@David1955 You DO realize, don't you, that the GREATER Majority of the Voting Public ACTUALLY reside along the Coastal Regions of Australia and NOT in the Remote or Rural Regions?
For example, Broken Hill has ALWAYS been known widely as a Labor Town, its present population is approx. 19,000, add in the townships within a 50 Kilometre radius of B.Hill and you MAY, with aq very LONG stretch break the 19,500 tally IF you have a good enough imagination that is.
Most Rural Properties around here consist of a family, i.e. 2 Adult parents, and perhaps between 2 and 5 children/young adults or Grown Offspring.
Yes, many Sheep Cockies ( Sheep Farmers) DID once vote National Party, some still do, but many that I know have seen the ruination that the LNP is and has been capable of and have since changed completely to ALP or the Greens, etc.
Imo, IF you want someone to BLAME then START at your OWN Backyards rather than those who live and TRY to survive in the Lands that Politicians Choose to Forget UNTIL Election Times.

@David1955 I was born, raised and have lived for almost ALL of my 67 years of life, my mother, her mother, her mother was born here.
My maternal Grandfather was born here as was his father, they both worked on the Silverton Tramways, one as a Fireman first, then a Loco Driver, then as Station Master, the other, his father, was a Fireman, then a Driver before taking up the job as Pumping Station Attendant at the Tramways Dam which supplied water for the Locos, the Marshalling Yards, the Workshops and BOTH Railway Stations, Sulphide Street and Galena Street as well BEFORE N.S.W. DECIDED to start shipping in Water by Train from the Darling River.
My maternal links to Broken Hill go way way back to the turn of the 19th. century-20th. century, on the European Settler side of things that is, FAR, FAR longer on the Indigenous Australian side of thing Heritage wise though.
My paternal Grandfather was born in Victoria, left to come to Broken Hill in 1907 with his wife and family, was killed in a Mining Rock-fall on the British Mine in late 1917, leaving his wife 2 sons and a daughter behind.
My father left school to get work to support his mother and siblings at the age of 12 years, he was born in Victoria in June, 1905, he worked his way up from a 'Surface Roustabout' to a Trainee Underground Miner, then, whilst still educating himself, he became a Registered 'Powder Monkey,' Leading-Hand of a Mining Crew, a Qualified Member of a Proto' Gang, ( Underground Fire and Rescue Crew/Gangs) which he later also became a Trainer of as well.
So my history with B.Hill IS a VERY, VERY long one and approx. 2 years longer than yours can EVER hope to be.

@David1955 There is LEARNING about Aussie History and Politics, etc, in School and THEN there is LIVING through and with it as well being on the Front-line so to speak.
You WROTE a 'Thesis' on our local Unions and the Rise of Unionism here in Broken Hill, did you?
Did YOU actually come up here and interview anyone, the REAL Old Timer Hillites though or was just by researching in libraries, etc, while staying in the comforts of the University/Universities?
No matter how low the popularity of the ALP may sink, it will still manage to repair itself and re-emerge eventually, so don't write them off just to, imo, curry favour with your Liberal-National Party Friends and Colleagues.

Like family, you can't choose work colleagues.