Regions become key battleground in NSW election, as voters look for alternatives - Polidicks

He's white, middle-aged and angry. He's a tradesman who owns his business, has a small mortgage on a nice house with a pool in a regional town. He also used to vote for the Nationals, but not anymore. Power prices have gone up, the drought has affected work in the town, and his wage hasn't increased in years. Money is tight and his wife has been forced to return to work three days a week. This type of voter has "had enough" — and NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro is worried. "That angry voter … is working harder [and] feeling poorer, feels like he's not providing for his family," the NSW Nationals leader said. "And that's the part we are failing and they're the people we're losing." The regions are becoming a key battleground in next month's election as people turn their backs on the Nationals and look to alternatives — such as the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party (SFF) and One Nation. Focus groups show regional voters have been disaffected with the Nationals for several years. Voters feel abandoned by them and believe they're too close to their coalition colleagues, the Liberals. The state's crippling drought, and subsequent water security issues, have not helped either. In the central west, a community group called Anyone But Nats has formed "daring voters to be different". The group is taking its message across the state, holding meetings in regional areas. At a recent forum in Mudgee, one former Nationals voter said there was "great dissatisfaction" and "a general distrust, and we certainly heard that tonight particularly about water". Internal polling also shows women have abandoned the party, unhappy about the actions of federal MPs Barnaby Joyce and Andrew Broad. Mr Joyce had an affair with a staffer and Mr Broad used a dating website to meet a younger woman while at a conference in Hong Kong. "There is no doubt it's damaged us," Mr Barilaro said. "It comes down to trust and most voters won't differentiate between state and federal when it comes to these issues. "It's our job to rebuild trust particularly in NSW." https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-10/matters-of-state-regional-nsw-key-battleground-for-election/10784552 For those not from Australia, the Nationals are Australia’s third major party - they often form coalition governments with the Liberals, and the two parties even merged together in Queensland. The Liberals tend to contest urban seats, whereas the Nationals contest regional and rural seats. Many people feel that the Nationals just roll over and let the Liberals take charge - with the regions ignored under coalition governments. The problem with alternatives for the Nationals, aside from Labor, is that most of them have fringe policies, populist leaders or are fuelled by memes.

Oh look over here, even several NSW right-wing voters are becoming waking up and interesting on voting any right-wing party as please now. Hmmm, who knew now.

This is arguably bad, because most of the alternatives to the Nationals are on the fringes. Eg one of the parties likely to benefit from a swing away from the Nationals, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, is the closest thing that Australia has to Germany’s AfD, or Donald Trump in America.

He always proves how little he knows while commenting on Australian politics. The vote splintering off to Pauline Hanson and Clive Palmer in the upcoming elections is going to be a horrible sight. I think people will do a more sensible split between labor and the coalition.

Yeah, it’s certainly possible that Labor will make gains in regional seats. I actually do live in a regional seat held by Labor. However it is literally one of the safest seats in the entire state, with the Labor incumbent getting 70% of the vote in the last state election, so I will continue to vote for the Nationals (as the only realistic contender) until the seat becomes marginal.

And forgot the United Kingdom's UKIP and some hard eurosceptic local parties too. They likely won't for no god damn reason rather than still believing outdated your Aussie's version of spoiler effect to think somehow stay relevant, but not going to happen judging all recent eastern statewide and federal elections as most their seat count are worse decreasing than Liberals. And by this point they need to break apart from them and reform their current state of the party to be either more right-wing or not.

UKIP is dead as a dodo at this point.

True, but its still slightly zigzagging (5-9%) in polls anyway.