Emma Husar happy and humble to be the victor in Lindsay
THE bookies had her over the line but Tony Abbott’s ‘sex appeal’ Fiona Scott has been pipped at the post by Bill Shorten’s champion Emma Husar in a nailbiting finish.
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THE bookies had her over the line but Tony Abbott’s ‘sex appeal’ Fiona Scott has been pipped at the post by Bill Shorten’s champion Emma Husar in a nailbiting finish.
The win represents a 4.59 per cent towards the ALP from the 2013 election.
But new Macquarie Labor MP Susan Templeman, who ousted the Liberal party’s Louise Marcus in an upset victory, was not surprised Labor had big wins in Western Sydney, saying what all the polls failed to pick up is the impact of local concerns and issues.
Labor’s Lindsay campaign was fought strongly on three issues: Gonski, Medicare and the state of Nepean Hospital, which Ms Husar long claimed had been “brought down to its knees” by the Liberals.
“Education was a big thing,” said Ms Husar, who has been hitting the hustings on crutches.
“We have a large family population out here with young children and they’re invested in their kids’ futures.
“We have people reliant on Medicare and bulk-billing.”
A heavily pregnant pre-poll voter from Cambridge Park told the Penrith Press: “It’s head and heart.
“I changed my mind in there — practically (she said pointing to her belly) it’s health, it’s education ... but we’re landowners, so there’s the impact of capital gains.”
Ms Husar, who was at the Penrith cricket club with her supporters and family when news of her victory broke, said: “I always knew it was going to be a tight finish, so I was always cautiously optimistic.
“It (the campaign) was hard work but now the real work begins.
“I’m really humbled and very proud to go represent our community.”
Electoral Commissioner Tom Rogers said that, at this election, Australian voters experienced the most significant changes to voting in 30 years.
This, in combination with record nominations in some seats, appears to have resulted in voters taking greater care and more time to cast their vote.
Pre-poll voters had also commented to the Penrith Press that they had taken longer inside the polling booth, adding they felt voting was confusing and that it didn’t help that preferencing information wasn’t made available online.
Perhaps reflecting people’s confusion and their disillusionment, Lindsay recorded a high 10.79 per cent of informal votes this election.
The electorate has been a honey pot for the big players in this heavy eight-week election campaign, with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten both claiming victory in Lindsay was “critical” to winning the election.
Such was the interest in the knife-edge marginal seat that #emmahusar and #fionascottmp both took it in turns to trend on Twitter’s Trendsmaps.
In a last-ditch bid to woo the voters, both candidate’s leaders surprised voters with visits at the poll booths yesterday — the PM stopping in at Penrith South Public School, to man the sausage sizzle, and Mr Shorten was at Bennett Road Public School in Colyton.
‘I give a Gonski’ later tweeted a photo of the PM helping principal Kerrie Beeby on the barbecue at Penrith South Public with the comment: “She would like it a lot more if you didn’t cut the school’s #Gonski funding”.
Ms Husar said she was told similar things by people at the polling booths.
“I’ve got coeliac disease, so I’m just jealous of anyone who can have a sausage,” she joked, adding she wasn’t aware of the social media attention aroused by Mr Shorten eating his sausage sandwich sideways.
“I only ate a cake with him,” she said.
Asked what’s next, Ms Husar said this morning: “I’m basking, I had a lie-in this morning. But now I have to go do some work.”
Ms Husar’s party has pledged $88 million to allow the Stage 4 upgrade at the hospital in Kingswood “to start immediately”.
“If we go into Opposition Government and the Malcolm Government and the Liberal Government take control I may need to wrestle them,” Ms Husar told the Penrith Press.
“It’s my job now, if we have opposition, to keep (Penrith MP) Stuart (Ayres) accountable, quite frankly.”
Ms Husar, who is still wearing a leg brace, will undergo a knee construction in two weeks.
“Imagine how much better I’ll be on two legs!” she quipped, adding “it’s the worst injury I’ve had playing basketball in 28 years.”
“There’s been a lot of pennies about ‘having only one leg to stand on’,” she said.
At the last count, Ms Husar had received 32,844 (41.91 per cent) of the primary vote, to Ms Scott’s 30,540 (38.97 per cent).
They have received 40,438 and 37,929 of the two candidate preferred votes, respectively.
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