THE POLL BLUDGER
New South Wales Legislative Assembly Election 2007

WYONG
Labor 12.3%

Located 90 kilometres north of Sydney, the coastal electorate of Wyong is dominated by the Tuggerah Lakes, combining the western bank from Wyong north to Blue Haven with the thin strip of land (including Budgewoi, Noraville and Norah Head) between the lake and the ocean. The redistribution has added 4300 voters at Berkeley Vale on the southern shore of Tuggerah Lake and 2500 at San Remo on the northern shore of Lake Budgewoi. Shortly to the east of the latter area, 6000 voters at Buff Point have been transferred to Swansea; to the north, 4500 voters at Wyee, Jilliby and Wyong Creek have gone to Lake Macquarie. A further 2000 voters south of Tuggerah have been transferred to the electorate's southern neighbour, The Entrance. The adjustments have added 1.2 per cent to Labor's margin.

The seat has been held by Labor since its creation in 1962 (its name changed to Munmorah in 1973, to Tuggerah in 1981 and back to Wyong in 1988), current member Paul Crittenden having assumed the seat in 1991. A member of the Right's declining "Troglodytes" sub-faction, Crittenden has been rated as a maverick for bucking the party line over a series of local issues, resulting in slanging matches with Bob Carr and The Entrance MP Grant McBride. Crittenden announced he would retire in April 2006, telling the Newcastle Herald he had timed it to ensure his successor was chosen by a rank-and-file ballot. The preselection nonetheless ended up being dictated by the party's national executive, which installed Kariong Public School principal David Harris (right). This caused predictable umbrage among local branch members, many of whom backed Wyong councillor Warren Welham.

The Liberals initially nominated former Wyong mayor Brenton Pavier, who won preselection with 22 out of 34 votes ahead of public servant Karen McNamara and Warnervale hydroponics farmer Lloyd Taylor. Pavier was disendorsed in the first week of the campaign when it emerged he had forwarded a joke text message to fellow councillors, who were told their goat sex and small penis videos were due back at the store. This came one day Simon Benson of the Daily Telegraph gleefully revealed Pavier had a profile up on Fairfax’s RSVP dating website; the call telling him he was dumped came through while he was on a "date" he had sportingly accepted from the Telegraph's Kate Sikora. The weight of opinion on various online forums gave strong backing for the Poll Bludger's assertion that Peter Debnam had over-reacted. On the very day Pavier was dumped, Debnam moved to replace him with the party's candidate from 2003, federal government adviser Ben Morton (left), who was then 21 and is now 25. Pavier initially said he would take it on the chin, but quickly had a change of heart. The next day he quit the party and announced he would run as an independent, declaring the episode to have been "un-Australian". He blamed the public revelation of the message on council colleague Greg Best, who is also running as an independent.

Brenton Pavier abandoned plans to run as an independent late in the second week of the campaign. According to the Daily Telegraph, Pavier "said he had thrown his support behind new Liberal candidate for Wyong and personal friend Ben Morton". Still in the field as an independent is Greg Best, who continues to deny Pavier’s claim that it was he who alerted the media to Pavier’s unstatesmanlike sense of humour.

ASSESSMENT: Labor retain