‘Happy voting’: country bake sales warm up rural voters
Stephanie Gardiner |
When Australia’s first prime minister Edmund Barton took office in 1901, the little school in Borenore had already been teaching rural kids for 25 years.
On Saturday, voters in the central western NSW village braved a 12C morning to cast their ballots at the historic school to help form the 48th parliament.
The polling place, nestled between wineries and apple orchards outside Orange, typically attracts about 300 votes.
Under the school motto of “wisdom through knowledge”, volunteers put on a spread of country classics, serving generous slabs of caramel fudge, sponge cakes with lashings of whipped cream and piping hot pumpkin soup.
It may have been bitterly cold, but Borenore is smack-bang in the middle of a heated battleground in the electorate of Calare.
The National Party has been campaigning hard to unseat defector Andrew Gee, who became an independent MP in 2022.
Mr Gee sensationally quit the Nationals, citing the party’s opposition to an Indigenous voice to parliament and his desire to assist local flood victims free from political constraints.
The Nationals are also attempting to fend off popular Climate 200-backed independent Kate Hook.
Party leader David Littleproud made a last-minute flying visit to Orange, standing with the Nationals Calare candidate, Sam Farraway, outside the busy polling place at Bletchington Public School.
“I’ve got to go back home and vote for myself in Chinchilla, otherwise I’ll be in trouble,” Mr Littleproud quipped to a supporter, referring to his Queensland electorate.
He said “quiet Australians” were turning out to vote for change in regional and remote seats like Lingiari, in the Northern Territory, Bendigo, in Victoria and Hunter in NSW.
“You never take this beautiful thing called democracy for granted and you should have to fight for every vote,” Mr Littleproud told reporters.
“It’s the democracy that over 100,000 Australians have lost their lives defending and we’re the custodians of it.”
Despite their political differences, Mr Gee and Mr Farraway stood side-by-side on Friday as voters lined up to cast their votes at a bustling pre-polling place in an Orange church.
They both chatted to voters, with Mr Gee pointing out to one constituent that he preferenced Mr Farraway at four, but only earned a seven on the Nationals’ ticket.
“Happy voting,” Mr Farraway said to several passers-by.
AAP
