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Tuesday 2 December 2014
5973 6424 or email: team@mpnews.com.au www.mpnews.com.au
Poll watch: Victorious Nepean MP, Liberal Martin Dixon, checks the vote count in Frankston where former Liberal, now independent, Geoff Shaw was showing early losses to Labor’s Paul Edbrooke and Liberal Sean Armistead. Picture: Yanni
Peninsula loyal to Liberals Keith Platt keith@mpnews.com.au THE Labor Party may have won government in Victoria, but the Mornington Peninsula stayed where it has been for years: solidly behind the Liberal Party. Saturday’s poll held no election surprises on the peninsula, with all three Liberal candidates being re-elected with safe margins. David Morris was back for Mornington with 62.39 per cent of the vote; Martin Dixon in Nepean, with 57 per cent; and Neale Burgess, Hastings, 57.67 per cent. While Labor made in-
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roads in all three seats – Mornington (3.8 per cent swing), Nepean (6.67 per cent) and Hastings (1.93 per cent) – the outcome never seemed in doubt. Nepean MP and Education Minister Martin Dixon, re-elected for the sixth time, said the main difference in voting patterns in his electorate had been “a bigger increase for the Greens”. He had won 18 out of 20 booths and expected his lead – 13.7 per cent ahead of Labor’s Carolyn Gleixner – to increase as pre-poll and postal votes were counted. “But it’s a small consolation when you lose government,” Mr Dixon said.
Six of his ministerial advisers would now be out of jobs. Mr Dixon said he would like Labor to complete the restructure of the Education Department, making it a “service to schools, not their manager”. “We were weaning schools off the department and putting resources back into them”. Mr Dixon said there was “no one reason” for the Coalition’s loss: “Nothing’s black and white in politics.” He said federal issues had made things difficult for the state government by not explaining its austerity programs.
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He had not seen any indication of the swing to Labor while working with Liberal candidates in marginal seats. “I was always buoyed by the reception [of voters] and their high recognition of our candidates,” Mr Dixon said. “In Frankston the Labor candidate [Paul Edbrooke] didn’t do much but unionists were out doorknocking and frightening people. “I had a positive sense we would win the election, it [the loss] was a bit of a surprise. “I had no sense people were out there with baseball bats.” Mr Dixon would not speculate on
who would replace Denis Napthine as Liberal leader: “The king’s dead. I’m just coming to terms with our loss and have been calling colleagues to see if they are OK.” Although former Labor premier Steve Bracks told ABC TV viewers on election night that the new government would have a look at the contract recently signed for a geothermal spa and accommodation-based project at Point Nepean National Park, Mr Dixon warned that ripping it up could lead to compensation being sought by the developer. Continued Page 12
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