Voters will converge on regional polling stations on Saturday in the hotly-contested byelection for the NSW seat of Monaro, with all eyes on how preferences will flow in the six-way tussle.
High-profile Nationals candidate Nichole Overall, Monaro's Woman of the Year in 2020, will be pushing to hold the seat for her party, previously held by former NSW deputy premier John Barilaro, who held the seat with a 9.1 per cent margin in the 2019 election.
The National Party recorded majorities in all 27 polling places used at the 2019 election but fresh issues now weigh heavily on voters' minds.
The byelection was called when Mr Barilaro resigned in October last year after clashing with his former premier Gladys Berejiklian. Ms Berejiklian, too, has since left office amid an anti-corruption probe which centred on her private life.
The byelection will be fought on a number of key issues, including the proposal to build a new high school, championed by Mr Barilaro, in the centre of Bungendore. This will carve off a chunk of the historic Mick Sherd Oval and remove established parts of town infrastructure, including the existing swimming pool, the former council chambers used before the amalgamation with Queanbeyan, and a community centre.
The Nationals have pledged that the infrastructure which will go under the proposal would be replaced but the Bungendore Park location has strongly divided the local community.
Ms Overall's rivals, although in support of building the high school, want the NSW Department of Education to reassess alternative greenfields sites around the town.
Ms Overall has been on the hustings vigorously since her preselection four months ago and a couple of key announcements recently, including the release of 140 lots near Cooma to alleviate pressure on local housing, together with the town's new Country Universities Centre, will carry in her favour in the southern part of the electorate.
"I'm feeling exhausted but have given this campaign everything I possibly can in the past four months and visited every area of the electorate," she said.
However, Queanbeyan and Googong are far and away the most populous areas of the 20,500-square-kilometre electorate and many of the voters in this area work in the ACT.
Newly-elected Queanbeyan-Palerang councillor Bryce Wilson, who was defeated by Mr Barilaro in 2019, is Labor's candidate and enjoys the support of Labor's ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr.
Mr Wilson, from Jerrabomberra, has strongly urged Monaro voters to use the byelection to lodge a protest vote against the ruling Liberal-National Coalition, telling a meeting recently: "Re-electing a conservative candidate will change nothing."
He said while voting Labor won't change government in NSW: "It will send a message; it matters."
Preferences from the well-known Greens candidate, Catherine Moore, are likely to flow to Labor. Ms Moore, an artist from Braidwood, has run for the seat four times and she will capture a significant proportion of the "tree-changer" vote in areas around her home town, as well as places such as Wamboin and Bywong.
Voters further south in the electorate will have their focus on issues much closer to home, such as the future of forest industries, a big employer in the Tumut, Bombala and Nimmitabel areas. Plantation and hardwood industries have both been badly hit in the wake of the Black Summer bushfires.
The Cooma area has more people working in the retail trade industry than any other in the southern region of the electorate, with public and utility services accounting for approximately 35 per cent of local employment. Protecting local jobs and keeping young people employed in the area are seen as among the key issues.
