The seat of Eden Monaro displays freakish predictive powers that make Paul the Octopus look like your average drunken cephalopod punter.
Since the 1972 election Eden Monaro - which takes in a huge slice of south-east NSW – has been won by the party that went on to win Government. It has become a truism of federal politics that Eden-Monaro is the bellwether seat.
But more interesting is what it is about the people of this seat that gives rise to this odd phenomenon?
The answer lies in the demographics of the seat that, arguably more than any other, gives a cross-section of the Australian population, albeit with a rural focus, and an insight into that most elusive and prized political animals: the swinging voter.
Current Labor member former soldier Mike Kelly took the seat in 2007 with a 6.7 per cent swing, and now holds it on a 2.3 per cent margin. While the Liberals have put up an experienced political operator and local in David Gazard, Kelly is still a clear favourite with local pundits and the bookies.
Riverside Mall in Queanbeyan is your standard suburban shopping centre, with mild touches of modern suburban ostentation that didn’t exist too long ago: Gloria Jeans and a Michel’s Patisserie now stand in the middle of the mini-mall.
It was there I spoke to Steve Ross, a 54-year-old aircraft maintenance engineer at Canberra airport who is married with one daughter.
Steve says as a swinging voter he couldn’t be happier with the Labor Party’s decision to dump Kevin Rudd:
“I agree with Julia Gillard being brought into the Prime Ministership. I think Kevin Rudd was a one man band heading down the wrong track. I like the local bloke I think he’s done a pretty good job.
“I was quite unhappy with the way that Kevin Rudd was taking the country. One debacle after another, spending too many tax dollars. I was of two minds when she came on, was she going to be an apparatchik or not. But she’s been really excellent. She can put her ideas forward but without menace.”
And what of Abbott?
“Tony Abbott started off well, great out of the blocks, but he’s making errors. I think he’s biggest error was when Gillard sorted out the mining tax and he came on and said “well it’s still a great big new tax”. And I thought well Tony they’ve moved and why can’t you.”
Although it may reflect Queanbeyan’s reputation as a Labor town Steve’s opinions were pretty strong themes coming from voters throughout the day. The Punch’s unscientific findings were:
- Health, housing affordability and roads were the biggest issues
- They quite like the fact that Julia Gillard is now Prime Minister, despite the way she came into power
- They think Tony Abbott is an interesting kind of politician, but “a bit all over place” and a “buffoon” at times as one woman put it.
- Most people thought that Mike Kelly had done a good enough job
- Almost nobody had heard of the Liberal candidate David Gazard
- People are concerned about the state of the environment, but often divided on an ETS
- Wasteful government spending is an issue of concern
The last issue is one that Liberal candidate David Gazard told The Punch that he also hears a lot about, and is drilling the message:
“Government waste is a huge issue . . . a lot of people are used to being frugal in farming communities that have seen eight years of drought, and to see that much waste and mismanagement along with the insulation program they are disgusted by it.”
Gazard also thinks that the weary NSW voters will see Gillard as merely another incarnation of Labor state politics:
“The Gillard factor is quite prevalent because they have been gingered up to it by numerous changes at the NSW State Government. So they are fully aware that when the Labor Party gets itself into power it just changes leader . . . they have a huge awareness of loyalty. They might not have been huge fans of Kevin Rudd but don’t like the way he was ousted.”
Nonetheless, a win in the seat looks increasingly tough for the former journalist and staffer to John Howard and Peter Costello. A recent Canberra Times poll of the seat has Gazard in all sorts of trouble, trailing Kelly 39 to 61 per cent on two party preferred.
“I haven’t let that worry me, the week before that the Sunday Telegraph had was saying Labor were conceding the seat. So I don’t worry about polling because you can’t control it,” Gazard told The Punch.
He may have a point, a Newspoll also showed that almost 50 per cent of people hadn’t made up their mind.
When The Punch asked Mike Kelly what the major issues were in the electorate he conceded Government waste and the mining tax were playing on peoples minds before Gillard was put in the top job:
“One concern is the debt and deficit issue. But after the budget I saw that people were a lot less concerned by that because they saw a clear track back to surplus.
“Then of course along came the mining tax issue and a number of areas of concern around here were the quarry owners and self-funded retirees.
But once again I think those people had their mind put at rest since the deal was done with the miners.
While health was probably the biggest local issue, Kelly says most farmers were also worried about the idea of carbon trading system, and accepts that any new CPRS would still be a tough sell:
“The general consensus would be that they want to get back to a CPRS, like the one negotiated with the Coalition, but there’s been a lot of misinformation created out there by the Coalition’s new approach. So that’s an issue we’ll have to address if we win the election.”
To an extent Labor will cop it both ways on climate change in Eden-Monaro: from those who are just plain against an ETS (not that it’s Labor policy anymore) and those who are upset at the lack of real action under Rudd.
Fiona Beckhamm, a Queanbeyan mother in her mid-forties and small business owner, sees the failure of the CPRS as emblematic of Labor lack of action in its first term and thinks Gillard has inherited the problem.
“Before they did the Copenhagen summit it looked like something was going to be done. But Kevin Rudd went over there with 40 people and nothing was done. The only thing that might have been done for the environment was that the Kyoto treaty was signed.
“I think that Julia Gillard is just saying enough to get elected. This moving forward and stuff is grating and insulting to people, like they can’t move past her speech.”
And Abbott?
“Abbott’s alright, but he’s a bit wishy washy. I mean he doesn’t seem to know a lot of his own policies. Like how much it’s actually going to cost the average tax payer.
“I’ll see how things pan out the next couple of weeks, if I don’t like either I just vote for an independent”, she told The Punch.
Still Queanbeyan, now a booming satellite city to Canberra with a 2 per cent unemployment rate as Kelly boasts, is not representative of the entire electorate. It’s a huge and diverse seat with different problems regional interests from marine parks to forestry.
“It’s a dispersed population, numerous local radio, newspapers and TV. So they’ve all go their own issues that they want you to champion. That’s a good thing about Eden-Monaro though . . . it’s an incredibly interesting seat,” Gazard told The Punch.
If the Eden-Monaro is a microcosm of Australian politics, then Braidwood is the microcosm of Eden-Monaro. Located at the base of the mountains and only another half hour from the coast all of Eden-Monaro comes through Braidwood: coasties, graziers, forestry workers, fruit farmers, fisherman, hippies, academic types who periodically turn up in Canberra and small businesses heavily reliant on all the Canberra to South Coast traffic.
Two of those small business owners are Linda Eden and her daughter Carla who run a café on the highway.
Linda says that she is a Liberal voter but is concerned that neither side are really paying attention to those hurting in rural areas:
“Health is a massive issue here. The tiny little hospital is really struggling, and we don’t have a dentist in the town.”
Linda says that her views on WorkChoices might be unpopular, but if Abbott did get in she wouldn’t mind him loosening up IR laws again for employers.
“We are very loath to put staff on because if people don’t work out we can’t get rid of them,” she told The Punch.
But, as is consistent theme in the area, her views on Abbott aren’t too favourable either:
“I would prefer Turnbull, I think Abbott is a little rash.”
Her 28-year-old daughter Carla, who also owns the business, immediately raises an issue that Kelly told The Punch wasn’t really on voters minds in the seat, that of asylum seekers:
“The asylum seeker issue drives me up the wall. I understand that these people have come from some pretty tough places and conditions, but they’re entitled to things that a lot Australians aren’t. When you have pensioners not able to afford to buy steak, sometimes you think maybe we need to look after our own backyard a little more.”
Still Gillard does have a fan in former small businessman 78-year-old David Lowry, a retired local pharmacist:
“All this stuff about who leaked this and who leaked that, it goes on in politics all the time. It’s all crap. It doesn’t bother me how she got in. How did Tony Abbott get his job? By one vote. That’s politics.
“I’m very happy Julia Gillard and Mike Kelly seems to have done a good job. I don’t know who the other guy is.”
But anyone who thinks that the issue of Labor leaks in this campaign is some kind of high politics issue that doesn’t permeate into the main street should think again. At least four people in one afternoon mentioned the Labor leaks as a damaging issue, and all said it would make them reconsider a vote for Labor.
Sergio a 71-year-old local described it as “kindergarten stuff”. He’ll probably vote Green now he said.
Another was 51-year-old John White. The former AMWU organiser in Sydney now pub cook said that he’s picked up on a sense of frustration with Labor politicking which could hurt them at the election:
“People see this stuff and have just had a gutful.”
Although he’d never vote Liberal and will stick by Labor this election, his closing comment on the subject is the kind of thing that must have Labor strategists waking up in a cold sweat.
“And frankly I’ve had a gutful of it too. I used to be a member of the Labor Party, but not anymore, and I won’t again. I’ve had enough.”
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