NEWS DESK
Family ties to Liberal election eve complaints Neil Walker neil@mpnews.com.au
The swing is in: Labor supporters including Peta Murphy, front centre, and Labor state MPs Paul Edbrooke and Sonya Kilkenny all smiles at an election night party event at Pines Football Club. Picture: Gary Sissons
Libs likely, Labor has hope Continued from Page 1 The Coalition government went into the election holding 89 seats and is now struggling to reach the 76 needed to form outright government without the need to negotiate with independent MPs to form a minority government. ABC’s elections numbers cruncher Antony Green predicted the Liberals will win several of the 13 seats still in doubt but may not pick up the nine needed for outright government. Labor cannot form government on its own but could ultimately do a deal with The Greens and some independent MPs to form a minority government and install opposition leader Bill
Shorten as Prime Minister. On election night Mr Green said “absentee votes” yet to be counted in the southern end of Dunkley could tip the odds in the Liberals’ favour. Mornington and Mt Eliza have traditionally backed Liberal candidates while other areas such as Frankston tend to lean towards Labor in Dunkley. In neighbouring Isaacs a 1.9 per cent swing to Labor MP Mark Dreyfus saw him re-elected for a fourth time and see off the challenge of Liberal hopeful Garry Spencer who had hoped to overturn the incumbent’s 3.9 per cent margin heading in to the 2 July poll.
THE father-in-law of outgoing Dunkley Liberal MP Bruce Billson had complaints to the Australian Electoral Commission about alleged “misleading” union and Labor Party flyers handed out at polling booths dismissed by the independent electoral regulator. Arthur Ranken, the father of Mr Billson’s wife Kate, wrote to the AEC on 22 June demanding “election material” including posters and flyers urging voters to “put the Liberals last” and “vote to save Medicare” be immediately removed from Dunkley polling booths ahead of the weekend 2 July federal election. Mr Ranken did not disclose his Liberal Party membership or former official party office bearing roles when complaining to the AEC about unions engaging in “misleading conduct”. When asked by The News Mr Ranken confirmed he is a long-time Liberal Party member who has held “several” official party roles during the past few decades. “I certainly said [to the AEC] I’m a voter in Dunkley, but where I’m coming from [on this] is on my own. I’ve got my own views,” he said. Mr Ranken penned a similar complaint about “false and frightening information” at polling booths in six marginal seats during the 2014 state election in a submission to the Victorian Electoral
Commission’s post-election inquiry into electoral matters last year. In that submission, in July last year, Mr Ranken described himself as “a layperson” who “would be happy to discuss any aspects of my layman’s experiences at elections in greater detail if this would be of assistance”. In his most recent letter to the AEC late last month Mr Ranken said slogans such as ‘Vote to Save Medicare’ “create worry, uncertainty and fear”. “Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has been extremely clear in stating many times that Medicare under his leadership of the party will not be dismantled or changed,” Mr Ranken wrote. AEC chief legal officer Paul Pirani responded to Mr Ranken by email on 23 June to state “the AEC does not agree with your view that the material attached to your letter discloses any breach of the requirements of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 (Electoral Act)”. Mr Pirani advised Mr Ranken, citing previous court rulings, that the AEC cannot “regulate the content of electoral advertising but rather only ensure that electors are clearly informed of the source of that advertising” and ensure voters are not being misled to register an invalid vote that will not be counted. The AEC legal expert said in his email: “In the present instance, the electoral advertisements and HTV [how to vote] cards you have referred merely go towards the formation of the political judgment about how an elector will cast their vote rather than leading an elector
to cast an informal vote. “The AEC does not accept your characterisation of the ‘put the Liberals last’ message. Casting a vote which results in a candidate being put last (e.g. the last preference) does not result in an informal vote.” Mr Ranken told The News he maintains material distributed by unions such as Victorian Trades Hall and the ACTU at polling booths is misleading. “The whole thing is a shocking mischief and as far as I’m concerned a disgusting lie to create major upset and confusion among the people,” he said. Mr Ranken says the union movement made it clear online that it would replicate “their success” at this year’s federal election after its 2014 Victorian election campaign. “We had clear warning that this style of trouble was going to happen. “I see this as an attack on our democracy because it’s confusing people’s minds. “People are being lied to and the electoral commission should be running the election properly, but they’re not doing it.” Dunkley is a marginal seat with Labor hopeful Peta Murphy looking to win the seat for her party against Liberal candidate for Dunkley Chris Crewther. A swing to Labor in the weekend vote means the seat is too close to call. Mr Billson retired from politics after more than 20 years representing the Liberal Party and held the seat with a 5.6 per cent margin at the 2013 federal election.
Hunt safe, but support drops Keith Platt keith@mpnews.com.au GREG Hunt has been re-elected to the federal seat of Flinders, although his majority has been pared back to single figures. On the latest available figures Mr Hunt holds his seat with a majority of just over seven per cent. He won the previous election with an 11.8 per cent margin. When counting ended on Saturday night Mr Hunt was in the lead with a comfortable 56.9 per cent of the 78.6
per cent of votes counted. On preferences there was a 4.9 per cent swing to Labor’s Carolyn Gleixner, but Mr Hunt’s lead remains one of which many of his colleagues can only dream about. However, the combined efforts of Ms Gleixner, Willisa Hogarth (The Greens) and Ben Wild (Animal Justice Party) have succeeded in paring back Mr Hunt’s safe lead to single figures. But there is no way Flinders can be regarded a marginal as a result. The seat has been held almost continuously by the Liberal since 1972, with just one small blip, in 1983
when it briefly went to Labor’s Bob Chynoweth who defeated Liberal Peter Reith. On Sunday Mr Hunt said he was honoured to have been re-elected and now saw the government’s “task” as being to “deliver on our commitments and to fight for other inmportant projects in the electorate, such as development of the Rosebud hospital”. Mr Hunt was also “pleased to see Chris Crewther as the [Liberal] member for Dunkley”. Mr Hunt, 50, has held the seat since 2001. As Environment Minister he became
a high profile member of first the Abbott Coalition government and then that led by Malcolm Turnbull. However, his portfolio attracted a lot of attention, especially when it came to port developments likely to detrimentally affect the health of Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef and his approval of the multi-billion dollar Adani coal mine, also in Queensland. In his own electorate, the environment of Western Port took a back seat with the November 2014 election of the Daniel Andrews Labor government in Victoria and its decision not to proceed with an international container
port at Hastings. If the port had gone ahead Mr Hunt would have been called on to approve dredging works in the bay that environmentalists claim would harm internationally recognised wetlands. Over the past few years Mr Hunt’s office was often the focus of demonstrations, mainly criticising the government’s environmental and asylum refugee policies. Luckily, most of the protests did not deal directly with issues or involve voters within the Flinders electorate. A fact reflected in the outcome of Saturday’s poll.
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