Dog day afternoon among Hay faithful
Illawarra Mercury
Tuesday March 29, 2011
"BREAK in, make my day," says the sign on the front door.The comment has been attributed to an attack dog pictured below, and inside two real mutts are backing up the threat, raising merry hell.It's 3pm and they are the only ones home at this little place in the middle of Warrawong.None of the human inhabitants have stayed in to analyse the NSW Electoral Commission's Virtual Tally Room or agonise over the possible shortcomings of Gordon Bradbery's preference deal.With its State seat one of a handful still too close to call, a healthy dose of political apathy has set in over Westfield Warrawong like an unemployment statistic.Here, like anywhere, many say they simply don't care about politics.Life goes on.Two schoolgirls push a shopping trolley along Shellharbour Rd, where high-vis work gear hangs off the Hills Hoists, hinting at the suburb's industrial roots.An elderly woman watches the street life from one of the migrant-built weatherboard bungalows on Cowper St.On the nose almost everywhere else in NSW, it is in this rich soup of accents and industriousness that NSW Labor evidently still smells all right.At Warrawong Hall on Saturday, 668 people voted to reinstate Labor MP Noreen Hay - almost 100 more than backed the other five candidates combined.Numbers were similar at Warrawong Public, the only polling place in the Illawarra aside from Fairy Meadow Public where the otherwise popular independent Gordon Bradbery finished outside the top two.Grandmother Toni Collins, of Shellharbour Rd, was among those unimpressed by the former Uniting Church minister.He could learn a thing or two from the raucous mutts of Warrawong, and from its incumbent MP, she suggests."Too many members of the clergy are pretty soft spoken people, they don't raise their voice. To be a politician you've got to learn to shout. I just think Noreen's got the stronger voice."A few doors up, electrician Lupcho Stojanovski is home. He was laid off from BHP two years ago and gave his vote to the Greens this election, but believes rusted-on supporters will yet return Wollongong to Ms Hay.Steve Graham points to Mr Bradbery's "policy to decriminalise heroin" as a factor in his decision to vote Labor.It was 1996 when Mr Bradbery suggested addiction should be treated medicinally rather than legally, but the reference has been brought up in Labor advertising and has hit home.Mr Graham is walking the family dog to his son's bus stop on Cowper St. She is named Mercedes and is a bit up against the odds - pregnant and bulging - but still sets a decent pace."I think most of the people around here are working class background with a strong admiration for the underdog and people who will fight for them," Mr Graham says, but he is talking about Ms Hay now.If Ms Hay does succeed in Wollongong it will be thanks in large part to diehard supporters.In Warrawong at least, it seems everybody loves an underdog.
© 2011 Illawarra Mercury
