By Nick O'Malley
SURROUNDED by supporters in Noreen Hay's campaign office in Warrawong, a southern suburb of Wollongong, Kristina Keneally looks like some sort of alien.
The Premier towers over the little crowd assembled to watch her cut a ribbon and open the office. She is better coiffed and better dressed. She fizzes with energy. ''She has,'' says one observer, ''that American skin. It's just better quality.''
Kristina Keneally opens Noreen Hay's office.Credit: Wolter Peeters
Hay grabs Keneally's arm and starts introducing her around, not by name but by union affiliation.
''MUA, MUA, USU, Miscos,'' she says, indicating to volunteers eager to shake the Premier's hand. Here, in this room, Keneally is a hero.
Steal city ... Barry O'Farrell and John Dorahy meet local Alex Bradotti in Fairy Meadow.Credit: Wolter Peeters
Next door at Fins Fangs 'N' Feathers, a pet supply shop, three staff vow they'll never vote Labor again, though the reasons they give are libellous.
The bloke behind the counter over the road at Warrawong Discount Tobacconist and Ice Creamery says of the government: ''It's a joke. It's a soap opera.''
Wollongong and Keira - seats built on steel, coal and stevedoring - are Labor to their bootstraps.
Labor has been well organised here and could always count on bodies turning up to booths on election day, something the Liberals have struggled with.
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All that's changed. Yesterday the Opposition Leader, Barry O'Farrell, was in town promising extra hospital beds, nurses and even a community garden. He and his team have been shuttling up and down the highway into Labor heartland for weeks.
According to Iris polling published the week before last, Hay, who has a 25.3 per cent margin, is now neck and neck with a popular independent, the outspoken Reverend Gordon Bradbery.
The same poll predicted Labor would suffer a 24 per cent swing in Keira, with Ryan Park - anointed by the outgoing member, his former boss, David Campbell - losing to the former rugby league star John Dorahy.
Across the Illawarra the poll predicted a catastrophic swing of 21 per cent.
It is not hard to fathom the discontent. The region's industrial air is thick with Labor scandal.
On its northern fringe the member for Heathcote, Paul McLeay, quit his ministerial post after being pinged cruising internet porn. Keira's Campbell quit politics after being filmed leaving a gay bath house.
Further south in the seat of Kiama, the Labor MP Matt Brown was dumped as police minister after allegedly dancing in his underwear over Hay at a party in his office.
Which brings us to Hay herself. She lost her job as parliamentary secretary for the underpants affair, but her reputation also took a battering over the bribery, sex and property scandal that enveloped the Labor council in 2008.
Hay was referred to the Independent Commission Against Corruption, but cleared of any wrongdoing. She has since given evidence to the ICAC that has been contradicted by Lylea McMahon, the Labor MP for Shellharbour who quit the seat after a single term.
One in three of Wollongong's youth remains unemployed, and the scars from the development scandal still mark the city - vacant sites on main drags, half built towers decaying behind cyclone fencing, empty shops in malls.
In her office after the Premier's visit, Hay is keen to concentrate on her victories - moving a local bus stop, setting up a free shuttle bus for the elderly.
In the face of the Opposition's new focus and her own party's recent history, it does not seem a lot to boast about.
''If the Liberals don't win one this time,'' says the Wollongong University academic Greg Melluish. ''I don't see how they are ever going to win one of these seats.''