The Illawarra is bookended by two seats won by the Liberals at the last state election in 2019. Female Labor candidates are hoping to change that on Saturday.
Nearly 20 years ago, a picture of Katelin McInerney playing netball appeared in the pagers of this paper.
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Aged around 20, she was playing goal defence and had the name of her team sponsor, the Labor Party's then MP for Kiama Matt Brown, written across her uniform.
Her face shows exertion, determination and a strong competitive streak, as she towers over her opponent, stopping them from shooting for the goal.
"Goal defence is the last line of defence... you're the scrappy underdog and you're not up the glory end, you're working hard to get it back the other way," she says of her netball position.
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Now 38, she says she's long given up playing due to the equally demanding time pressures of her career and caring for her 2-year-old, William.
But, after eight months of campaigning to try to become the next Labor MP for Kiama, there's a different kind of exertion and determination etched into her features.
Her goal is to stop popular and long-standing local member Gareth Ward from keeping the seat he's held since 2011, but days out from the election there's no telling how the votes will fall. Kiama remains one of the most interesting contests in the state.
In his years in power as a Liberal MP, Mr Ward became a well-known local member, good at highlighting the wins he scored for his community, who strengthened his hold on the electorate and, at the last election, had a margin of 12 per cent.
However, there have been several developments since that complicate things.
Results from last year's federal poll show that, if voting was the same this time in each Kiama booth, Labor would win the seat.
But that doesn't account for Mr Ward's personal popularity - and it remains unclear how much that will be dented by him becoming an independent, and by the five indictable charges hanging over his head.
Last year, police alleged Mr Ward indecently assaulted a 17-year-old boy at Meroo Meadow in February 2013 and sexually abused a 27-year-old man in September 2015.
Mr Ward strongly denies the allegations and has pleaded not guilty to all charges, but has been suspended from parliament and the Liberal Party since they came to light last year. Both the Labor and Liberal parties have said they will move to block him from parliament again pending the results of the court case if he's elected.
Despite all this, insiders from his campaign team have said their polling shows he'll hold the seat as an independent, and - handing out how-to-votes in Kiama - Mr Ward remained confident and said he did not believe he would be blocked from parliament if elected.
"How dare the major political parties tell our electorate who they can and can't elect, and I don't think they're going to get their way," he said.
Ms McInerney says the "chaos" surrounding Kiama's state representation played a large part in her decision to run.
"The chaos we have seen from our opposition is the reason we got started so early - we knew we had a big job ahead of us, but that was the motivating factor for pushing as hard as we did to get in the field early," she says.
"I think it's disrespectful to be treating the seat in the way that some of the candidates have.
"They did not have clear candidates in the field until very late... and I really do feel like they're distracted from the job, they're not focused on here."
Endorsed last August, Ms McInerney has run a long campaign of door knocking and pounding the pavement to try and make herself known to an electorate which stretches from Albion Park to Nowra.
Her personal history is about as Kiama as they come - she went to Minnamurra Public School and Kiama High, was part of the surf club and various arts and sporting groups, and her parents are both long-time members of the Kiama Labor branch.
After school, she studied communications at the University of Wollongong and landed an internship at the Illawarra Mercury - this masthead - where her father Paul McInerney was the chief of staff.
She became the paper's education reporter, and - after announcing last week that Labor will fund long-awaited schools in Calderwood and West Dapto - laughingly remembers reporting on one story where it was thought that the new Tullimbar primary school was opening too soon.
"The people of Calderwood only wish they had that problem now," she says.
She left the paper in 2009 to work for the journalists' union, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, where she eventually become the first female national director.
She lived in Sydney, where she met her partner Brian Fearnley, and when she fell pregnant with her son William, the couple moved back to Kiama.
"I always wanted to be back here so he could go to school here and have the same fabulous experience growing up that I did," she says.
She's now a renter in her home town - locked out of the housing market like many others her age - and said the future of young people in the region was the other driving force behind her tilt at politics.
"It was the birth of Willy - he was not a good sleeper and I found myself awake at odd hours of the night just worrying about what's becoming of the system we live in," she says.
"I realised that if I really wanted to see change, I would have to step up and put my hat in the ring."
Ms McInerney stayed away from joining a political party to stay unbiased during her time as a journalist and union leader, but quickly joined her parents, Clare and Paul, on the local Labor branch on her return to Kiama.
After that, she says it didn't take long before she was approached to become a candidate.
"After some pretty heavy losses for Labor, we knew that we needed someone who looked like the electorate," she says.
"Someone young, invested in this community and raising their family here."
Even if she's not successful on the weekend, Ms McInerney says she's committed to staying as Labor's candidate for another run.
"I'm hoping that won't be necessary, but we're here and invested and building our life here," she said.
"It's lovely to be raising our kids alongside mates from school and uni, so I'm not going anywhere.
"We have knocked on almost every door in Albion Park, and in Bomaderry and North Nowra, and I think the feeling of wanting change is in the hearts and minds of people."
At the other end of the Illawarra from Kiama, another Labor candidate Maryanne Stuart, is hoping to unseat a long-term MP.
Like in Kiama, all eyes will be on the electorate of Heathcote on election day.
Unlike Ms McInerney, Ms Stuart is contesting her third election, and faces her best odds yet of winning the seat from Liberal incumbent Lee Evans.
Since her first campaign in 2015, Ms Stuart has chipped away at Mr Evans' margin.
It came down to 5% in 2019, and then a redrawing of the election boundaries to take in more of the northern Illawarra tipped the seat into being notionally Labor, with a 1.7 per cent margin.
She also goes into election day with her name at the top of the ballot paper, but still says she's not taking anything for granted.
"It feels different this time in a positive way - people are saying that after 12 years it's time to change the government," she said.
"This is what I've always wanted to do, so I just keep focusing on the 25th and hope that I get over the line because I've lived here for 52 years and I love the community and love the environment.
With her seat straddling the national park, Ms Stuart lives in Engadine with her husband Russell, and has two adult children Sarah and Max.
Before she started the campaign, she was working as the lead community organiser at the Australian Conservation Foundation - which she will return to if unsuccessful - and has previously worked for a number of Labor MPs and as an organiser for the ACTU and Public Services Association.
While she says there's a long list of Australian politicians she looks up to, Ms Stuart said she did not want to forget anyone, so named Jacinta Ardern as a political hero.
"She was so sincere, so personable and when she gave her notice in and a journalist asked how would you like to be remembered, she just said 'for being kind'," Ms Stuart said.
"I think that's my thing - I've been a community organiser for 30 years and I am quite personable, so if I'm elected I want to have an open door policy as an MP. I'll have the door open and the kettle on."
Among many community roles, Ms Stuart has been president of her local netball club and coached her daughter's team. Like Ms McInerney, she played goal defence and goal keeper.
As election eve approaches, she said her advice to the younger candidate facing the end of her first campaign was to "leave it all on the field".
"When it gets to Friday night, you want to be able to say to yourself that you've left everything on the field," she said.
"You want to know I've got nothing left in the tank and you want to be able to know that there's not a thing you could have given more, that you've given your all."
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Kate McIlwain
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
