NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian was all smiles on Saturday night when she became the state’s first elected female premier, albeit leading the Coalition to what looked like it might be a minority government.
“Tonight is about the people of NSW and the future of our state. And my team and I will work our guts out to make sure this state and its people continue to have the best opportunities on this planet,” she said to an adoring crowd of the Liberal faithful.
But while the Coalition may have fought off the Labor tide in Sydney, it ended being more of a dribble with the Opposition nabbing just one seat, in the bush it was a very different story.
You just need to look at the electoral map to see the issue facing the Coalition. And it is huge; a vast chunk of western NSW is now painted in the yellow hue of a party that didn’t have a single lower house MP three years ago.
Almost half a million square kilometres of the state is now represented by the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party (SFF), that’s 60 per cent of NSW.
It has a head of steam and could pose a real threat for the Federal Government at the upcoming election. But it’s water rather than rifles that has spurred its success.
The area the party represents is large, but sparse. Together it adds up to just three electorates. These include Murray and Barwon, the two electorates gained by the SFF at this election, and Orange which was swiped in a 2016 by-election.
But all those seats were taken off the Liberals’ Coalition partners, the Nationals. With the Coalition short of a majority government by a single seat, those three electorates would have done very nicely, thank you.
Asked how the Government treated rural communities, newly minted Barwon SFF MP Roy Butler was succinct: “Abandoned, ignored, not listening.”
The Shooters Party was once dismissed as a group of disgruntled gun-toting hunters but the rise of its most recent incarnation has been extraordinary. They have now lengthened their name, widened their base and have been rewarded with massive swings of, for example, 27 per cent in Murray.
Originally founded in 1992 to fight tighter gun control laws, it’s still a key part of their platform with “the right of law-abiding citizens to own and use firearms” official policy.
The party says “gun control is not about guns, it’s about control and an ever-growing restriction of individual liberties”.
It states that stricter gun control laws introduced in the wake of the 1996 Port Arthur Massacre should be reviewed.
However, the SFF has said it supports background checking and licensing of gun owners and “does not support ‘American style gun laws’”.
WATER NOT RIFLES
But, over the years, it has broadened its pitch to rural voters. Firearms is now only listed third on its list of priorities, below farming and mining.
Mr Butler, the new member for Barwon which stretches across much of western NSW and includes towns as distant as Broken Hill and Bourke, is about as far from the image of the old Shooters as you can get. He’s a vegan cattle farmer for a start.
For Mr Butler, being able to shoot is not the main aim. It’s the health crisis and the water supply issues that have led to millions of dead fish in the Menindee river system.
He told the ABC the Nationals’ losses was “the price they pay for regional neglect”.
“Our life expectation in far west NSW has gone backwards by 1.5 years, while in the city has gone up by 6.9 years,” he said.
Gabrielle Chan, the author of Rusted Off, Why Country Australia is Fed Up said the Coalition shouldn’t be surprised by the rise of the SFF.
“There’s been a growing sense of discontent in the country for a while now,” she told ABC Sydney on Monday.
“The change in global politics has translated into a disruption of rural politics at a low level in Australia.
“The Shooters weren’t just talking about guns, they were talking about health, emergency services and all of the day-to-day things people need in isolated places.
“For too long some Nationals MPs have taken their seats for granted.”
BEREJIKLIAN’S PROBLEM
The rise of the Shooters poses a problem for Ms Berejiklian given she has only just sneaked past the magic 47 seat mark to form a majority government.
On Saturday night, somewhat tellingly, she didn’t mention the SFF Party. Rather, she said she “would work closely with the three independents in the parliament”. That means Sydney MP Alex Greenwich, Wagga Wagga’s Joe McGirr and Lake Macquarie’s Greg Piper.
Indeed, in the wake of the Christchurch terror attack, Ms Berejiklian criticised Opposition leader Michael Daley for doing a preference deal with the SFF.
“It concerns me because it legitimises a party, being the Shooters, who support the reduction or dilution of our gun laws,” she told reporters.
Those comments, and the animosity between the Shooters and the Nats, will make it difficult for the Coalition to do a deal with the SFF.
And given the Greens have ruled out doing any kind of deal with Ms Berejiklian’s government, she knows she could find herself relying on the independents to give her a bulwark in the lower house in case of any more by-elections.
Party leader Robert Borsak has acknowledged this but says if the Coalition wants SFF’s support to drive through individual pieces of legislation they will have to acquiesce to their demands regarding the Murray Darling system. Guns are on the list too, but they're not making a noise about those.
SHOOTERS VS SCOMO
And what is Ms Berejiklian’s problem today could be Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s in under two months.
Several federal electorates segue nicely with seats won by the Shooters. A point not lost on Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce.
Speaking to The Australian, he said the three contagious NSW electorates now with the SFF gave the party a level of organisational capability it lacked before.
“This will have real sway in seats like Parkes, Riverina, and Farrer. It’s not One Nation, it’s not Tony Windsor, and it’s the Shooters and Fishers who pose the biggest danger federally,” Mr Joyce said. “And the reason they are working is they are to the right of us, not the left.”
The SFF themselves are coy on their federal election plans, but Mr Borsak has indicated they will run at least six candidates in the House of Representatives and more in the Senate.
He said they will concentrate on areas where they have seen success at a state level.
The part also isn’t confined to NSW with MPs in the Victorian and South Australian upper houses.
PISS OFF EVERYONE
A senior Nationals source told AAP a key issue for the party was that The Greens were also gnawing away at its support base in some areas.
“It’s a case of do we please some and piss off others or do we try and please everyone and please no one.”
National’s leader John Barilaro said he had expected some swing to the SFF.
“When people feel anxious in the regions, they’ll look at their vote going elsewhere. The Shooters have been out there as an alternate voice,” he told the ABC.
So far, though, he’s not come up with much of a solution. However, Monday’s resignation of National Deputy Leader and Water Minister Niall Blair may go some way to calming the farmers. It’s under his watch that the mass fish deaths occurred.
For the Nationals’ sake, and for Mr Morrison, the Coalition will be hoping no more disasters befall rural Australia. Because if that happens, it could tip a whole lot more votes the Shooters’ way.
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