National first if new independent delivers in Indi
When Tony Abbott swept to victory in 2013, the member for Indi, Sophie Mirabella, was one of just two Liberals to lose a seat.
When Tony Abbott swept to victory in 2013, the member for Indi, Sophie Mirabella, was one of just two Liberals who lost their seats.
Six years later, the party considers the northeast Victorian electorate to be its best chance of regaining a seat in the state, where pundits on both sides of the political divide are predicting a net loss for the Coalition of between three and eight MPs.
The path to victory will not be easy for any of the leading candidates.
“Voices for Indi” independent candidate Helen Haines has a target of 32,000 primary votes written on the whiteboard at her campaign hub in Wangaratta’s Murphy Street.
The number is greater than the 31,336 primary votes her retiring predecessor Cathy McGowan received against Ms Mirabella in 2016. But supporters in all camps privately agree that in the absence of the “anyone but Sophie” factor, which delivered a large proportion of Nationals preferences and a 5.5 per cent margin to Ms McGowan, Dr Haines will need a higher primary.
Should the midwife and medical researcher be successful, she would make history as the first independent to succeed another independent in an Australian federal electorate.
But in an area where Liberal-National rivalries run deep, both Coalition partners are fighting hard to win back the traditionally conservative seat.
Following his preselection for the Liberals in December, Wodonga engineer and father-of-four Steve Martin visited 50 towns in 50 days in a bid to introduce himself to voters in the vast electorate, which stretches from Kinglake on Melbourne’s outskirts to the headwaters of the Murray River in Victoria’s far northeast.
Both Mr Martin and Nationals candidate and former Wodonga mayor Mark Byatt have received significant support from visiting frontbench colleagues, including deputy Nationals leader and new Wodonga resident Bridget McKenzie, who flirted with making her own move to the lower house but ultimately opted for the safety of remaining in the Senate.
On Wednesday night almost 300 voters packed Benalla’s Lakeside Community Centre for a candidates’ forum with Dr Haines, Mr Martin, Mr Byatt, Labor candidate Eric Kerr and Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party candidate Shane Wheatland.
All candidates had supporters but Dr Haines’s “orange army” had the greatest numbers and cheered loudly as she called for action on climate change and a ban on the Adani coalmine, 2000km away in Queensland.
Dr Haines dismissed Coalition criticism of links between Voices for Indi members and left-wing activist groups such as Get Up.
“GetUp never drove this campaign,” she said. “This campaign has always been driven by local people.”
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