The Trump effect smashes the Nats in Orange
The Trump effect is here. Check the stunning result in the NSW byelection in Orange, and the flood of volunteers who came to help ditch the conservatives after 70 years.
In one of the longest and bloodiest by-election campaigns in recent time, NSW Shooters, Fishers and Farmers joined with Labor and the minorities banded together to stage a “choose the Nationals last” campaign to seize on voter discontent over greyhounds and council amalgamations...
After being held by the conservatives for almost 70 years and going in to yesterday’s by-election with a 21 per cent margin, the seat of Orange should never have come close to being in play.
The figures on the NSW electoral commission website on Sunday morning show Nationals candidate Scott Barrett had won 29.4 per cent of primary votes but Philip Donato, from the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers (SFF) party which has never held a lower house seat in the state, is not far behind.
Mr Donato trails with 24 per cent of the vote but may claim victory thanks to Labor preferences...
... at 9pm, with half of the vote counted, there was a 36 per cent swing against the Nationals and up to 60 per cent in some booths.
But this figure from the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers is just as important:
We had 1500 volunteers on the ground in Orange. They came from Victoria, Queensland and north-west and south-east NSW. A lot of greyhound owners were here in their droves. The anti-council amalgamation people sent busloads and we had volunteer firefighters on our booths,
The party is also under siege by independents...
What voters wnat is a party that represents them - and listens - and as Nationals leader Troy Grant has learned, that may mean taking it up to NSW Premier Mike Baird.
What voters do not want is a puppet - and as Orange greyhound breeder Greg Board said yesterday, the lack of fight the Nationals gave when Mr Baird moved to shutdown a key local industry, that is how Mr Grant appears.
The same with council amalgamations and land-clearing laws.
Country people have long loathed being told what to do by their city counterparts.
But that is exactly how they feel.