Gilmore: Fire-ravaged electorate reveals disdain for Albanese or Morrison
Filled with scenic tourist hot spots, the southern NSW electorate’s traumatic time in the spotlight during the Black Summer bushfires has left its residents distrustful of political leaders.
NSW
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Do not be surprised if a Liberal victory in the Labor-held seat of Gilmore on the NSW south coast sees Scott Morrison performing cartwheels – after all, the electorate is named after his radically different great, great aunt Dame Mary Gilmore – but a win by former NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance over the incumbent Labor MP Fiona Phillips will by no means be an easy task.
While the polls seem to indicate a comfortable victory for Mr Constance over Ms Phillips, who holds the seat with only a 2.6 per cent margin, talking to everyday constituents in Gilmore suggests a Liberal win might not necessarily be so assured – the electorate seems still largely undecided as to who they want as their federal member.
I was surprised, and somewhat impressed, to discover main contenders Mr Constance and Ms Phillips are generally respected by voters from both sides of the political fence. Their greatest liabilities, it seems, are not themselves, nor their local policies, rather their party leaders.
It seems few in Gilmore are jumping out of their skin to get behind Mr Morrison or Mr Albanese. And this is never-more apparent than at Nowra’s pre-polling booth, the lawns of the Uniting Church in Berry St ablaze with a garden of red and blue corflutes depicting the smiling faces of Ms Phillips and Mr Constance – but not an Albo nor a ScoMo in sight.
Make no mistake – Ms Phillips and Mr Constance are shaping up for the fight of their political lives and, as the hours count down to Saturday’s election, the pressure on both will crank up exponentially.
Geographically, the seat of Gilmore resembles a scaled-down version of the Sydney basin – a long sliver of land running along the eastern seaboard, hemmed-in by a formidable escarpment to the west, the coast dotted with spectacular beaches and complex waterways which disappear somewhere inland.
Stretching from Shellharbour to the north to Tuross Heads in the south and encompassing Jervis Bay, Berry, Ulladulla and Gerroa, this electorate has for generations been the holiday playground for countless families.
The brilliant white sands of Hyams Beach, the rolling green hills south of Kiama crisscrossed with kilometres of handmade dry stone walls, the thunderous sound of the Kiama Blowholes, the highway-flat Seven Mile Beach from which Charles Kingsford Smith made the first flight from Australia to New Zealand, the thought of launching a tinnie for a day’s fishing on Jervis Bay …
It’s this peaceful idyll that has made the region home to the many grey nomads who have packed up the campervan and settled down for a quiet life by the sea.
Almost halfway along the Gilmore coast, Batemans Bay has become the gateway to the Pacific for landlocked Canberrans who regularly stream down Clyde Mountain from Braidwood, desperate to swap the capital’s blast-furnace summers and permafrost winters for the ocean air.
The sudden descent to the bay from the west ultimately arrives at the riverside hamlet of Nelligen, positioned on the banks of the Clyde River where the Steampacket Hotel holds testament to the days when the ships of the Illawarra Steam Packet Company made the perilous twice-weekly voyage to deliver passengers and goods to and from Sydney.
But in recent years Nelligen rose to national prominence for an altogether different reason – it was where, during the catastrophic fires of 2019-20, an apoplectic RFS firefighter pulled his truck up before a TV crew and exploded: “Are you from the media? Tell the Prime Minister to go and get f … ed from Nelligen,” before adding sarcastically, “We really enjoy doing this s …”.
Exhausted, lying on the ground while being given water from his mates, the firey continued: “I’ve lost seven houses in Nelligen I’m not going to lose any more … Tell the PM to come and meet me, Paul Parker from Nelligen. Meet you any day pal …”
It was a raw, unscripted moment that shot virally around the world – and if ever there was proof of a seismic disconnect between the city and the bush, this was it.
For Gilmore’s fire-ravaged locals the PM’s handling of the bushfire crisis over those summer months seemed to beggar belief – at first a holiday in Hawaii that ended only marginally better than Captain Cook’s – and then the explanation he “didn’t hold a hose, mate”, and awkward moments grappling with fire victims in an attempt to shake hands. But it was the PM’s dismissal of the idea of paying overwhelmed volunteer firefighters because they “want to be there” that provoked Mr Parker’s fury.
The Steampacket Hotel’s proprietors, Joel and Melissa Alvey, are no strangers to hardship. Originally from Tullamore, northwest of Parkes, they took on the pub five years ago as part of a stress-free sea change – but their time behind the bar has been anything but easy.
“Fires, Covid, hailstorms, king-tide floods – you get used to it,” Joel says, and clearly, these successive catastrophes will play a decisive role in determining who he and his wife vote for.
“We ask ourselves ‘How long can we last? It’s just debt on debt. We think ‘Maybe things will be all right by Christmas. Nope. Maybe Easter. Nope.’ The cost of living is the big issue. Small business needs support.”
But in the true Australian spirit, even in these dark times these bush publicans were able to find some humour, producing stubby holders labelled with Mr Parker’s expletive-laden quote.
While the locals do not hold anything against him personally, Mr Constance certainly has his work cut out in the upcoming election, largely because of the locals’ long memories of the PM’s clumsy response to the fires.
“I have mixed feelings about Andrew,” Michelle says.
She recalls the former NSW Transport Minister’s unflinching and emotional presence during the fires in his hometown of Bega.
“He did some good stuff but he’s going to have an uphill battle because of Scott Morrison. It’s a small town – people don’t forget.”
CANBERRA’S CONSTANCE ALLURE FOR POLITICAL VETERAN
Andrew Constance’s unassuming appearance has become something of his trademark.
Relaxed and easygoing, he presents himself as a little dishevelled in a way that fits in perfectly with his country constituents – check shirt, jeans and a sleeveless puffer jacket. It’s a well thought-out image designed to project him as the antithesis of a Canberra conservative – an image that does not wash well in this Labor-held seat.
Mr Constance was not parachuted into Gilmore from Sydney, rather he has tunnelled in from the neighbouring electorate of Eden-Monaro to which I ask him if a crack at federal politics is what he had really hankered for all along. He smiles and gently nods, “A little bit…”
He appears somewhat relieved as only the day before he stood alongside the Prime Minister at HMAS Albatross, the Royal Australian Navy Base in Nowra, to announce a massive funding injection for defence, including $360m for the local base and $8bn for a fleet of navy Seahawk Romeo and army Apache helicopters.
“Nowra’s a defence town,” Mr Constance says, which leads him into a discussion of how Australia’s resilience and self-reliance are the big issues, which – when the dots are joined – come back to defence and the critical need to protect our supply chain.
“We can’t turn a blind eye,” he warns. “Not with China breathing down our neck.”
This unexpected interest in defence leads me to ask if that’s a portfolio he would like to have should he become a minister in a returned Coalition government. “Oh, communications,” he replies a little sheepishly. “I’m really interested in communications … and defence.”
The last time I had seen Mr Constance was at The Daily Telegraph’s Bush Summit just after the catastrophic bushfires of 2019-20 where whole towns in his state electorate of Bega had been incinerated.
During the worst of the fires, he had been a regular face on the television news, giving his emotionally charged opinions from the frontline and telling it to the camera straight, almost as if he had gone rogue on whichever levels of government were accountable for allowing this catastrophic perfect storm to unleash. He was clearly still in shock, having been diagnosed with PTSD, and was struggling in keeping his life together.
“It’s difficult, I still wrestle with triggers,” he tells me. “You can lose control, lose emotional stability … and it’s difficult to maintain interpersonal relationships.”
Indeed, his second marriage with wife Jennifer broke down late last year resulting in his move north to the Shoalhaven district.
“The lessons I’ve learnt out of the fires is the need for co-operation and kindness. Mental health is so important,” he says.
Before we wrap up, I ask the former NSW minister about the final days of the Berejiklian government, last seen sailing over the horizon on fire with ICAC in hot pursuit.
He smiles and shakes his head before alluding to the former premier’s romance with her legal ICAC representative. “You know, about the only good thing to come out of all of this is that Gladys is in love…”
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