The last two state elections held here in the Ballina electorate indicate clearly it’s a mathematical impossibility for the Nationals to win the seat. This is owing to the fact that the Labor and Green primary votes together easily overwhelm the vote of the Nationals. It is only the Labor Party, by running third and preferencing the Greens, that has enabled the Greens to claim victory.
At the state election to be held on 25 March next year, Ballina voters will be once again faced with the prospect of an underwhelming Green candidate retaining the seat on the back of Labor party preferences.
The Greens, hidebound in radical ideology, with no clear policies on the issues that face the state in health, education, and in particular energy, will never be in a position to form government. This undisciplined rabble simply want to ‘switch off the lights’ – today if not sooner, with no viable plan for the transition to renewables, putting hundreds of miners out of work along with all those other workers dependent on an ongoing coal industry at least until the market decides otherwise.
And now we have a Green MLC, Abigail Boyd, with not much better to do but to attempt to do away with the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer prior to a sitting of the NSW Upper House. Ms Boyd seems to forget there are most probably Christians amongst the MLCs serving in the NSW Upper House who are not particularly keen on meditating. Perhaps Ms Boyd could go and meditate in a corner somewhere.
The political party with the wherewithal to replace a Green with a representative for Ballina who can serve in the government is the Nationals. Not by voting National but by engaging in what is termed ‘tactical voting’. ‘Tactical voting’ was used to great effect in those Victorian federal seats lost to the Teals in May this year. Here an elector casts a vote against the party they would normally support and for the party with the best chance of defeating an incumbent. So Labor and Green voters voted for Teal candidates in order to defeat the sitting Liberal. And so if National supporters ‘tactically voted’ for the Labor candidate then bye-bye Green and we would have true representation here in Ballina.
The Nationals cannot win in Ballina under any circumstances.
Neither should the incumbent Member.
The Nationals, off to a flying start whining and then campaigning for 25th March 2023.
Its getting to be a boring message from the Liberals and Nationals, ‘its all he ALP, Greens, Teals fault’.
If the Liberals O’Farrell / Baird / Berejiklian / Perrottet and Nationals Stoner / Grant / Barilaro / Toole administration, since 2012, had been doing such a kickarse job governing, then we wouldn’t be hearing the all this moaning…. ‘its all the ALP, Greens, Teals fault’.
Alan, that lesson in maths makes a lot of sense, most National Party voters hate the Greens with a vengeance, now if I were a National Party voter participating in next year’s State election I would seriously consider taking your advice, especially after the disgraceful response from both the State and Federal Coalition Govt’s to the devastating February/March floods. Residents in the Page electorate (Nat.) were offered three times the Govt disaster assistance money as were residents in the Richmond electorate (Labor), and only persistent action by Labor’s Justine Elliott and Janelle Saffin rectified this insult. Yes we definitely need a Labor MP to represent the residents in the Ballina electorate; the Nationals need a huge boot up the arse for failing and insulting their constituents and the ineffectual Greens need removing for simply being irrelevant and unable to deliver.