would expect that a Greens how-to-vote card would be, well, green?
But the party has employed an interesting tactic in the seat where sitting Greens candidate Jamie Parker has the slimmest of margins over Labor.
Their how-to-vote cards are blue - the colour of the Liberals - and call on those voting for the Liberal candidate to preference Parker at No.2.
Only down the bottom of the leaflet do you notice the Greens’ logo.
Parker holds an estimated 0.4% margin over the ALP, according to the ABC, so his party seems to have dug into their bag of tricks to try and get them through.
POLLING DAY BLUES
Richard Noone
THERE has been a sombre mood at Wamberal Public School this morning where volunteers from both major parties haven’t been able to give away how-to-vote flyers.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Labor volunteer Dermot Keane said.
“Eight out of 10 people aren’t taking any flyer from anyone.”
Mr Keane is supporting his mate Jeff Sundstrom who is up against Liberal’s Adam Crouch for the seat of Terrigal vacated by former Minister Chris Hartcher who has been
noticeably absent this morning.
Mr Keane said in past elections Mr Hartcher, who lives 300m down the road, had always been at the front gate should to shoulder with Liberal volunteers.
“He hasn’t been here this morning,” Mr Keane said.
“He’s pre-polled at Erina.”
In the time the Daily Telegraph has been at the polling booth the overwhelming majority of people have declined to take any flyers.
The barbecue, however, has been as popular as ever.
Mr Keane said voters had either already made up their mind or were voting informally as a form of silent protest over the allegations of illegal developer donations raised by the Independent Commission Against Corruption.
A Liberal volunteer said “it will be interesting to see how many people are voting informally” after he too said he had never seen voters brush past without taking flyers.
“How are you going to know how to vote on the big one if you don’t take one of these,” he said.
Despite the backlash the Liberal Party is expected to retain Terrigal but with a diminished margin.
Labor’s Central Coast heartland returns
IT was never going to be easy for the Coalition on a Hunter/Central Coast battleground ravaged by an ICAC scandal and strewn with the political careers of its former warriors.
State’s power assets could be sold to public
MUM and dad investors may be able to take part in buying the state’s electricity assets, with Premier Mike Baird considering a public float of billions of dollars’ worth of the power networks.