THE POLL BLUDGER
New South Wales Legislative Assembly Election 2007

MURRUMBIDGEE
Nationals 18.9%

Murrumbidgee covers 35,727 square kilometres in central southern New South Wales. The dominant population area is the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, home to Griffith and Leeton. The redistribution has shifted it eastwards into the void created by the abolition of Lachlan, from which it assumes 18,500 voters and an area including Junee, Coolamon, Temora and Wyalong. At the opposite end, it loses nearly 15,000 voters and an area including Griffith, Deniliquin and Jerilderie to Murray-Darling. Though a safe Nationals seat in modern times, it has historically been marginal and was held by Labor as recently as 1984. The Labor member from 1965 to 1969 was Al Grassby, who won the federal seat of Riverina in 1969 with the largest two-party swing ever recorded in the post-war era, and went on to serve as Immigration Minister in the Whitlam government before losing his seat in 1974. Alan Gordon retained the seat for Labor upon Grassby's departure, but it fell to Adrian Cruickshank of the National Party when he retired in 1984.

When Cruickshank retired in 1999 he was succeeded by 28-year-old Adrian Piccoli (right), a solicitor from a family of Italian immigrants and onion producers. Piccoli made the front bench in April 2003 with the mineral resources portfolio, and was reassigned to natural resources and lands in April 2005. In late 2006 he made the news by criticising the federal government's emphasis on "Australian values", describing its plan to make speaking English a prerequisite for citizenship as an attempt to "ramp up Hanson-style xenophobia just to stay in power".

ASSESSMENT: Nationals retain