America’s worst mass shooting in Las Vegas, half a world away from rural New South Wales, could be the sleeper issue that saves the NSW Nationals from defeat in two byelections this weekend.

The Nationals are facing an existential threat in Cootamundra and Murray, two of their safest state seats, from the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party.



Theoretically these are safe National seats. The Nationals won Murray in 2015 by 22.7% over the independent and Cootamundra by 20.4% in a contest with Labor.



But that was before the gloss went off the Berejiklian and Baird governments following unpopular policies such as council amalgamations, rising electricity prices and the ban on greyhound racing.



Buoyed by their success in the Orange byelection last year, the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party (farmers were added to the name in 2016) have fielded prominent locals to spearhead their campaigns in both seats.

They hope to replicate their success in Orange and snare two more lower-house seats, giving them a total of three, which would make them a much more serious force in NSW politics, particularly if they can hold them at the next election, which will be much closer.

In Murray, Helen Dalton, a prominent local farmer who is active in NSW Farmers, is taking on the former mayor who also served as administrator of the Murrumbidgee council, Austin Evans. Evans is replacing the former education minister Adrian Piccoli, who was regarded locally as a good minister but criticised for not putting the issues of his electorate forcefully enough.

Dalton ran as an independent in 2015, winning 18% of the primary vote, but was soundly defeated by Piccoli. The switch to the Shooters is proving a doubled-edged sword. On the one hand it brings campaign expertise and name recognition but also policy baggage.

The Nationals are making the most of this baggage with a letter sent to homes across the two electorates from the former prime minister John Howard and his Nationals deputy, Tim Fischer, warning that a vote for the Shooters party could risk another Port Arthur-style massacre.

The letter says the Shooters’ first priority is to “fundamentally weaken our existing firearms laws”.

“In light of recent world events it is clear that these laws have worked well for our ­country. We can’t take a risk on a party with such dangerous policies.”

An open letter from the former prime minister and deputy John Howard and Tim Fischer defending the post-1996 gun laws.

Dalton told the Guardian that the Nationals were trying to muddy the waters by raising America’s gun laws when Australia’s were much better.

But Shooters’ policy is to scrap the 1996 national firearms agreement brought in by Howard after the Port Arthur massacre. They also oppose a federal register of firearms and support semi-automatic weapons being available to farmers.

At a local forum in Deniliquin this week, one voter reportedly said: “The Shooters? I would have voted for you, Helen, as an independent.”

But Dalton is on a winner with her uncompromising stance on water rights. At meetings in Griffith in 2016, farmers burned copies of the Murray-Darling Basin plan to vent their anger.

“I will be urging NSW to pull out of the Murray Darling Basin plan,” she said. “It’s all about three or four marginal seats in South Australia. The proposal to take out another 450 gigalitres will have major impacts.”

Evans, who works for irrigation company as an engineer, responds by saying: “I don’t think anyone wants the basin plan but then there is reality.”



He promises to represent the concerns of local irrigators to the decision makers in a way he says the Shooters cannot do.

He has also pledged to move a private member’s bill to reverse the declaration of the Murray Valley national park, made by Labor in 2010, which has prompted the closure of local saw mills harvesting river red gums. Another 150 direct jobs could go soon if logging is not resumed.

If the betting markets are to be believed, Evans is slightly ahead in Murray. He is priced at $1.72 to $2.10 for Dalton on Sportsbet. But polls in the local press say Dalton will romp in with 70% of the two-party preferred vote.

Then there is the smear campaign that has run in the dying days of the campaign, alleging Evans as council administrator awarded a contract to design the new logo for the merged council to Piccoli’s wife’s graphic design firm.

The council’s general manager, Craig Moffitt, has denied any involvement by Evans, saying the decision was taken by council staff because it was below the threshold that required the administrator’s decision.

In Cootamundra, another smear campaign surfaced with allegations that the Nationals had sought to get funding for a mental health nurse at the cluster of schools where candidate Steph Cooke’s husband is principal. Never mind that Young has some of the highest self-harm rates among young people in the state.

It is not clear who is the source of the smear campaigns.

Steph Cooke, the Nationals candidate in the Cootamundra byelection, with retiring MP Katrina Hodgkinson. Photograph: None

But combined with the hangover of Baird policies – notably the unpopular merger of Gundagai and Cootamundra councils – Cooke is facing an uphill battle against Shooters’ candidate, Matthew Stadtmiller, who enjoys a high profile as the owner and editor of the Twin Town Times and as a former councillor on the Harden shire council.

“As somebody born and bred in Harden-Murrumburrah, and who’s served on the forcibly amalgamated Harden shire council, I know first-hand what it’s like when the National party abandons rural people,” Stadtmiller said when he announced his candidacy. “Until last year’s Orange byelection, families in country towns didn’t have a strong, electable alternative to the National party. That stops today.”

The other factor in both byelections is the decision of Labor and the Shooters to swap preferences.

Labor’s Charlie Sheahan is running on a campaign based mainly on electricity prices and health, another issue biting in the towns.

The Nationals are urging a Vote 1 only strategy, which is permitted in NSW, which has optional preferential voting.

How effective the Labor-Shooters preference deal will be remains to be seen but there is a good chance that Stadtmiller, even if placed second, could get over the line with Labor’s help.

The ABC election analyst Antony Green said that 52% of preferences exhausted in the Orange byelection – but, for parties that urged voters to allocate preferences, the numbers were higher.

Sportsbet has Cooke slightly behind Stadtmiller with just days to go.