Bring on polling day

I reckon for value for money the Kororoit by-election is really more entertaining than the Gippsland by-election. Even though I’m closer to the Kororoit campaign I’ve been avidly watching the Gippsland campaigns. It seems the Gippsland campaign is really pretty straightforward. Although I still find the pitch by the Nationals is very strange.

Here we have the presumptive-Member for Gippsland, Darren Chester, talking about how Labor has neglected the people in the Gippsland electorate. How bizarre since the Nationals (and it’s predecessor) have held the seat since its inception in 1922, but what were the Nationals doing for Gippsland for the past 12 years? You know when Pete held the seat as Minister in the Howard Government, what did they do for the people of Gippsland then?

However, with the Liberals fielding a candidate it’s pretty much a safe bet that they’ll be swapping preferences with the Nationals. Labor will be relying on the Greens preferences, again. The inclusion of a candidate from the Liberty & Democracy Party (LDP) will prove interesting and is anyone’s guess as to where the preferences will go. But as I’ve said countless times already, it’s a by-election so strange things can happen. Just look at the shenanigans in the by-election campaign for Kororoit.

First there was the Liberals apparently just plucking a name out of thin-air and deciding that person was the candidate. The Labor Party decided to air its laundry in public once again with a very bitter pre-selection battle for a very safe ALP seat; obviously something the Suleyman’s thought they’d be a shoe-in for the cushy backbench seat. The Liberals have decided to lower their rhetoric about ‘law and order’ and have climbed aboard the Melton line electrification scheme.

But what’s interesting about this by-election is the strange rhetoric from the Liberals. They’re declaring a lot of money in election promises but the truth is that if they win the seat they still have no majority and can do nothing. And besides the ALP and Liberals regularly vote with each other on most Bills presented to the lower and upper houses.

But then the Kororoit by-election was always going to be quite strange given campaigning for the seat has only been happening for the past 2 weeks. The usual political commentators have declared that the ALP could lose the seat if the preferences situation is just right. But this is all based on a bunch of other assumptions. I do know that the scrutineering for the night will be fun to observe as the ALP scrambles to save their seat. If the ALP loses this safe seat it will be a major blow to Brumby and the Victorian ALP, and not necessarily a great triumph for the Liberals and Baillieu.

So bring on polling day!