Tony Windsor's ultimatum to Julia Gillard about coal-seam gas is deadly serious, he says, and his constituents are falling in behind him. Picture: Peter Lorimer. Source: The Australian
AN ILL wind has been blowing through the New England electorate in NSW since independent MP Tony Windsor decided to back Julia Gillard's minority Labor government after the federal election last year.
Storm clouds soon gathered around his support for her government's widely unpopular carbon tax and in the latest opinion poll the criticism of him rained down.
Since the election, Windsor's primary support has slumped from a summery 62 per cent to a rather more autumnal 33 per cent, according to a Newspoll conducted in his electorate last month.
But with revelations this week that he plans to "hold a gun to the government's head" over coal-seam gas exploration, a highly emotive issue among his many agrarian constituents, could all that be about to change?
Windsor has refused to back Gillard's $11 billion mining tax unless the federal government imposes tough new restrictions on the CSG industry.
The Australian
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