Stories and events of the Kaurareg homeland of Kaiwalagal, the Torres Strait homeland and Cape York homelands of the Anggamuthi, Atambaya, Wuthathi, Yadhaykenu and Gudang Peoples.
Thursday, 8 May 2025
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Matt Smith wins Leichhardt
Matt, his family and his team of supporters, including Queensland MP Michael Healy and Senator Nita Green, cheering for their big win on election night. Pic supplied. BY VELMA GARA In most polling booths across the Torres Strait and NPA, voters favoured Australian Labor Party (ALP) candidate Matt Smith as the new Member for Leichhardt in the federal election last weekend, as they did overwhelmingly in seats across the country. On Tuesday morning this week, the two-candidate preferred count for Leichhardt had Mr Smith at 57 per cent and LNP candidate
Jeremy Neal at 43 per cent. The first preference count for the division showed Mr Smith with 32,268 votes compared to Mr Neal on 22,850 votes. Mr Smith said he was grateful. “I give a huge thank you to the people of Leichhardt for putting their trust in me to represent them in the federal Parliament,” he told the Torres News. “It’s a massive electorate, and I can’t wait to get to the communities that make it up. “The Cape, the NPA and
the Torres Strait have a special place in my heart and I will be sure to listen to the communities that span the region and deliver for them as the Member for Leichhardt.” The Leichhardt seat was held for 26 years by the LNP’s Warren Entsch, who has retired. Nationally, the two-party preferred count showed the ALP with 55 per cent overall, and the Liberal/National Coalition at 45 per cent. The ALP’s Anthony Albanese
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was the first Prime Minister since John Howard, and Bob Hawke before him, to win back-to-back federal elections. Electoral Commissioner Jeff Pope said in the first two and a half days since the polls closed on Saturday, AEC staff had counted: • first preferences for 14.1 million House of Representatives ballot papers (including more than one million postal votes) • two-candidate-preferred counts for 11.8 million House of
Representatives ballot papers, • first preferences for 7.2 million Senate ballot papers, and • commenced or undertaken the delivery of approximately 1.3 million ballot papers back to home divisions for counting using around 4800 different transport routes. The count can be monitored on the Australian Electoral Commission’s website at https://tallyroom.aec.
gov.au/HouseDefault-31496.htm
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