Posters of the 2015 NSW Election campaign

The State of New South Wales is currently embroiled in an election.  It would be fair to say that anyone not paying attention might have overlooked this, as it is the quietest contest I can ever remember.  In part this is because so many of the players are on the nose with the punters:

  • Various Ministers in the previous Labour Government have had bad things said about them in hearings about corruption;
  • A good number of members of th current Liberal Government (for some reason mainly from the Hunter Valley an Central Coast) have also found alternative employment due to questions about the source of their funding,
  • The charming Shooters Party has managed to alienate everyone by shooting things in ways that contradict common sense and other people's property rights.

The Greens haven't been caught with their hand in the Hunny Jar  ...
... but instead of filling the vacuum of noise have been completely silent as far as I can tell.

I'm not a member of any political party, since that would require me to follow the direction of the aparatchiks.  While I do have a poster beside our gate ...
.. and will be handing out "how to vote" cards on election for Steve on election day that is because I believe he is personally a good bloke and his Party is more likely to do the right thing for the environment than the Liberal/National Party Coalition.

The other poster to appear in our neighbourhood is this one.
Other than in an election year, posters of Fred only appear at the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras: it would be fair to say they are not generally favourably disposed towards the old bloke.
Fortunately the AEC results for our electorate show that at the last Commonwealth Election only 861 people (0.96%) of people voted for Fred's candidate. As we have about 0.1% of the population in our streets we are obviously well over-represented with this mob.  A late breaking item is that I have just had drawn to my attention - following an article in the Bungendore Mirror - that the householder whose property is graced with this image is the Candidate for Fred's team!  Words fail me, although I did notice that the recent strong winds blew the sign down for a couple of days which may indicate Nature's views on the matter!

Down on the main road a somewhat buckled poster for the Nationals candidate is evident by a school bus stop.

I actually think he is not a bad Member.  Certainly active for the community and responsive to questions from voters (eg me).  The problem is his mates.  I had thought that a good tactic for the ALP would be to link him prominently with the Mad Monk and they have made it so!
The Monk has been Mr Invisible (even more so than Luke Foley) but as a measure of how these posters are working the Coalition retaliated with one featuring Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd.  This is pretty desperate stuff and could backfire since many people would probably love to have Julia back - the Kevster might be more of an issue, but compared to the Monk even he would be a dream.

The local candidate for the Greens, Peter Marshall, is also a good bloke.  He is on the local Council and is the only member thereof to respond to questions from the ratepayers (eg me).  Unfortunately I haven't seen a single poster for him, and I am told that he doesn't even have one on his front gate!

While not in its current language, in some of  his previous commentary about this electorate Anthony Green of the ABC concludes that both Bari;aro and Whan are well known and popular in the electorate and the outcome will basically come down to a vote on that basis.  Higher up the totem pole, Mike Baird is IMHO about as popular a Premier of NSW as I have known - and seems to have overcome the corruption image refered to above - while Luke Foley (Leader of the ALP) has basically been invisible.  A distinct advantage toBarilaro.  However, Barilaro has an albatross around his neck in the shape of the Monk - an advantage for Whan.

If I was a betting man I'd keep my wallet in my pocket for this seat. Overall, Centrebet are offering $1.03 for the Coalition and $12 for Labour.  I'd have to say that the price for Labour is very good value but in the words of an old Rugby song $12 x 2/3 of 5/8 of sod all is still basically sod all.  

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