DEAR News Of The Area,

THE Port Macquarie byelection has echoes of the southern NSW federal seat of Farrer, previously held by Nationals’ deputy prime minister Tim Fischer.

Sussan Ley, now deputy Liberal leader, won it in 2001 from the National Party when Fischer retired.

Labor obviously won’t run in this byelection, having vacated the Hornsby and Epping byelections last year.

[Leslie] Williams’ defection from the Nationals to the Liberal Party in 2020 over koalas, possibly marked the first time a state MP had switched Coalition parties since Queensland MPs Don Lane and Brian Austin both defected from the Liberal Party to Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s National Party in October 1983.

But I note Port Macquarie’s 2023 contest marked the first time since 1999 that the National Party ran against the Liberal Party in a Coalition-held seat.

That’s when Katrina Hodginson won Burrinjuck, previously held by Alby Schultz – who later became the federal Liberal member for Hume.

I note some other three-cornered contests where the Liberal and National parties ran against each other in a Coalition-held seat.

This occurred in March 1999 in the North Coast seat of Lismore, then held by the National Party.

At a federal level, the National Party in 2019 ran against the Liberal Party in the then Liberal-held seat of Gilmore on the NSW south coast.

Labor won that seat for the first time since 1993 and was re-elected there in 2022.

Regards,
Andrew JOHNSON,
Dunbogan.