MURRAY Plains incumbent Peter Walsh has retained the safe Nationals seat for a sixth term, with a massive 63 per cent of the first preference vote.
The Nationals leader secured 22,408 first preference votes to Labor candidate Damien Hurrell’s 6571.
After preferences, Mr Walsh amassed 73.7 per cent of the vote, with 26.3 per cent to Labor.
Mr Walsh outperformed Mr Hurrell at all voting centres in the two-party preferred count.
Mr Walsh thanked the electorate for their support despite sitting in Opposition for another four years.
“And I would also like to thank all the people who have given up their time to help us run my campaign in this seat,” he said.
“They have played a big part in my re-election and I am very grateful.”
Mr Walsh said more broadly, it had been a “strong” result for The Nationals, “who have showed the people of regional Victoria they can deliver”.
“Not only have The Nationals retained all our seats from the previous Parliament, we are confident we will be add Shepparton, Mildura and Morwell to that figure – and hopefully another seat in the Legislative Council.”
“A result which will also ensure The Nationals have a majority of strong, articulate and successful women in the party room – further demonstrating our party is in step with the community.”
The Coalition is expected have two MPs in the Upper House region that includes Kerang and Cohuna for the first time in four years.
With more than a third of the vote counted in Northern Victoria, current Liberal MP Wendy Lovell was on track to be first elected.
She was expected to be joined by The Nationals candidate Gaelle Broad, gaining a seat for her party.
Labor was set to lose one of their two seats, with Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes being returned.
The other two positions were set to go to Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell from Pauline Hanson’s One Nation and Georgie Purcell of the Animal Justice Party.
Tania Maxwell of Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party and Liberal Democrat Tim Quilty were not on track to be returned.
Total enrolment as close of rolls: 48622
Formal votes: 35587
Informal votes: 2236 (5.91% of the total votes)
Total votes: 37823 (77.79% of the total enrolment at the close of rolls)
First preference |
Vote % |
Votes |
Swing |
|
National |
63.0% | 22,408 | +2.6% |
|
Labor |
18.5% | 6,571 | -0.9% |
|
Family First Victoria |
6.1% | 2,187 | +6.1% |
|
Freedom Party Victoria |
4.4% | 1,571 | +4.4% |
|
Greens John Brownstein |
3.4% | 1,201 | -0.9% |
|
Independent |
2.5% | 884 | +2.5% |
|
Animal Justice |
2.1% | 765 | +2.2% |
