Whether Cathy McGowan wins her audacious bid for the seat of Indi, unseating veteran Liberal Party frontbencher Sophie Mirabella, the message to every other sitting MP will be the same.
McGowan — who now has a 1449-vote lead in latest counting, after 1000 “misplaced” votes were discovered yesterday — told ABC News Breakfast today:
“We knew people had felt they were being taken for granted. It was called a safe seat, [the parties said] there was no feeling in the electorate that things needed to change … but in the electorate there was that feeling. It was clear to us that neither Melbourne nor Sydney, the Liberal and Labor Party headquarters, were thinking of us …
“You take a seat for granted, you stop listening and you stop giving us policies that work for rural and regional Australia and people are going to say, ‘it doesn’t work for us’.”
Nobody is safe, if a good rival puts up a decent fight. Which is exactly how it should be.
I was a scrutineer in a Brisbane booth on Saturday night. The AEC official there expressed concern when two votes were missing and as scrutineering we had to agree to refer it to AEC rather than recount. The question is: how the hell were 1000 votes ‘misplaced”? Finding these votes doesn’t just put pressure on Mirabella, it raises questions about the AEC as well.
Absolutely correct. I live in an electorate where the voters appear to be taken for granted. “Rusted on Liberals” as they say. People should read the “Give me back My Country” by David Flint and Jai Martinkovits. The book sets out s strong case to make our politicians at all levels accountable on a 24/7 and 365 day basis. It was interesting to read a USA article this morning about the application of the ‘Recall’ principle.
The ALP leadership (lack thereof)is the opposite of the old quip, “two bald men fighting over a broken comb” except in this case they each want the other to have it.