If you need any indication that there's an election just over 10 weeks away, you only need to look to Nowra.
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On Tuesday, the town - which sits right on the boundary of two up-for-grabs electorates - was graced by a pack of federal Labor and state Liberal politicians, who stood together by the side of a big road.
The Federal Infrastructure Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, Catherine King, joined NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet and the state Minister for Regional Transport and Roads Sam Farraway were there to announce an extra $65 million cash to undertake planning works for the Nowra Bypass.
Federal Labor Gilmore MP Fiona Phillips and the retiring Liberal Member for South Coast Shelley Hancock were also on hand.
The planning funding for the years-away project is primarily federal - with the Commonwealth funding (which came on top of $32 million already announced for a planning study) totalling $97 million to the state's $8 million.
However, with the March 25 state election looming, this was a minor detail for politicians battling for votes.
As a marginal voting area, Nowra and its surrounds are always popular spots on the campaign trail.
In fact, last April, for the first day of the official federal election campaign - when Prime Minister Scott Morrison was joined there by Liberal candidate Andrew Constance for a press conference promising $40 million to fix Shoalhaven City roads.
This Wednesday, Labor leader Chris Minns will head to the Shoalhaven too, to launch the opposition's pilot 'Build to Rent' program on the South Coast, and a make commitment to build a preschool next to Shoalhaven High School.
Wollongong MP Paul Scully, who will join Mr Minns for the housing announcement, acknowledged Nowra's place as a "bit of bellwether, at least for the start of the campaign" and said he expected it to be an important seat for both parties as they look to win government.
However, he said Labor's decision to head there this week was just part of the party's regular rollout of election policies.
"It's going to be a very tight election and every seat matters, the South Coast, the Illawarra, Western Sydney and other parts of regional NSW are priorities for Labor and we take those areas very seriously, and we will be campaigning strongly to try and secure a good result," he said.
Mr Scully said the Illawarra held a number of key seats for his party in the March poll.
"The seat Heathcote is the most marginal seat in NSW, half of which is in northern Illawarra," he said.
"We've got the seat of Kiama, with an uncertain future for the sitting member but a fantastic Labor candidate in Katelin McInerney.
"We've got South Coast, where the retiring Shelley Hancock means there's a fresh race there and in the seat of Bega, which Labor took for the first time in the history of the seat at the byelection, we'll be looking to make sure Dr Michael Holland is returned."
"If Fiona Phillips was the last person declared elected to give the Albanese Government a majority [at the May Federal Election], I'd welcome it if Katelin or [South Coast candidate] Liza [Butler] were the last person to give NSW Labor a majority government too."
Kiama MP Gareth Ward - who was elected as a Liberal but became an independent after he stepped aside from the party when police brought sexual abuse charges against him - is yet to confirm if he will recontest the seat.
He was not on the guest list for Tuesday's bipartisan Nowra Bypass announcement, but sent a statement highlighting his work delivering "more than $2 billion to upgrade the Princes Highway" and saying he was "the first local MP to raise this matter in Parliament and petition for the Nowra Bypass project".
With Mr Ward deciding if he will run as an independent if his sexual abuse charges - which he has vehemently denied - are not dropped or the case is not heard soon enough, it remains to be seen whether the Liberal Party will put up a candidate in Kiama.
But Mr Perrottet said on Tuesday that the "Liberal Party is going to win the seat of Kiama" and pre-selection was in the works.
"Ultimately these are matters for the party membership and the party executive and they are working through that and they will have the candidate soon," Mr Perrottet told the ABC.
The party is also campaigning strongly in the South Coast, with candidate Luke Sikora - Shelley Hancock's chief of staff - weighing in on the road project and saying he would continue his boss's "tireless work".