In the 2011 state election Campbelltown fell to the Liberal Party for the first time in decades.
This was the 14th election since Labor won the new seat of Campbelltown way back in 1971.
Labor won the next 13, but it all ended in 2011 when former policeman Bryan Doyle romped home off the back of a massive swing that brought the conservatives to power for the first time in 16 years.
Premier-elect Barry O’Farrell was so effusive about wresting Campbelltown from Labor he claimed overall victory from the Ruse shopping centre.
They were heady days, but it has all turned to ruin since then.
O’Farrell is gone of course, thanks to a 1959 bottle of Grange Hermitage and a faulty memory, but so are the Libs from Campbelltown.
I did not cover local politics until 2014, with a year still left before Bryan Doyle would face the electors.
Having known him during his policeman days, I remembered him as media savvy and he didn’t disappoint when we reconnected early that year.
By all accounts he was a good local member who did not take voters for granted.
Indeed he confessed to me once that he couldn’t believe how lucky he was to be in such a great job representing local people in parliament.
After four years in office, and with Mike Baird now at the helm, the Libs went to the polls in March 2015 and were duly returned to power.
But they lost some battles in the process, and one of them was the seat of Campbelltown.
Bryan Doyle declared that was the end of his political career and Greg Warren took over from him as the State Member for Campbelltown.
But this is not about Warren or Doyle.
This is about a state government that has totally lost its way, especially in western and south west Sydney.
One quick look at their electoral history will show the conservative coalition that they cannot form government in NSW unless they win seats in west and south west Sydney.
So how do they treat seats like Campbelltown?
Apart from relocating an iconic school, Hurlstone Ag, after almost a century of history in Campbelltown, closing down local motor registries and refusing to add more buses for local students who attend the University of Wollongong, pretty well one could say.
But one could not say, because there are other examples of a government blind to its own long term political imperatives.
In 2011 it took the Libs 14 elections to win Campbelltown.
The way they are going at the moment it looks like they will another 14 elections before they win it again.
With an election every four years – barring a byelection – this could mean 56 years in the political wilderness.
Mr Doyle ?
Nea Makowski
Being a safe seat for any particular major party is not necessarily a good thing – usually the best work in our area is initiated when our votes are not predictable.
Whilst Campbelltown is being held by Labor nothing will get done within the area, and I do not expect that Labor will gain government for at least another 3-4 elections away within the state
It’s inevitable in the type of community Campbelltown is becoming that major parties will garner more votes than the one trick pony Greens and the rag tag bunch of single issue pseudo Green Lite parties that often contest elections at all levels of government.
It will be the same in the upcoming council by election.
These groups of naysayers have no concept of the need to develop sensibly.
Voters will reject them.
There will always be a place for genuine independents, but, in reality, they are all aligned to one of the majors.