THE POLL BLUDGER
New South Wales Legislative Assembly Election 2007

MIRANDA
Labor 9.1%

Bounded by Georges River in the north and Hacking River in the south, the electorate of Miranda extends from Como and Oyster Bay south through Sutherland and Miranda to Gymea Bay. Booth results in 2003 were evenly balanced in Sutherland and harbourside Sylvania, but heavily favoured Labor at Miranda and Gymea in the electorate's east and south. The redistribution has added 5000 voters at Como and Bonnet Bay west of the Illawarra railway, previously in Heathcote; at the opposite end of its share of the Georges River shore, 2000 voters in the peninsula at Yowie Bay have been transferred to Cronulla. Both areas are relatively strong for the Liberals, but the combined effect has been to cut Labor's margin by 0.5 per cent. The seat was won by the Liberals when it was created at the 1971 election, and has since changed hands three times. Bill Robb won it for Labor in 1978 as part of that year's "Wranslide"; in 1984 it fell to Liberal candidate Ron Phillips; in 1999 Phillips was defeated by Labor's Barry Collier (right), a lawyer and former school teacher. Tim Jamieson of the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Collier's decisive 8 per cent swing was "made possible by local dissatisfaction with housing overdevelopment and Mr Phillips's hand in the downfall of the former Liberal leader, Peter Collins".

In May 2006 Collier defected from the Right faction to the Left in protest against the government's property taxes, which the Daily Telegraph said was "believed to be the first defection from the NSW parliamentary Right since 1978". Collier had recently been brawling with Michael Costa, Roads Minister and Right faction chieftain, over his revival of a proposed motorway through the electorate which had been mothballed by his predecessor, Carl Scully. This prompted widespread concern that the party would either lose the seat to the Liberals, or face the prospect of Collier running as an independent. Collier was also reportedly aggrieved that he had been overlooked for the faction's most recent ministerial vacancy in favour of well-connected Fairfield MP Joe Tripodi. The Liberal candidate is Graham Annesley (left), the NRL's chief operating officer and a former referee.