ANOTHER YEAR
Geelong voters were spared from heading to the polls, but not the antics of a restless electorate
YOU would think 2017 would be the year for relative political tranquillity.
Sandwiched between a federal election year in 2016 and a state election year in 2018, Geelong voters were spared from heading to the polls to select their representative in Spring Street or Canberra.
Yet we live in electoral times of constant upheaval: fuelled by a restless electorate; the unforgiving nature of social media and particularly this year, pesky citizenship papers.
First to fall were Greens senators Larissa Waters and Scott Ludlam followed by One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts and National Party senator Matt Canavan among others.
Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce was the highest profile casualty and due to his Lower House position had to recontest his New England electorate. He easily won and former tennis champion John Alexander was re-elected to his Bennelong electorate in similar circumstances weeks later, a welcome boost to embattled Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
Geelong’s two federal representatives — Corangamite MP Sarah Henderson and Corio MP Richard Marles — sat on the citizenship saga sidelines but that hasn’t precluded them from hitting the headlines.
Ms Henderson drew national attention in February after she made comments criticising the “social curse” of gambling in her electorate, despite owning shares in pokies company Aristocrat. The Liberal MP announced the following month that she was “in the process of divesting all my shareholdings”. However, that process had not been completed when the Geelong Advertiser followed up the issue in December.
The Corangamite MP also revealed in April that her “power couple” relationship with state Liberal MP Simon Ramsay was over.
The couple met during Liberal Party preselection for Corangamite in 2009, with Mr Ramsay, then the Victorian Farmers Federation president, nominating alongside Ms Henderson and four other contenders.
For the Labor frontbencher, controversy came with a distinctly Chinese flavour.
Mr Marles backed Senator Sam Dastyari’s assertion that he did not breach national security, while repeating Labor’s call for a ban on foreign donations.
Sacked in 2016 for his alltoo-friendly links to China, Dastyari went under the griller for a second time after reports he told a Chinese Communist Party-linked political donor that his phone might be tapped by Australian and US agencies.
Much like the Monty Python parrot, Dastyari’s political career has ceased to be and he is now an exsenator.
The federal duelling duo also created some poignant moments. Mr Marles wrote movingly about the influence of his father, Donald, and Ms Henderson spoke eloquently about her late friend’s dying wish for same-sex marriage to be legalised. That wish was fulfiled. With the nation’s Upper House refusing to approve a poll booth plebiscite on samesex marriage, the PM triggered a postal ballot on the issue.
The ABS survey was issued to households across the Geelong region in September with one resident attempting to sell his vote for the princely sum of $50.
Both the Yes and No camps rallied for their cause through photo opportunities and leafletting but the campaign was reasonably subdued in the Geelong region.
The Geelong regional result released in November exceeded both the national and state level of support for changing the Marriage Act.
In Corangamite, 71.6 per cent of respondents voted in favour of same-sex marriage and in Corio 67.7 of people voted ‘yes’.
At a state level, Coalition MPs Andrew Katos and Mr Ramsay in February advocated for the speed limit to be raised along the local section of the Princes Freeway as well as the Geelong Ring Road. The State Government initially rejected the proposal but in August, State Roads Minister Luke Donnellan indicated a potential change of heart.
The state Coalition looks set to make the 110km/h change an election issue with little movement from Labor following Mr Donnellan’s initial comments. An election year may change things.
Which brings us to the Geelong Convention Centre.
Premier Daniel Andrews assembled several of his ministerial colleagues at Deakin University in mid2016, a glistening Geelong waterfront used as the picturesque press backdrop.
The Labor leader promised that the “time for talk was over” and that a business case would be delivered by the 2017 state budget.
With the deadline rapidly approaching, the Premier sent out Regional Development Minister Jaala Pulford to deliver the bad news.
The Convention Centre was on the back burner yet again. The time for talk was only just starting with an election year gearing up.
State Opposition Leader Matthew Guy proposed a Greek-style overhaul of an extended waterfront precinct if the Coalition wins next year’s state election. The Coalition leader said he wanted to build on the Kennett Government’s work at Steampacket Place in the 1990s to encompass a longer, revitalised waterfront from the
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