LIBERAL MP Roma Britnell has been re-elected into the Victorian Parliament for the South-West Coast with an emphatic turnout in her favour at the polls, though her party did not share in her victory.
Ms Britnell won the first preference count in every single booth on election day for a total share of 42.95% of the vote, collecting nearly double the number of early votes than anyone else, securing a 10% increase in primary vote, and stretching her margin to 8.4%.
She has pledged to continue to be a “fierce” advocate for the region in her fourth term in opposition.
It was not the close race with either Labor’s candidate Kylie Gaston or Independent Carol Altmann that some expected – the contenders had been visited by metropolitan media for portraits and profiles in the last week of campaigning, but ultimately the seat barely got a mention on the election night coverage.
Early voting numbers were slightly down from last election, with 47% of the 53,099 enrolled voters casting their ballot ahead of Saturday.
Votes from 82.8% of the roll have been already counted, as absent votes and postal votes continue to roll in, while 2370 (5.4%) of votes have been struck out as informal.
From the very early stages of the count though, it was clear that the incumbent had done nothing but gain votes, even in areas where she had not been previously as popular.
Most of the first preference booths were won by Ms Britnell by a significant margin, including the three Portland booths, widely considered Labor heartland for the electorate and had all been won by Ms Gaston in the previous election.
By the raw numbers, Ms Britnell was number one on the 378 of the 1011 election day ballots cast at the Portland Drill Hall, 129 from 373 at the Scout Hall and 172 from 490 at the South Portland Hall.
She did better in the surrounding area, collecting 45% of the primary vote in both Heywood and Narrawong, 41% in Narrawong and 56% in Nelson, and was favoured by more ahead of Ms Gaston in the two-candidate preferred count.
In the two-candidate count in Portland, Ms Gaston managed to amass a bigger share through preferences in four booths, South Portland Hall and Portland Scout Hall (by three votes) as well as Port Fairy and Warrnambool South West, while the rest were with the incumbent.
There remains an outside chance of Ms Gaston being overtaken by Independent Carol Altmann, with just under 15% of the primary vote, as the best-faring challenger in the preference count, as was the case in the Federal Election count earlier in the year.
If this is the case a good number of Ms Gaston’s 8783 primary votes would be expected to go to the Independent over Ms Britnell, which may narrow the margin but would be unlikely to affect the result.
As for the rest of the candidates, Independent James Purcell’s first preference vote more than halved from his tally in the 2018 election to reach 6%, Jim Doukas received just over half his 2018 vote at 4.2% this year, Thomas Campbell and The Greens continued to drop away with 5%, and none of the rest made it to 2%.
Speaking with the Observer on Sunday, Ms Britnell would not be drawn into congratulating herself, nor had she given herself a day off, saying the outstanding result was a reflection on her doing the job.
“I didn't have any expectations, I believed the right thing to do was to work very, very hard, to put my electorate first.
“I just really believe that if you do the best you can possibly do and be as committed as I am to this region then the voters will let the rest happen, and that's what's happened here,” she said.
“I’m not interested in surprise or shock or anything like that, I'm just respectful of what the voters decide.
“I know that sounds ridiculous, but it is what it is.
“I just believe that people know what they want to vote for, and I respect their opinion.”
Ms Britnell said South-West Coast residents could expect her to be a diligent hardworking advocate for their issues from the opposition side of the lower house chamber.
As well as her campaigning endurance, Ms Britnell chalked her victory up to the returned Labor Government’s lack of attention to the regions, particularly regarding health services and roads.
“We've got a government who had forgotten about regional Victoria, that is a problem.
“It’s not about safe seats, we've proven that – this wasn’t a safe seat and we still got ignored.
This is about a government who are city centric and need to be reminded how important the country is to the state and I will just be even more strong, more committed and more fierce about reminding them of that mistake.”
As for her own party, Ms Britnell said she was still taking stock of what the next four years would look like with similar numbers, and was not yet willing to make comment on the situation.
She fared among the best of senior Liberals, and behind former party leaders Michael O’Brien and now Matthew Guy, she holds the second highest margin of any Liberal who has been in Parliament for more than two terms, as the party looks to elect a new opposition leader.
When asked about the gains made in other areas of the state by her Nationals Party colleagues, Ms Britnell said their success was “important.”
“I can only comment on me and what I believe is the right way to be a good local member, and that is to make sure you at every possible activity that goes on in your electorate, talk to people every day who are living in the electorate work in the electorate, raising children in the electorate.”
“That's the best way for me to stay in touch and I'll continue to do that.
“That's why I'm at the Jericho Cup today in Warrnambool, it's a big event, and so it's important to be here and talk to people.”
Gaston calls time
Kylie Gaston said she was disappointed to have lost ground, but is happy that Labor was able to hold Government and fulfill the promises she made during her campaign.
Ms Gaston received 21.13% of the first preference vote, and as of Monday at noon was still in second place with 41.8% of the vote after preferencing.
It was clear to her that she would not be elected well before the preference count results began to roll in later in the night and into Sunday.
“Roma's primaries really won over, that's what you need to win, you need primary votes,” she said.
“I think the preference flow was going quite well, but I didn't have enough primaries and that's the bottom line of it really.”
“It was such a great choice of Independent’s and Labor, but it seems like the seat definitely went more conservative than ever, and not like a lot of the other parts of the state.
“I’m not sure what we could have done differently, except having a bit more money to campaign with would have been good.
“Apart from that I've knocked on nearly 1000 doors, so we tried, I won’t die wondering.”
Ms Gaston ruled herself out of recontesting the seat at the next election, but said she thought it would not be out of Labor’s reach despite Ms Britnell’s improved position.
She said it was a small mercy to not have to wait long to know her fate, allowing her to turn her attention to celebrating the overall Labor victory.
“It means the Gymnastics club, the childcare centre for Portland, cheaper rail prices, free kindergarten for three and four year-olds, the tech school in Warrnambool is all going to happen, and I'm thrilled that they've got that mandate to continue having a big vision for the future for the state.”
Altmann happy with her efforts
First time Independent candidate Carol Altmann, perhaps in the wake of Alex Dyson’s success in the Federal Election earlier in the year, had been receiving favourable attention as the most likely challenger for the seat.
She said that while the ultimate goal of course was to win, she was “extremely pleased” with the 14.87% of the vote that she amassed, and may yet come in second place if preferences go her way.
“I know that sounds odd, but given all the things that were supposedly impediments to me, the lack of profile outside of Warrnambool and Port Fairy…given the strong anti-Dan sentiment down here, and given the late arrival of two other independents into the race.”
“All those factors combined plus the fact that I was running entirely on my own steam, not backed by a group or a movement or anything like that, so all those things combined I think to get 15% first preference of my first go is really, really satisfying.”
She said it was particularly pleasing to outpoll Labor in some booths, including five of the eight in Warrnambool, as well as a good result in Port Fairy, but the overwhelming support for the incumbent was undeniable.
“Under different circumstances, without that strong anti-Dan stuff going on and without the other Independents coming in and perhaps splitting the vote up, there might have been a different outcome in terms of my first preferences, but overall it was quite clear that the seat has gone back conservative.”
The “anti-Dan factor” was very obvious to her at the voting booths and Ms Altmann said the impact it had on the result was not to be discounted in the South-West Coast as well as other regional electorates.
She thought that as well as herself, the disdain for the Andrews Government helped unexpectedly unseat sitting rural Independents in Mildura and Shepparton, where a large amount of funding and attention has been paid in the lead up to the election, but ultimately fell back into the hands of the coalition.
“On the pre-poll, just talking to people, the most common thing I heard was either ‘go Carol’ from my supporters, or “we need to get rid of Dan’, and a lot of those people were just grabbing a Liberals card and moving straight through.
“The emotional aspect of this is the part that's really hard to measure because there's that post-lockdown, post-COVID, the anti-Dan, the feeling neglected, that sort of stuff that's operating here.
“You’ve got that also up in areas where independents have been delivering, but at the same time there is still that swing back to the conservative base.
“I think I can only put it down to the anti-Dan stuff, because if it was based on delivery and projects and things you think [their vote] would be strengthening.”
Ms Altmann said considering this, she was satisfied with her efforts and is currently weighing up her future as to whether she returns to independent journalism or continue to engage from inside the political world, and even said there might be a book to be written about the election campaign of a regional Independent.
