A FUNNY thing happened on the day this election finished – it suddenly got very interesting.
After battling one another for the past six weeks in a safety first campaign more about lowlights than highlights, the battle for more than 11 million votes has suddenly come down to a battle for maybe four, five or six votes.
Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott must now up the ante in order to win over the independents and a sole Green, and so now the hunters have become the hunted as they face off to a group of men with far more cunning, insight and political nous than those who court their vote.
Back on the home front, the result is a lot clearer, we just do not know whether Steve Gibbons will sit on the back of the government benches or not.
So what do Elmore, Junortoun, Laanecoorie, Mandurang, Marong, Newbridge, Redesdale, Strathdale and Tylden all have in common?
These are the polling booths Liberal candidate Craig Hunter won.
What about Castlemaine North and Guildford? These are the booths where Greens candidate Kymberlie Dimozantos finished ahead of Mr Hunter.
It’s worth noting that in 2007 when the Greens finished ahead of yours truly in the primary vote at Guildford, they requested the two-candidate preferred vote be between them and Mr Gibbons. The AEC declined.
But in an electorate where Labor’s Steve Gibbons emerged a clear winner, Ms Dimozantos’ performance runs a close second.
Having captured more than 12 per cent of the primary vote, Kymberlie’s preferences have gone straight back to Steve Gibbons, but it is the impact on the Senate vote that sets this result aside as something extraordinary.
Anyone who followed the Greens’ how to vote card – and there were roughly 10,000 of them here in Bendigo, has helped propel the Greens into the balance of power.
The biggest swings for Mr Gibbons were in White Hills and St Laurence Court, both just a fraction over 10 per cent, while for Mr Hunter, the Melbourne absentee vote swung 5.97 per cent, Tylden 3.83 per cent and Malmsbury 2.62 per cent.
The electorate’s biggest booth was Kyneton, where 3251 votes were cast, with Mr Gibbons recording a solid 5.84 per cent swing.
Significantly, Mr Gibbons won in Strathfieldsaye with the benefit of a 1.6 per cent swing, and in Maiden Gully with a swing of 5.51 per cent swing. He won Strath Hill with 52.2 per cent of the vote and picked up a swing of more than 7.3 per cent. These are all booths the ALP would not normally expect to win – but they did as suburbs and neighbourhoods that were once considered relatively conservative crumbled.
It’s going to take a swing of 10 per cent to wrest the seat of Bendigo back off the ALP – and that could take a long time.
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