‘Get ready for silly’: signs of change on the Cowper campaign

A lively campaign is shaping up in the New South Wales mid-north coast electorate of Cowper, with a revealing candidates' forum in Bellingen, preferencing games under way, a popular 'Voices for' independent candidate, and an explanation of those United Australia Party's interest rate billboards.

The forum at Bellingen Golf Club on 5 May was jointly hosted by the Bellingen and Urunga chambers of commerce. Six of the seven candidates came under the scrutiny of about 70 residents for a gruelling 2.5 hours.

The mood between candidates was friendly except for the sitting member - the National Party's Pat Conaghan - and the independent Carolyn "Caz" Heise, with Conaghan repeatedly rolling his eyes and occasionally sniping when Heise answered questions.

After the meeting, retiree Pamela Whitehead said she was dismayed by Conaghan's body language.

The seat of Cowper stretches from Coffs Harbour to Port Macquarie and includes the Nambucca Shire.

Port Macquarie-based Rob Oakeshott was the independent MP for Lyne from 2008 until his retirement in 2013. With boundary readjustments, he now lives in Cowper, where he stood as an independent at the 2016 and 2019 federal elections.

Oakeshott told Guardian Australia this election was proving different to any other he had seen.

"Polling shows support for both major parties has collapsed, hovering around 35%, which is historically very low," he said.

"Clive Palmer has successfully entered this field without taking votes from anyone except the major parties, who will now have to mop up preference votes in any way they can.

"Get ready for silly things as they work hard on winning the whacko vote."

"Scandalous" is how David Jones describes the huge yellow billboard between Nambucca Heads and his home in Macksville that promises the UAP will hold home loan interest rates at 3% for five years.

The Nambucca Shire councillor said for months he had paid little heed to the UAP's "Thank you National Party" signs attacking the Coalition government.

But when the billboards were refreshed early in the campaign, the message changed and Jones saw red about billionaire politician Clive Palmer's claim.

"He can't nationalise the banks," he said.

Cowper's UAP candidate Joshua Fairhall gave the Bellingen forum a miss but spoke with Guardian Australia prior, and said Palmer had shifted the focus from attack to offering solutions to everyday Australians.

According to Fairhall, UAP recently tripled its billboard advertising.

"Now there are 600 billboards around the country," he said.

Saturation advertising is Palmer's strategy, filling the available space in multiple arenas with his sea of yellow aiming to suck attention - and votes - from his opponents.

Fairhall said that in Cowper, "the sitting member will be last" on preference guidelines.

Yet when UAP's Cowper how-to-vote card was released this week, sitting member Conaghan appeared in the number three spot. Liberal Democrat Simon Chaseling is in second place, Pauline Hanson's One Nation candidate Faye Aspiotis is at number four. Last is Greens candidate Timothy Nott.

Fairhall said the increase in Cowper's UAP membership from 39 to 1,000 members over the past three years, many of whom he says are "disaffected National party voters", means the party advertising is cutting through.

Yet there were recent complaints from people who'd received welcome emails from the UAP, in spite of not having signed up.

"The reality is the UAP lacks people on the ground to hand out how-to-vote cards," Jones said.

"They usually have a camp chair at the booth with their cards on it - that doesn't cut it, people don't pick them up."

Jones believes there is plenty of political discontent in the electorate.

"This shire has one of the oldest demographics in the country, it's basically a retirement village with a beach and people resented seeing Covid dollars going to the big end of town.

"Meanwhile for them, their pensions are not keeping up with the rising cost of living."

During the 2019 campaign, polling suggested the race between Oakeshott and Conaghan was "too close to call" in the electorate with the highest population of voters.

The final results showed significant variance within the seat, when 42% of the Nambucca vote went to Conaghan (a slight drop), 20% to the ALP and 18% to Oakeshott.

In Bellingen it was the reverse, with Oakeshott claiming 33.5% of the vote to Conaghan's 21% and the ALP on 15%.

This campaign's only major funding commitment to date appears to be a $27.5m announcement by Conaghan and the Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie in April, for Southern Cross University to complete stage 2 of its health services precinct.

The teal campaign of independent Caz Heise is highly present in Cowper.

According to her campaign communications manager, Graeme Singleton, Heise and her team were ready to go as soon as her candidature was endorsed by the grassroots group Voices4Cowper at the end of January.

"From the start we have been visible with T-shirts and corflutes and have included an element of fun," he said.

"We have campaign hubs in Coffs Harbour, Nambucca, Bellingen and Port Macquarie with volunteers walking on beaches and doing flash mobs - there's lots of enthusiasm."

The Labor party's Keith McMullen said ALP corflutes were running late but had now arrived.

Heise recently told Guardian Australia that Palmer had changed his preferencing at the last election, so she wouldn't be surprised if he altered his intention for the sitting member of Cowper at this election.

"We're not counting on them preferencing one way or another."

Heise is telling people to vote one for her and then number every other box according to their choice.

Conaghan's how-to-vote card has Fairhall in the second preference spot, with Heise last. Pat Conaghan was approached for comment.