Victorian election 2022: Ali Cupper, Jade Benham in race for Mildura electorate

Nationals candidate Jade Benham leads the two-candidate preferred vote, reclaiming the seat from independent Ali Cupper.

11.30am Sunday

The Nationals have taken the seat of Mildura back from independent MP Ali Cupper.

With 79 per cent of votes now counted, Nationals candidate Jade Benham is leading the two-candidate preferred vote at 51.3 per cent to Ms Cupper’s 48.7 per cent.

Ms Benham’s lead narrowed overnight after pre-poll votes were counted, but Ms Cupper was still 917 votes behind at 11.30am on Sunday with just postal and absent votes left to count.

Ms Cupper has issued a statement saying “the trend suggests the Mildura electorate has made the decision to return to the big parties”.

Ms Benham is yet to make a formal statement. She is expected to speak after postal votes have been counted Sunday afternoon.

As the dust starts to settle on yesterday’s numbers, it is clear Ms Cupper lost the election on preferences. Labor’s huge backwards slide in Mildura may have cost her the campaign.

The independent won the count on first preferences, bringing in 34.3 per cent of the vote. Ms Benham gained 25.8 per cent of the primary vote, and Liberal candidate Paul Matheson brought in 19.4 per cent.

Labor’s Stella Zigouras polled just 6 per cent, an astounding drop from Labor’s 17.2 per cent at the last election that helped Ms Cupper to victory in 2018.

Ms Zigouras, a Mildura lawyer and daughter of former Labor hopeful John Zigouras, has been described in local media as “ghost” candidate. Her candidature was announced late in the campaign, and she had very little presence in the electorate ahead of the polls.

Speaking before the close of polls on Saturday, Ms Zigouras said it “may be the case” that Labor leader Daniel Andrews was unpopular in Mildura, “but he’s not the government. He’s not the party … The Labor government funded a lot of great projects up here”.

Ms Zigouras said she “couldn’t comment” on Labor’s failure to publicly release its $2 million master plan to upgrade Mildura Base Public Hospital, which was due in April.

“I think they are still considering what the plan is. They are still considering it for that reason. Without knowing what the plan is, it is hard to comment,” she said.

10.40PM SATURDAY

Mildura MP Ali Cupper has made a speech to her followers on Facebook, warning them “we’re headed towards a loss” as counting continues.

Results do not look promising for Ms Cupper, who would need a big margin in pre-poll votes over her rival, Nationals candidate Jade Benham, to win the seat.

“I just wanted to say to all my supporters, who I dearly love, ‘it looks like we’re headed towards a loss, but we have achieved so much and history will judge us well’.”

“This is not a concession speech, but I just wanted you all to be aware what we’re facing,” she said.

There are still 17,000 pre-poll votes to be counted in Mildura, and Ms Cupper would need a margin of 1500 votes over Ms Benham to win.

As of 10.40pm, 36 per cent of votes had been counted, with Ms Benham holding 54 per cent of the two candidate-preferred votes to Ms Cupper’s 46 per cent.

10PM SATURDAY

Nationals candidate for Mildura Jade Benham is holding her lead against incumbent MP Ali Cupper with 33 per cent of the vote counted.

As of 10pm, Ms Benham was leading the two-candidate preferred vote by 54 per cent to Ms Cupper’s 46 per cent.

One large Mildura polling booth was still to be counted, and no pre-poll votes had yet been counted. More than 51 per cent of voters in the Mildura electorate cast their votes before Saturday, including a large number of Mildura residents, whose votes brought Ms Cupper to power in 2018.

A spokeswoman for National Party MP Jade Benham said the candidate would not make a public comment until more votes had been counted.

Earlier in the night, Ms Benham said the Mildura electorate was “ready for change” and she had put everything she had into her campaign, but the results were “too close to call”.

By 10pm, the mood at Ms Cupper’s election night event at the Mildura Working Man’s Club had become withdrawn, and more locals appeared to be paying attention to the progress of the Australia-Tunisia World Cup match than the election results.

9PM SATURDAY

Nationals candidate for Mildura Jade Benham has taken the lead from incumbent MP Ali Cupper.

As of 9pm Saturday, Ms Benham was leading the two-candidate preferred vote by 54 per cent to Ms Cupper’s 46 per cent.

Ms Cupper, who indicated earlier in the night she was confident of a win, said she was still hopeful the numbers could change.

“We’ve still got the votes to count and we’ll wait until the final votes come in,” she said.

“We’re really proud of the work we’ve done in four years. We’ve changed the game for the electorate and we’ve run a campaign we’re really proud of.”

8PM SATURDAY

The mood is upbeat but nervous at the Mildura Working Man’s Club, where incumbent independent MP Ali Cupper’s campaign team has gathered to watch the results come in.

About 40 people were in the room on Saturday as early results showed Ms Cupper ahead of Nationals candidate Jade Benham on the two-candidate preferred vote.

As of 8pm, Ms Cupper held 51 per cent of the 2CP vote to Ms Benham’s 48 per cent.

Ms Cupper was leading first-preference votes with 33 per cent to Ms Benham’s 31 per cent. Liberal candidate Paul Matheson had polled 15 per cent of first preference votes.

Ali Cupper's campaign team has gathered to watch the results come in at the Mildura Working Man's Club. Picture: Else Kennedy

7PM SATURDAY

A punctured tyre and a stolen billboard have featured in a tight three-way race to win the northwest Victorian seat of Mildura, where counting is now under way.

The National Party, led by Swan Hill mayor Jade Benham, is fighting to recover the seat from independent MP Ali Cupper, who took the seat from Nationals’ Peter Crisp by just 237 votes in 2018. Liberal candidate Paul Matheson is also fighting for a chance to represent the electorate, where he has worked as a police officer for 12 years.

Speaking at a polling station in Mildura on Saturday afternoon, Ms Cupper said she was feeling confident that she would be re-elected for a second term.

“I’m feeling confident that hard work and results trump smear and slander,” she said.

During pre-polling this week, Ms Cupper’s husband Ben Cupper-Gross, who was handing out pamphlets for Ms Cupper, had a tyre on his car punctured. No charges have been laid in relation to the event. A billboard for Ms Cupper was stolen from the town on Robinvale earlier in the campaign.

Ms Cupper has also accused the National Party campaign team of “misinformation” after National Party candidate Jade Benham distributed election material claiming she had voted with the Labor Party 70 per cent of the time. Ms Cupper said her analysis showed she had voted with Labor 53 per cent of the time, and with both Labor and the Coalition 6 per cent of the time.

VEC volunteers help count votes for the seat of Mildura.

Ms Benham defended the information she had distributed on Ms Cupper’s record. “You can break down data as much as you want. It still shows Ali votes with Labor most of the time,” she said.

Voters canvassed at the Mildura South Primary School polling station indicated the results from the night would be tight.

Mildura local Yeshni Purchase said she was happy with Ms Cupper’s record. “Ali Cupper seems to be results-driven and consultative with the community,” she said.

Mildura resident Sedat Eren declined to say who he had voted for, but said education, the cost of living and generating jobs in the community had been his top concerns when casting his vote.

Nationals candidate for Mildura Jade Benham.

An education worker, who asked not to be named, said health was his top concern when he cast his vote. “We need to fund health properly, focusing on outer areas, not just Melbourne,” he said.

The first votes from the Mildura South Primary School polling station showed a respectable stack of first preferences for Ms Cupper, who polled well in the electorate’s urban polling stations in 2018.

Vote counting is under way in the north west Victorian seat of Mildura. Photo: Else Kennedy

As of 7pm, Ms Benham was in the lead of the vote count across the electorate, with about 51 per cent first preferences, compared to 18 per cent for Ms Cupper and 9 per cent for Mr Matheson.

Ms Benham said she wasn’t confident she would win the seat “but I’m satisfied with the campaign that we’ve run”.

Mr Matheson said he was “relieved” to have reached the end of voting. “We were up against a reasonably strong incumbent (Ali Cupper), and the Nationals have thrown everything but the kitchen sink at their campaign,” he said.

Asked whether media revelations in October that he had breached the Victorian Police Act and been demoted had damaged his campaign, he said he “wasn't allowed to comment”.

“Hopefully the real policies that we came up with for regional Victoria resonate with people, and we’ll see how the votes go,” he said.

THREE-WAY RACE FOR MILDURA

The Nationals are back for revenge in the northwest electorate of Mildura – four years after they lost the seat to independent Ali Cupper.

Ms Cupper, who is seeking re-election, unseated three-term Nationals incumbent Peter Crisp in 2018 by a wafer-thin 237 votes.

The electorate has a long history for its unpredictability: in 1988 it switched from National to Liberal control, before independent Russell Savage snatched the seat in 1996, famously holding it until 2006 when Mr Crisp reclaimed the seat for the Coalition.

This time around the Nationals are running a high-profile candidate in Jade Benham, the Swan Hill City Mayor from Robinvale, while the Liberals will be represented by former police officer Paul Matheson, whose candidacy has been under a cloud since media revealed he was charged with breaches under the Victorian Police Act.

Independent MP for Mildura Ali Cupper is fighting to retain her seat in 2022

There are 11 candidates on the Mildura ballot this year, including independents Sonya Brymer and ex-Mildura mayor Glenn Milne, Freedom Party of Victoria’s Philippe Brougham, Labour DLP’s Felicity Sharp, Labor’s Stella Zigouras, Angylina Zayn from the Animal Justice Party, Brad Stratton from Family First Victoria, and the Greens’ Katie Clements.

Bookies have the Coalition an outside chance, with the TAB paying $3.75 for a Coalition win against $1.25 for an independent triumph.