The premier made a final week dash to the state’s south on Monday to sandbag several key seats,travelling through Kiama and to the electorate of South Coast,where he met locals at a short street walk in Nowra before travelling to Goulburn.
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet with,from left,Liberal candidate for South Coast Luke Sikora,Liberal candidate for Kiama Melanie Gibbons,NSW Minister for Education Sarah Mitchell,and retiring MP Shelley Hancock in Nowra on Monday.Dominic Lorrimer
Speaking in a park in Nowra,Perrottet said he had personally,where the Coalition is up against former Liberal minister Gareth Ward,who was booted from the party and onto the crossbench after being charged with sexual assault.
Ward,who has vowed to fight historical sex assault charges laid against him last year,had steadily extended the Liberal margin in Kiama since first being elected in 2011 before he was suspended from parliament.
The Liberals have held the seat for more than a decade but there are concerns within the party that Ward enjoys a strong personal vote and a high profile in the community and could potentially wrest Kiama from the Coalition.
Liberal MP-turned-independent Gareth Ward.Kate Geraghty
Gibbons had been the member for Holsworthy since 2011 but she lost preselection for the southern Sydney seat in a messy factional stoush last year.
Despite confirming on Monday he would install Gibbons into cabinet if she held the seat for the Liberals and the Coalition was returned to power,Perrottet said he had made no new promise to her when urging her to run for the southern seat.
“Mel Gibbons will make a great member for Kiama. She has been a strong advocate in the NSW parliament. She’s a very strong candidate,and you need people in the parliament who get things done. Mel Gibbons does that,” Perrottet said.
Gibbons considered leaving Macquarie Street for a tilt at federal politics ahead of the last federal election but was convinced not to quit by Perrottet,who promised her a cabinet position if she stayed. She was rolled in the Holsworthy preselection to Tina Ayyad just months later.
Gibbons was then touted as a potential candidate to replace upper house MP Peter Poulos after he and temporarily booted from the party for forwarding an intimate photograph of a female colleague from aPenthouse magazine.
The NSW premier has vowed to increase the speed on WestConnex if re-elected.
Gibbons did not have enough factional support to secure that seat,which was ultimately handed to Liberal Women’s Council president Jacqui Munro,leaving her to contest Kiama,about 100 kilometres south of Sydney.
Labor and the Coalition have both vowed to move a motion to ensure Ward’s suspension from Macquarie Street would continue in the next parliament. Both sides have also ruled out relying on Ward’s support to form government should he win as an independent.
The Liberals hold Kiama on a 12 per cent margin;South Coast on a 9 per cent margin;and Goulburn on just a 3 per cent margin.
Perrottet was quizzed on what electorate he was in by local media at the Nowra press conference,answering Kiama,before being corrected – he was in South Coast.
He denied he was disappointed that his predecessor Gladys Berejiklian had not yet endorsed him ahead of Saturday’s election.
“This is a campaign focused on the future here in NSW.[Berejiklian] is now a senior executive at Optus and she has requirements in relation to that,” he said.
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