As the leaders prepare to blitz battleground electorates around the country, you can expect to see both sides spend plenty of time in New South Wales, which electoral analysts say will be the most important state to watch. While much of the focus will be on the mortgage-belt electorates of western Sydney, a number of other contests are also expected to be close.
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00:00New South Wales will be front and centre this election because this state has the most battleground
00:09seats. It's also where households have been hit the hardest by the cost of living crisis.
00:14And to cap it off, the electoral landscape here has changed after boundaries were redrawn
00:20and the seat of North Sydney was abolished. The number of seats in the lower house has
00:24dropped by 1 to 150. 46 are in NSW, including 15 on margins of 6% or less. Around two thirds
00:34of those belong to Labor, including Bennelong in Sydney's north west, which has recently
00:39turned notionally liberal due to that boundary revision. It's also now the most marginal
00:45in the state, on a wafer thin 0.04%. On the south coast, the Labor held seat of Gilmore
00:53is also in play, on a minuscule margin of just 0.2%. And while the coalition is under
00:59pressure in the regional seats of Cowper and Kilauea, one of its toughest contests is expected
01:05on Sydney's North Shore, where Liberal frontbencher Paul Fletcher is retiring, leaving Blue Ribbon
01:11Bradfield under threat from an Independent. This race is seen as a test of the Teals.
01:17They maintained the momentum of 2022 when they swept up six usually safe Liberal seats.
01:24But the toughest test this year is for the major parties. They need 76 seats to form
01:31a majority government. Notionally, Labor has 78, the coalition 57. With opinion polls predicting
01:37the possibility of a hung parliament, this election could come down to a single seat
01:43and this state could provide the path to victory or defeat.