From the Northern Leader:
HITTING THE ROAD: Nationals candidate for New England Barnaby Joyce has forums in 29 towns and villages over the next three weeks. SOURCE: The Northern Daily Leader
NEW England Nationals candidate Barnaby Joyce accepts he’s the underdog but he doesn’t think he’s as far behind sitting MP Tony Windsor as the latest poll suggests.
It was no surprise he was the underdog, Senator Joyce said, but he disputes just what the voters might read into the latest poll.
“I went into this fight behind … but I’m closing in,” he forecast as he prepared to tackle a six-week whistle-stop talking tour of the electorate.
He questioned the results of a poll published in The Leader yesterday from its sister publication, The Australian Financial Review, that indicated the independent MP held a 10-point lead over The Nationals deputy leader.
Senator Joyce said he believed he was much closer than what the poll showed – ranking Mr Windsor with 49 per cent of the primary vote against Senator Joyce’s 38 per cent.
He didn’t doubt the numbers but he did question the transparency of the motives behind the poll – who did it, what questions were asked, what the sample size was, and the demographic split.
“I would question whether it’s a reflection of the electorate, the way the questions were asked to determine the outcome,” he said.
The story reported that the polling was done by the resources industry to gauge how real were the concerns about coal seam gas, water and coal mining – and according to the results the resources issues ranked way below priorities like jobs and employment, the economy, cost of living and health and education issues.
Senator Joyce predicts those issues will be among the questions raised in his electorate forums, which begin at Mullaley tomorrow with an afternoon appearance in the Mullaley hall.
From there he will take a swing through the far flung reaches of an electorate that is nearly 60,000 square kilometres in size and extends nearly 400km from south of Nundle to the Queensland border and is about 280km wide.
There are about 56 towns, villages and localities – and Senator Joyce has 29 of them in his sights for stopovers.
“I want to get to all the corners, the little towns that get forgotten, like Ebor,” he said.
Mr Windsor has held the seat of New England since 2001 with a margin of 21.52 per cent – the 10th safest seat in the parliament.
But this time around Senator Joyce believes that while he’s behind, he’s not too far behind and certainly not 10 percentage points.
He thinks there’s a huge 30 per cent of undecided voters out there going inside the four months before the election.
How they decide to vote will be crucial to his chances of toppling Mr Windsor and he muses that while Tony Windsor’s campaign might be based on his loyalty and his length of service to his electorate, his premise is for the future, and a place close to the centre of the action in a future government.
He also expects to get an inkling of the feelings of supporters and the great undecided when he hits the forum track tomorrow.
He expects some torrid, tough questions.
Barnaby Is Right 
“Greatly increased government spending” – one of the steps in the Socialists gradual lead up to a New World Order.
Well worth viewing.
Good on you Barnaby. Keep up the fight with the scumbag Windsor.
Tony did OK under a coalition government remember. He just didn’t get on with John Anderson and Sandy MacDonald, when both resigned that was OK with him. This sword rattling will not do Tony any good, especially when he replied in the local free paper, he was misquoted by calling National supporters ‘Red Necks’. He hung Greg Maguire out to dry too. And I believe had some influence on Richard’s resignation. It is policies Barnaby, and when you travel around the electorate, you may be surprised that you get a better reception than you think you will.Especially North of Armidale. NBN will be questioned, although wireless ADSL2+ available in Armidale and Uralla for years is faster than optic fiber and 2/3rds the expense. Pensioners are being pressured to sign up for NBN, “.. you have to or you will be cut off your land line…” It is free at the moment, and one pensioner said ‘I might get a lap top in the future’ as she has not got a computer desktop at present. ‘Darling, lap tops operate off wireless’. The few who are connected to cable optic fiber tell me, the speed is no faster than they had already, and some websites can not, CAN NOT download at speeds of 54 – 100 mbps only 10 mbps. My Wireless 3 ADSL 2+ speed is 20-24 mbps and the speed of the wireless is 54 Mbps. Telstra and iprimus advertise only 12 mbps. Check it out first. If the coalition win, they will concentrate on wireless and satellite. And gud on them!
Check out Jamie McIntyre’s new party (21st Century Australia). It has a more concrete political strategy on improving our country’s economic situation.
See http://21stcenturyaustralia.com.au