The safe Liberal margin in the electorate of Cook and lack of a Labor candidate meant Simon Kennedy claimed almost 63 per cent of the primary vote in Saturday’s byelection.
Thanks to their behaviour in the lead-up to and aftermath of the Dunkley byelection,the leader and deputy Liberal leaders risk being cast as the toxic twins of federal politics.
The Land and Environment Court has backed Frensham girls school plans to build a “bush campus” in an area linked to wombats,koalas and platypus.
Simon Kennedy,who was backed by Tony Abbott,beat local mayor Carmelo Pesce by 158 to 90 votes in the final round of voting.
The focus of both major parties for the Dunkley byelection was fairly trivial. Let’s hope they can do better for the looming federal election.
Sutherland Shire Mayor Carmelo Pesce voted to sell land to a developer with whom he had declared a conflict of interest five months earlier.
If the Dunkley byelection was a protest against Labor,the protesters failed to show up.
The Liberal Party is claiming a moral win in the Dunkley byelection – but moral victories don’t deliver government.
The final votes are being cast in what’s billed as a crucial litmus test for the government and opposition.
Voters delivered a warning to the prime minister on the cost of living – and a rebuff to Peter Dutton and his goal of winning the suburban electorates needed to retake government.
The swing against the government showed Peter Dutton tapped into a real frustration with Labor over the cost of living,but nothing like the force that some of his allies predicted.