Blue fades as Geelong region makes big move to red and green

THE rejection of what the Liberals were offering at the ballot box – particularly in pockets of Geelong where support is usually counted on – and an uprising in the Green vote have combined to increase Labor’s stranglehold on the region.

Internally, Labor saw the result in Corangamite coming. The contest on election night was over three hours after vote counting started.

The scale of the win, and a second term in federal parliament, for Labor’s Libby Coker should not be discounted. It was a stunning result in trying circumstances.

Held on a wafer-thin margin of 1.1 per cent going into the election, Ms Coker was determined through her campaign to offer a better future for Australia and for the people of her electorate.

Consumed with emotion at Labor’s election function at the weekend, her outward appearance reflected the toil needed to retain her seat. She now wants to channel that emotion into bringing care and compassion back to government.

The strength of the Liberal campaign in Corangamite was always going to be the extent to which it could translate Stephanie Asher’s popularity on the Bellarine into other corners of the electorate.

Ms Coker’s win, and the gap between the victorious and the vanquished, was most stark in the coastal towns.

Ms Asher was unable to get a majority at voting booths in

Ocean Grove, Point Lonsdale, Portarlington and Barwon Heads. Added to this is the rise in the Green vote in Corangamite, where the party gained about 2500 more firstpreference votes at Saturday’s election than it did in 2019.

The Australian Electoral Commission reports a 6.6 per cent rise in the Greens vote at Saturday’s election.

The unknown heading into the election campaign was how the thousands of people who have moved to Armstrong Creek and Mount Duneed would vote.

At Armstrong Creek, Ms

Coker’ two-candidate preferred vote was twice that of Ms Asher’s and her winning margin at Mount Duneed was about 400 two-candidate preferred votes.

At some booths in Corio, the Liberal Party did not bother sending volunteers to hand out how-to-vote cards. In the end it showed in the result.

Richard Marles won the two-candidate preferred vote about 64-36 but the AEC reports on first-preference votes he weathered a swing of 4.76 per cent against him.

The federal election result in Victoria that has sent the

Liberals into oblivion does not bode well for the state election that is less than six months away.

But, conversely, on a national level, Labor’s primary vote is the lowest it has been since early last century.

Among supporters at Labor’s Geelong election function at the weekend there was a sense of optimism in the air. That Anthony Albanese, the Aussie with an Italian heritage who grew up in public housing, could deliver for the country.

He will now have three years to do just that.