THE intense jockeying for position in the Orange electorate with more than nine months to go until the next state election has highlighted just how quiet it is on the Bathurst front.
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Members of the Nationals’ Orange branch met on Saturday to preselect their candidate to try an win back the seat from the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers MP Phil Donato, and returned something of a shock result.
Parkes mental health worker Yvette Quinn won the preselection ballot over Parkes mayor Ken Keith in what must be seen as a real changing of the guard.
At just 21, and as a female, Ms Quinn looks and sounds much less like the Nationals’ previous Orange candidates – including Garry West, Russell Turner, Andrew Gee and Scott Barrett, who narrowly lost a by-election to Mr Donato in 2016 – than her opponent on Saturday.
But even the preselection ballot had its share of drama after Orange branch candidate Tony Mileto was barred from running by the party’s state headquarters due to an error on his nomination form when running for Orange City Council in September last year.
Ms Quinn faces a mammoth task in trying to unseat Mr Donato who has proven a popular and outspoken MP, and Orange is shaping as a key battlefield in March next year.
The Nationals wasted no time in getting Ms Quinn in front of the media on Saturday, standing her alongside Nationals leader and deputy premier John Barilaro as he announced a $4 million grant to expand Orange Regional Gallery.
That’s some hasty pork barrelling and a blatant attempt to sideline Mr Donato.
While all this has been going on in Orange, however, it has been much quieter in Bathurst – and the man most pleased with that must be sitting MP Paul Toole.
It is now more than a year since the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party bullishly announced they would be targeting about 10 regional seats held by the Nationals, with Bathurst firmly in their sights.
Party leaders had hoped to announce a SFF candidate for Bathurst 12 months ago to give them a chance to build the profile needed to take on Mr Toole but the silence has been deafening ever since.
Every week that goes past without a candidate on the ground will make it that much harder to combat Mr Toole’s commanding 15.8 per cent margin. No wonder he is always smiling.
