Horse 1150 - NSW Election 2011 - My Electorate

I've already predicted a smack-down for Labor in the 2011 NSW State Election, so I'll now turn my attention closer to home look at my own electorate of Toongabbie.

Toongabbie is only a new electorate having been created in 2007; as such its only member has been Nathan Rees. The area traditionally sits in Labor heartland and should in theory be a very very safe Labor seat. The difference in this election being that a "safe" Labor seat is something a bit like a fairy tale, and should not be believed.

In this election, there are only three listed candidates at this stage. There is a Green who in the 2007 election posted a result even smaller than that of the Christian Democrats, and the two majors.

The Liberal candidate is Kirsty Lloyd a social worker, cafe owner and a fundraiser for the Royal Society for Deaf and Blind Children. Whilst this sounds like a set of excellent credentials on paper this perhaps is a little diversion. Her husband is Scott Lloyd who is a councilor for Parramatta City Council; given the Liberal Party's reputation for fiddling with pre-selection, it makes you wonder if the only reason she's been put up as a candidate is because the Liberal's think that people will remember the name. It doesn't quite help that most of the electorate happens to lie in Holroyd and Blacktown councils though.

The Labor candidate is the sitting member Nathan Rees who himself had a pre-selection battle against Susai Benjamin who is a solicitor and works as a NSW Treasury review officer.
Rees however has one major advantage that virtually every Labor candidate doesn't have in NSW... sympathy. Rees will be remembered as the former Premier who was removed from office by the forces which installed Kristina Keneally. Perhaps ironically an anti-Keneally campaign by the Liberal Party actually strengthens Rees' bid for reelection, and with the lack of minor parties to split the vote dramatically, you'd imagine that Rees would again win the seat simple on the strength of first preferences.

Nathan Rees will probably be returned to the NSW State Parliament I suspect as the "safest" Labor seat in the state, and the real irony is that it will because of a backlash against his own party.