WARNING: To all newborn babies.
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Run.
Run for your damn lives.
On Saturday March 23 an election will be held to decide who governs NSW going forward.
A few weeks later, most likely in May, a federal election will be held to decide who governs this great nation of ours.
Yes, folks, the election season is in full swing.
We've seen the first major sign of it locally this week with the NSW Liberals committing to build lifts at the Unanderra train station.
This comes after years of telling us it couldn't be done or why the greater priority was to build lifts in marginal seats that no-one will actually use.
It was the first real sign that the Liberals might take an interest in campaigning outside of Kiama, since naming a failed Shellharbour City Council candidate as their great hope for the seat of Wollongong,
*Insert monkey with its hands over its eyes emoji here.
(And for you Facebook or Twitter trolls out there that's not an error there is no actual emoji there, it's a joke)
You can actually bet on elections these days. Not sure why you would, but you can.
Anyway, Sportsbet has Labor $1.06 to retain the seat of Wollongong and the Coalition $31. That's ridiculously huge odds in a relatively small field.
Shadow Treasurer Ryan Park is an unbackable $1.01 to hold his seat of Keira.
Sportsbet have Gareth Ward still relatively safe of holding Kiama and so he should. The Parliamentary Secretary for Kiama and the South Coast (again, it's a joke not a typo) works that electorate to within an inch of its life.
Elections make politicians do crazy things. The presence of television cameras make politicians do crazy things.
I was editor of a paper when Tony Abbott bit into a raw onion, skin and all, for the cameras at the local onion processing plant in Tassie. It was one of the weirdest things I'd ever seen.
The Australian public agreed, thought Tony was a bit of a spud and he's career has had a bit of an onion smell ever since.
Happy election time, people.
Julian O'Brien is the editor of the Illawarra Mercury