NSW CAMPAIGN

With just one week until the New South Wales state election, polling for the major parties is deadlocked at 50-50 on a two-party preferred basis.

Some commentators are speculating there is likely to be a minority Coalition Government in NSW following the imminent state election, with the crossbenchers likely to hold significant influence.

The stadiums rebuild, an ongoing project of the Berejiklian government, has so far dominated the campaign, with Labor leader Mr Michael Daley MP calling for a pause to the demolition work. NSW Labor has deployed the slogan ‘schools and hospitals not Sydney stadiums’, while the Coalition maintains that the project will bring ‘a massive injection of tourism dollars, a surrounding local business boom and of course more jobs’.

According to a UComms/ReachTEL poll, 60% of NSW voters will also be swayed by the issue of climate change when they vote. The Premier, the Hon Gladys Berejiklian MP, said that NSW has the largest renewable projects in Australia.

‘We’ve had a very consistent position since we’ve been in government that climate change is real and as a government, we need to do everything we can to deal with it – and we have been,’ she said.

The Coalition has pledged that NSW will have zero net emissions by 2050, while Labor intends to introduce a renewable energy target of 50% by 2030. Labor has also promised to include a Minister for Climate Change in its government.