Albury's Kiewa Street busy as pre-poll voting starts for NSW election

Labor's Marcus Rowland, the Greens' Eli Davern and Albury Liberal MP Justin Clancy stood in front of the Mate's Building for hours chatting to people intending to vote early for next weekend's NSW election, and shoppers just passing through.

NSW Electoral Commission Albury election manager Matt Mitchell said figures of pre-poll voter numbers would be released next Saturday.

"But it's been an extremely busy morning, a lot of people have passed through here today," he said.

Thurgoona student Darren Chao said he was usually too busy to go out on Saturdays so took advantage of the chance to get his vote in.

"I thought I'd have trouble getting to booths next weekend, I might not be in Albury anyway, so rather than try to do a postal vote I came in today," he said. "I did want to talk to the candidates anyway, there are a lot of things to talk about."

Labor candidate Marcus Rowland, just before midday, said he estimated more than 200 people had passed through.

"It's been brilliant, busier than I thought it would be at this time on Saturday morning," he said. "The amount of people that have been interested in having conversations, really getting into the policy debate, has been fantastic.

"With a week to go, we're really excited to see what happens, I think Albury is ready and in need of change, so it's exciting to see what happens."

At the 2019 state election, figures showed 8,465 people in Albury lodged early votes. The NSW Electoral Commission said the projected number pre-poll votes for next week's election was 10,500.

Liberal MP Justin Clancy, who had just participated in the Sunshine Ride to raise funds for the Albury Wodonga Regional Cancer Centre trust fund, said he was delighted to see people engaging with candidates.

"It's been really quite busy, Albury today is flat out with all the things going on, so it's great to see so many people out and about, and some of those people are taking the opportunity to vote this morning so it's just good to see democracy in action," Mr Clancy said.

When asked if people were focusing on any particular issue, Mr Clancy said: "Generally, people have been positive and there's a really good feel around the city at the moment and people talking about how Albury is very much a growing place."

Greens candidate Eli Davern said the key topic of discussion with people who were interested in his party's stance was rights for renters.

"In all the elections that I've done, I've never seen it so busy on the first a pre-poll," he said. "And the vibe has been really positive, people are coming up and having a conversation, people are actually quite interested in what the other parties are proposing.

"Rent is the key issue this morning, people just wanting to talk about rents, really long conversations about policy on this.

"My top three priorities are health, housing and climate. And people have been talking about that this morning, particularly health care and housing.

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"People, particularly older people, are talking about rent controls, and also how we need to control and regulate landlords.

"So there are some really key issues that people are talking about this morning that really aligned with what I'm proposing and what the Greens are fighting for this election."

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