There wasn’t much of a town, so we went with beachy vibes. Get excited about the IGA photo further down. Images by Ben Thomson.
In case you’re worried your vote doesn’t count, we have news for you: it doesn’t. That is, unless you’re one of the 2000 people living in the small town of Dalmeny on the southern coast of New South Wales.
This is because of a phenomenon known as the “bellwether.” Bellwether seats are not just swing seats: they’re swing seats that always mirror the larger election. If a bellwether elects a Liberal or National member, you can bet the whole country will.
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Australia’s most famous bellwether is Eden-Monaro, an electorate that has voted in the government every election since 1972. When John Howard led the Liberals to power in 1996, Eden-Monaro voted in Liberal MP Gary Nairn. When Kevin Rudd wrestled power back to Labor in 2007, Eden-Monaro elected Labor’s Mike Kelly. And in 2013, as Tony Abbott was storming the upper house, Eden-Monaro voted for an onion in a pair of red speedos.
Now prepare to go down the rabbit hole, because Eden-Monaro has its own bellwether. A bellwether-within-a-bellwether. A meta-bellwether. If you want to know which way Australia will vote, you need to go to Eden-Monaro. But if you want to know which way Eden-Monaro will vote, you need to go to the tiny town of Dalmeny.
So I did.
Dalmeny sits right on the coast of southern NSW—closer to the Victorian border than to Sydney—and is the epitome of a sleepy town: In 2011, the Census recorded fewer than 2000 people living there. It’s traditionally been where people retire to in order to live out their golden years, enjoy a relaxed lifestyle, and secretly control the political future of the entire nation.
The place is stunning: there’s almost nowhere you can stand that doesn’t have a mind-blowing view of the Pacific Ocean. Aside from that there’s basically nothing. A café. A newsagent. A hairdresser. A supermarket. That’s about it.
I head to the café and where everyone seems to local (based on how many are on a first name basis with the café owner). There a find my first oracle.
“Both parties are hopeless,” says a man who will neither tell me his name nor let me take a photo. “I’m an independent. I’ll be numbering below the line and putting Liberal and Labor last.” He thinks about it for a second. “Liberal last, Labor second last. We’ll see how it shakes out in the preferences.”
This guy turns about to be pretty indicative of the general Dalmeny outlook. Few people have an opinion, everyone seems mildly displeased.
IGA, for regular things at extortionate prices
Over at the beach a mother watches her son swim in the surf as a dog that looks a bit like a Corgi-Jack Russell cross investigates the grassy hill behind us.
“I’m pretty blasé about the whole thing, to be honest,” she admits. “Neither of them have impressed me.” It sounds like her vote is still up for grabs. I ask her what issues would win her over.
“If they stopped cutting funding to school and hospitals, that would be good,” she says. “And deregulation is killing the dairy industry. They need to do something about that.”
The problem, she says, is that the promises are all the same old rhetoric. They’ve heard nothing new.
I climb back up the hill and try to figure out where to go next. There aren’t a lot of options, so I head to beach and encounter a man returning from a swim. He’s about as suspicious as anyone confronted mostly naked on a remote beach and asked about politics, but he talks anyway. “I’ll be voting Liberal,” he tells me. I ask if he’s always voted that way. “No,” he says. “I’ve always been a traditional Labor voter. But I changed to the Libs at the last election.” The instability of Rudd-Gillard-Rudd was what turned him off, and despite most of the major players of that debacle being gone, and despite the Liberals themselves repeating the knife-a-first-term-PM trick, he says he’s set. There’s no changing.
I head back to the urban centre of the town. At the local IGA, a woman in her 30s laughs at the idea of voting for either side. “They’re all dickheads,” she says. So, I ask, can I put you down for a penis? Drawing a penis on the ballot paper is, after all, Australia’s traditional form of electoral protest. “Nah, I don’t do that,” she says, walking away. Then turns to call out “Dickheads!” and laughs again.
An older couple walking their dogs down to the beach have a different answer. “I’ll be voting for the status quo,” says the man. Does that mean Liberal? He nods. I turn to his wife and ask if she has a dissenting opinion. “No,” she says, “I’ll be going with the flow.”
I couldn’t help but think sticking with the current government seems almost archaic these days.
Another woman down by beach admitted she’ll likely vote Liberal over Labor. I ask whether she’d be voting that way with the Federal government in mind, or if it’s a statement about the local candidates themselves, LNP’s Peter Hendy and Labor’s Mike Kelly. She says her vote will definitely be a referendum on the Federal government. “All the local matters are handled by the local council anyway. You never see the candidates here.”
My sample size is ridiculously small, but then so is the town of Dalmeny. But based on the people I’ve spoken to, I’m willing to call it: Malcolm Turnbull will hang onto power. Just.
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