Larissa Penn: Liberal Tim James retains Willoughby, independent warns about postal voting

With the Liberals retaining Willoughby, independent candidate Larissa Penn has fired a warning shot about how our elections are run.

After conceding defeat in a tight electoral race, Willoughby’s independent candidate raised concerns about how the by-election was run.

Speaking to a group of supporters outside Chatswood’s electoral office, independent Larissa Penn warned “high speed” elections, heavily reliant upon postal votes, pose a threat to our democratic principles.

independent Larissa Penn after conceding defeat in the Willoughby by-election

Speaking to NewsLocal, Ms Penn said her concerns about how our elections are run cannot be boiled down to bitterness.

Ms Penn described the by-election as “very rushed” — she had only two weeks to pull together her campaign – and said early postal voting disadvantages smaller parties and independents.

“I’m not contesting this result because it was under Omicron conditions – something had to be done differently and I accept that,” she said.

She explained her concerns lie in the possibility of short campaign periods and early postal voting becoming the norm.

“I don’t think it’s in the spirit of democracy to rush an election through, where people don’t have the opportunity to know their candidates.”

Tim James, The Liberal party’s candidate, retained Willoughby. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

“I think you need a longer time period if you’re going to do postal voting,” Ms Penn said.

She described campaigns as a critical time for the community to know and engage with their candidates.

“That is fundamental to the democratic process,” she stated. “(Democracy) is not a ‘tick and flick’ exercise … and I didn’t feel this election really upheld those principles fully.”

“They shouldn’t have opened the voting so early — they should have allowed time for the candidates to actually be known and then open voting.”

Larissa Penn on the day of Willoughby’s by-election

Ms Penn said she believed minor parties and independents were hurt by the conception — echoed by many political commentators — of this election being about Gladys Berejiklian’s resignation and the Liberal’s choice of candidate.

“It was put in the media as Tim has been preselected to replace Gladys,” she said.

“I think in other by-elections, like Bega, it was more about an actual choice coming up, but here it was just presented as a foregone conclusion.”

“If we get to the point where we’ve just got one party that gets all the airtime that’s not really democratic, is it?”

Gabriella Ekins (L) and Lisa Champion (R) also raised concerns about the by-election.

Many of her supporters also voiced their displeasure with how the election was run.

Lisa Champion, who volunteered for Ms Penn, said they were up against impossible odds.

“On the day of the election, I had a lot of people saying they didn’t even know there was an election on. They were walking past the booths and were shocked to see it happening,” Ms Champion said.

Another volunteer, Gabriella Ekins, believed the short time frame made it difficult for Ms Penn to spread the word about her campaign.

“More media exposure would have helped enormously,” Ms Ekins said. “Everything felt stacked up us against us.”

“If there was more time, the outcome of the election would have been, in my opinion, totally different.”

Despite the loss, Ms Penn and her supporters celebrated what they achieved

Ms Penn told her supporters she was celebrating what was a “true community campaign”.

“Unfortunately, I can’t say that I got across the line — I’d like to congratulate the Liberal party and Tim James,” Ms Penn said.

“What I would like to announce though is we are most certainly now a marginal seat. The Liberal Party did not get the majority of the vote, so I think that is a very clear message from the people of Willoughby — that they need to be listened to and they also need to see action.”

This by-election saw the Liberal candidate, Tim James, suffer a 17 per cent swing against his party.

The closeness of this race surprised many — perhaps signalling change in what was once considered Liberal heartland.