Early voting opens as parties take campaigns to western Sydney
Thirty-five-degree temperatures did not deter the two men vying to be NSW premier from appearances in key western Sydney seats on Saturday, as early voting for next weekend’s election opened across the state.
After spending Friday with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on the campaign trail (cum pub crawl) in Balmain, Labor leader Chris Minns dedicated his efforts on Saturday to Parramatta, where Labor is banking on the local mayor to swing outgoing Liberal MP Geoff Lee’s seat, and also Prospect.
Labor leader Chris Minns with children from the Wentworthville Tamil school with local MP for Prospect, Hugh McDermott, second from right, and shadow minister for better regulation and innovation Courtney Houssos, right.Credit:Dylan Coker
Albanese has appeared with Minns several times during the campaign. In contrast, federal Liberal leader Peter Dutton skipped the NSW Liberals launch last week, attracting criticism from Albanese for keeping a low profile.
“We would love to have [Dutton] in NSW. He should come and say hello to the voters of this state,” Minns said on Saturday, adding Albanese had been “keen to help out” with the state campaign.
“I’ll leave it up to the Liberal Party to make their own decisions about who they campaign with, but, in the last week? The more, the merrier.”
Receiving a flower garland and cape on his arrival at the Wentworthville Tamil Study Centre, Minns promised a near doubling of funding for community language schools.
Donna Davis, Labor candidate for Parramatta, was joined by Minns at Parramatta Square.Credit:Dylan Coker
The $32 million investment would increase the per-child class rebate from $136 to $200, as well as provide an additional $100 rebate per family, provided their children meet an 85 per cent attendance rate.
Minns sat in on a lesson in a demountable classroom at the centre, which runs out of Girraween Public School on Saturdays and is one of the largest community language schools in the state. He urged parents sick of their children learning in demountables to “vote for change”.
“There are 44 demountables right here at this school and across NSW there are 5000 demountables. The government has had 12 years to fix this infrastructure backlog,” he said. However, he was unable to provide specifics on how many demountable classrooms Labor would eliminate.
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Minns then visited a relatively quiet pre-poll at a sweltering Parramatta Square, where City of Parramatta Mayor Donna Davis will be attempting to swing the seat to Labor following the retirement of Liberal MP Geoff Lee (whose endorsement appears on the signs and how-to-vote cards of Liberal candidate, local lawyer Katie Mullens).
Taking his campaign a further 30 minutes up the Great Western Highway, Premier Dominic Perrottet announced $25 million to upgrade boat ramps and fishing facilities across the state, stressing the importance of outdoor recreational activities for mental health.
Premier Dominic Perrottet, centre, made a boat ramp infrastructure announcement with Penrith MP Stuart Ayres.Credit:Flavio Brancaleone
Speaking at Jamisontown boat ramp on Saturday morning alongside member for Penrith Stuart Ayres, Perrottet took a swing at Albanese over his comments on the Coalition’s Kids Future Fund initiative, in which he criticised the initiative as being “not progressive” and reinforcing inequality.
Perrottet said the description was “absolutely wrong”.
“It shows how out of touch he is with the challenges that families are facing today,” he said.“It is only the Liberals with a long-term economic plan.”
Early voting centres will reopen across NSW on Monday and remain open each day until Friday, ahead of election day on March 25.
All polling booths are open from 8am to 6pm.
A person is eligible to vote at an early voting centre if they meet one of a number of criteria, including if they will be more than eight kilometres from a voting centre in their electorate on Saturday, will be working, or have a disability.
Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here.
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