Dubbo is Liberal land and home...

This Councillor is off to the family farm at Dubbo for a few days. First visit since Christmas (see picture of front paddock) and keen to see how the winter rains have 'greened up the place' according to my Mum. The tanks are full and the dams half full and the garden is on the rebound finally!

Might not go into town after reading in today's SMH reports that the Libs have surrendered Dubbo state seat to the Nats yet again. The Liberals in Dubbo will be very disappointed. That will be the fourth chance for the Nats to lose the seat to an independent. Don't get me wrong, I hope they win it but the record of achievement is not too good. Dubbo is a semi urban regional hub that sits very comfortably within the Liberal party suite of country seats like Wagga, Albury and Bega. The business people and friends I speak to in Dubbo feel the Nats have lost touch with this community or more precisely that the Dubbo community has changed and the Nats have failed to evolve with the changed community. A similar scenario in most urbanising former Nat seats across the state. Dubbo is no longer a seat exclusively for wheat and sheep framers with Nats driving around in their city 4X4's and RM Williams. It's now a more urban area with a self sustaining township economy and aspirations and expectations more closely aligned to Liberalism than the Nats yesteryear conservative protectionism. I hope that the good people of Dubbo seize the opportunity to be part of a Brogden Liberal government in 2007. The Nats will have to work overtime to present an electable face for the new Dubbo.