With a week to go before the NSW state election, the Coalition promises $8.4bn on health infrastructure, while Labor pledges $7.4bn for school building works

Turmoil within the federal Coalition government over coal and leadership could affect the Berejiklian government’s re-election hopes, the deputy premier suggested on Friday, with seven days left in the close race.

After a week in which Barnaby Joyce declared himself the “elected deputy prime minister” (before backtracking) and members of the federal Coalition clashed over government backing for coal-fired power plants, the NSW Nationals leader, John Barilaro, told Sky News voters were raising federal dysfunction with him at pre-polls.

“People are talking about what’s happening federally,” he said. “They’re just sick to death of parties and governments talking about themselves, and I think that is being reflected on the ground.

“Does that mean it may change a vote? It possibly can, especially given that we’ve got a number of battlefronts, a number of marginal seats.”

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His comments came shortly after the Sydney Morning Herald published comments from Malcolm Turnbull calling the leadership talk “damaging” and “unhelpful” to the NSW campaign. The former prime minister has campaigned alongside Liberal MP Bruce Notley-Smith, fighting to hold on to his marginal seat of Coogee, which overlaps with Turnbull’s former federal seat of Wentworth.

Barilaro himself has fuelled federal leadership tension in the past, accusing Turnbull in late 2017 of showing “no leadership” and publicly urging the former prime minister to resign.

Key promises this week

The Coalition is promising to spend $8.4bn on health infrastructure over four years, including $1.3bn to redevelop Bankstown-Lidcome hospital.

Labor pledged to hire an additional 5,065 teachers, and promised $7.4bn for school building works across the state.

The Coalition promised $20m for community preschools to allow them to build or redevelop facilities to cater for new enrolments.

Labor released a national parks plan, which included a Great Koala park on the north coast and 200 additional field officers to undertake pest control and firefighting. They also promised to remove feral horses from Kosciuszko National Park, a pledge that was widely welcomed by conservation groups.

The Greens proposed a $4bn environment plan, including $1.5bn for a land and biodiversity fund, $2bn for expansion of protected areas and $300m for cultural management of country under Aboriginal ranger programs.

Country races

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, and deputy premier, John Barilaro, at a farm outside Lismore. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

With four of the government’s six most marginal seats located in the bush, both party leaders have spent time this week in a race to woo rural voters. The Labor leader, Michael Daley – who frequently reminds voters he is “the grandson of a Kempsey dairy farmer” – wavered on a planned luxury car tax on vehicles over $100,000, after claims it would hit farmers who drive working vehicles such as Toyota Land Cruisers. Daley said on Thursday: “If there is some inherent unfairness in it, of course we are willing to sit down with people and remove that unfairness … if we have to do something to exempt farmers from that, for working vehicles, we will.” The previous day, premier Gladys Berejiklian had attacked the policy while visiting hotly-contested north coast seats, also stopping to pose fetchingly with the deputy premier at a hay farm near Lismore.

Voting glitch raises issues

The NSW Electoral Commission’s (NSWEC) technical problems made headlines this week, with the online iVote system offline on Wednesday and glitches in the electronic roll forcing some pre-poll locations to close temporarily.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Early voting booths closed on Wednesday due to computer issues. Photograph: Supplied

But there was another issue: the NSWEC confirmed on Tuesday a defect had been detected in the iVote system, which could potentially allow vote manipulation to occur without detection. The NSWEC reassured voters it would not affect the election, saying the system’s supplier Scytl was delivering a patch, or remedy. It also said the machine on which the affected component runs is not connected to any other computer systems: “In order for this weakness to be an issue, a person would need to gain access to the physical machine. They would need all the right credentials and the right code to alter the software.”

Some tech experts say it’s concerning though, and underscores the need for greater public scrutiny and transparency. Associate professor in cybersecurity at the University of Melbourne, Vanessa Teague, told Guardian Australia: “Even if you believe this particular patch might solve this particular problem - and I don’t see necessarily see why you would - there is no evidence that there aren’t numerous other issues because the code has never been made available under the kind of arrangement that would allow people with expertise to examine it and explain to the public what they found.”

State of emergency: healthcare a sore point in NSW election Read more

Polls apart?

Two major polls came out this week that confirmed the election remains tight and the possibility of minority government remains strong. A uComms/ReachTEL poll published by the Sydney Morning Herald suggested the parties were 51-49 2PP (with Labor slightly ahead, though within the margin of error), while a Newspoll published by the Australian had the parties on 50-50 2PP. Those results suggest a swing between 4.3 and 5.3% compared to the 2015 election, which, if universally replicated across the state, would see the government lose its six seat majority, but would not likely be enough for Labor to form majority government either. However, the rise of minor parties and the number of three-cornered contests, especially in the bush, continue to make this election difficult to predict. However, at least one psephologist was willing to stick his neck out. Peter Brent in a blogpost for Inside Story predicted Labor will form government at the end of March. “I see a Labor government as more likely than not, and a majority Labor government more likely than a minority one,” he said.