Start planning now
It's four years from the next state election but if the coalition wants this seat back again, they should start planning for it now.
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The byelection and the recent full election showed clearly that, when everything is up for grabs, they can't just do a back-room deal and offer only one candidate from one party: Joe McGirr has shown the ability to soundly beat out one-off attackers.
The Libs and Nats each have to field candidates and both campaigns need to create the image of a united (or at least "overlapping" front) rather than dwell on small individual differences - build the sense of a second level of "choice" within the larger campaigns which centre on only one candidate: "Put Mandy Liberal first and Greg National second or vice versa: It's your choice!"
This strategy, very sneakily I might add, suggests to your average voter that a choice between Mandy and Greg is what the election is all about - which as we know, it's not; but it will work with enough punters to swing previous huge losses into a gain that would probably see one of them elected.
Naturally enough, none of the above will happen. The coalition "partners" simply despise each other so much that whenever a situation like this arises they gnash and slash with teeth and knives so freely that "co-operation" has nothing to do with coalition - even if it gives you a better than average chance of getting an extra seat.
All of which suits me admirably. I'll probably vote for Joe yet again - but that's the way the coalition could swing into a seat if they ever managed to get their act together.
Robert T. Walker
Wagga
Quote sums up current state of affairs
I have been reading a book on the weekend and there's a quote from the great Winston Churchill.
Churchill said in the British Parliament, the opposition occupies the benches in front of you but the enemy sits behind you. Sums up our parliament to a tee.
Russell Breed
Wagga
Voting should be voluntary
The recent state election was nothing more than a waste of time and money. I think it was rigged and predictable and I as a voter can't see the point of voting. Whoever gets voted in, neither government deliver or listen to the people of Australia and I can't understand why voting in Australia should be compulsory, it would be better if it was voluntary.
I couldn't care less whether anyone agrees or disagrees but every time we vote, every three or four years, we are just wasting valuable time, money and resources on electing people who fail to deliver to all Australian citizens and failing to do anything about the real needs for this country, such as fixing our roads, employment, education, infrastructure, health and our justice system. But there always seems to be plenty of cash to spend on sporting stadiums and the likes.
Perhaps a voluntary voting system instead of a compulsory system would be the go because at the end of the day, our politicians don't listen and in four years from now we'll be in the same predicament.