Comparing House of Representatives and New South Wales Elections
No two elections are ever exactly the same. This point is even more valid when comparing state and federal elections, given the different responsibilities of the two tiers of government. Even more notes of caution must be added when trying to draw implications for the 2003 state election by examining results of the 2001 House of Representatives election. The 2001 campaign was fought in the wake of the 'Tampa incident' and the September 11 terrorist attacks. Both issues were federal rather than state responsibilities, and were also deviations from the domestic economic issues that had dominated politics for most of the Howard government's second term in office.
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