RURAL politicians in NSW have scraped a pass mark on the whole from NSW Farmers' #StandUp4Farmers campaign.
The campaign included an option for people to "rate your pollie" online and give their local MP a score out of 10.
Today, after almost 4000 votes on the website since early February, the average mark for all MPs who have received more than 30 votes each is only 5.29 out of 10.
Campaign spokesperson and NSW Farmers chief executive Matt Brand said the number of people voting was encouraging.
“We don’t want farmers to be taken for granted in this election. "It’s important for people to stand up and be heard in the lead-up to voting day,” he said.
“Country NSW is an important economic contributor to our state and our way of life and that means we need to listen to what our farmers are saying. The more people who join the campaign the more influence country NSW will have in this election.”
The top 10 ranked politicians included Orange MP Andrew Gee with a score of 8/10 from 305 voters, Tamworth’s Kevin Anderson with 8/10 from 669 voters and Adam Marshall, Northern Tablelands with 8/10 from 228 voters.
Joining them were John Barilaro scoring 7/10 from 89 voters, along with Deputy Premier Troy Grant from Dubbo with 7/10 from 73 voters.
The poorest ranked politicians included Oxley MP Andrew Stoner with 2/10 from 104 voters and Pru Goward, Goulburn MP with 3/10 from 67 voters.
Mr Stoner is retiring from politics after this election and Melinda Pavey will contest the seat for the Nationals.
Graeme Aplin (Albury) and Adrian Piccoli (Murrumbidgee) all scored 4/10.
Premier Mike Baird rated 6/10 based on 35 people who ranked him.
Election day is Saturday March 28 2015.
Roderick Makim
Senior journalist for The Land.
Senior journalist for The Land.
