THE POLL BLUDGER
New South Wales Legislative Assembly Election 2007

MYALL LAKES
Nationals 13.9%

Myall Lakes covers 70 kilometres of the central coast to the north of Newcastle and south of Port Macquarie, including the coastal towns of Tuncurry and Forster and the inland centre of Taree on the Manning River. The redistribution has sent its boundary with Port Macquarie northwards, adding nearly 7000 voters from Wingham east to Cundeletown. In the south, nearly 3000 voters at Hawks Nest and Tea Gardens have been transferred to Port Stephens; in the west, 4500 voters around Gloucester have shifted to Upper Hunter. These changes have had little effect on the margin.

The seat was created in 1988 in place of abolished Gloucester, an always conservative seat that had been in National/Country Party hands since independent member Ray Fitzgerald joined the party in 1947. Gloucester MP Wendy Machin moved to the seat of Manning at the 1988 election, which in 1991 was renamed Port Macquarie. Myall Lakes went to former solicitor and tax agent John Turner (right), who has held it ever since. Turner had unsuccessfully contested the federal seat of Hunter in 1984 and 1987 before winning the Myall Lakes preselection in 1988 ahead of Knox Greenaway, chairman of the party's Taree branch. Greenaway reacted to his defeat by quitting the party and running against Turner as an independent, claiming he was an "apparatchik" of party chairman Douglas Moppett and general secretary Jenny Gardiner.

Turner made the front bench in March 1996 and became deputy leader in January 1999, before losing the position to Ballina MP Don Page after the 2003 election. He currently holds the shadow portfolios of local government, fair trading and road safety.

ASSESSMENT: Nationals retain