Bill Mackay isn't a betting man, which is why his vote won't stray far from his father's, and his father's before him.
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As rusted-on a conservative voter as the inside of his tin shearing shed at Yass, the fifth-generation wool farmer said he has a long memory when it comes to the transgressions of the previous government.
"You can see we had the surplus last time then Labor got in and they blew the lot and put us into debt," he said. "Every time the Coalition gets in they tend to fix it."
A long-time conservative stronghold, Yass was recently swallowed by the burgeoning bellwether Eden-Monaro electorate, along with the Riverina towns of Tumut and Tumbarumba.
In 2013, the Liberals collected more than 53 per cent of the vote in Yass on a two-party preferred basis, which may bode well for incumbent Liberal member Peter Hendy come July 2, Dr Brendan McCaffrie said.
"The boundary change ahead of this election has cut out a portion of the NSW South Coast around Batemans Bay – recently this area has tended to swing and to vote with the winner," Dr McCaffrie said.
"The areas that the electorate has gained, the inland rural areas around Yass, Tumut and Tumbarumba are, on balance, slightly Coalition-leaning. From a two-party-preferred margin of 0.6 per cent to the Liberals at the 2013 election, the electorate changes have created a nominal margin of 2.9 per cent to the Liberals."
Mr Mackay said to gain his support, Labor would have to "curtail their spending" and "change their policies a lot".
He is sceptical of wind farms – "It's splitting the community over here at Rye Park" – as well as the NBN – "We'll never see it".
He favours economic stability and careful fiscal management after a lifetime on the land, and is critical of what he calls Labor's "spend, spend, spend" policies.
"On the land here, you're gambling every day with the weather and the climate so you've got to save for the next rainy day. You can't spend all of your money when you get a big wool cheque, you've got to keep something in reserve for later on," Mr Mackay said.
"This year's been a prime example. We've been feeding these sheep since just after Christmas. The rain is good but it's been late – if we had it a month earlier it would have been wonderful but it's ifs and buts. You can't really control that."
And while both sides of politics have promised the earth ahead of the election, Mr Mackay isn't putting any stock in it.
"They're politicians.They both make promises which they don't intend to keep. It's all big but in the end it comes back to money. If you ain't got the money, you can't do it."
