THE POLL BLUDGER
New South Wales Legislative Assembly Election 2007

MENAI
Labor 8.9%

Bounded to the north by the Georges River, Menai is an electorate in Sydney's outer south consisting of two distinct halves: the strongly Labor area of Chipping Norton, Moorebank and Wattle Grove in the north-west, and Alfords Point, Illawong, Bangor and Menai itself in the south-east, which lean to the Liberals. The two areas are separated the Holsworthy military reserve. The redistribution has adjusted the boundary with Heathcote to the south-east, adding 3000 voters around Sutherland, while its former territory north of the Georges River (in Faraway and Padstow) has been transferred to East Hills, affecting 6000 voters. The electorate was created in 1999 with the abolition of Moorebank in the west and Sutherland in the east. These seats were respectively safe for Labor and Liberal, while the new seat had a notional Liberal margin of just 0.3 per cent. Moorebank MP Craig Knowles was accommodated in the safer Macquarie Fields, while the Liberals' Sutherland MP Lorna Stone (who had succeeded Chris Downy at a by-election in 1997) ran unsuccessfully in Heathcote. Menai thus emerged as a contest between two newcomers, Labor's Alison Megarrity (left) and the Liberals' Brett Thomas, in which Megarrity prevailed on the back of a 6.1 per cent swing. Thomas ran again in 2003, only to see Megarrity consolidate with a further 5.3 per cent swing. She was promptly rewarded with a parliamentary secretary position, initially to the Infrastructure, Planning and Natural Resources Minister, and later to the Attorney-General and Environment and Arts Minister after Bob Carr departed in August 2005. Megarrity was described as "Left-aligned" at the time of her election in 1999. Her current Liberal opponent is Steve Simpson (right), a Sutherland shire councillor who unsuccessfully contested the Sutherland preselection when Chris Downy resigned in 1997. He was described at the time as a moderate.

ASSESSMENT: Labor retain