By Corey Everitt
Incumbent Jason Wood will survive the Liberal Party’s nightmare election, but he will have to fight hard in three years, as La Trobe is no longer a safe seat.
With 98 percent of the vote counted, the AEC has Wood with an over 2 percent margin compared to Labor’s Jeff Springfield in the two-party preferred.
Formerly holding a strong 8 percent margin in La Trobe, Jason Wood has suffered an unexpected five percent swing against him.
“I congratulate Jeff Springfield, I thought he ran a really good campaign and he is a hell of a nice guy for his many years on council,” Wood said on election night.
Many have compared this election to Canada’s, only a few days prior, where conservatives were beaten by a wave of sentiment against the US Trump Administration.
Wood concurred with this opinion and called Trump’s return to the White House a “wrecking ball.”
“When Trump came to power, we thought it would be of assistance to the Coalition, little did we know it would end actually being a wrecking ball,” he said.
“I’m not saying we ran a great campaign, we didn’t, but it really hurt.
“I don’t think we had a good campaign, we give Labor the credit, they had a good campaign nationally and, I hate to say it, but so did the Prime Minister.”
He also pointed the blame at the Coalition’s return-to-office policy for the public service, which he referred to as “one of the dumbest policy announcements”. Though it was not intended to be, Wood said it became caught up in the notion of being unfair to working mothers.
“I had phone calls straight away from colleagues, and even myself, from professional women saying, why would you want us to go back when you want kids and family-friendly environments to work from?” Wood said.
Springfield, who was nominated right at the start of the campaign and had little resources to work with, said it was a “David vs Goliath battle”.
“I just love the support I have been shown from the community, and all the people I have spoken to in La Trobe over the last weeks, I hear them calling for a change,” he said.
“I hope this sets a benchmark for Liberal opposition parties in the future, to not be so negative and not try to work against the people of Australia.”
Though the Greens’ performance has been patchy amid the wave toward Labor, La Trobe candidate Jamie Longmuir looks set to increase the vote for the progressive side with an admirable 13 percent primary vote – a swing of more than 2 percent.
One Nation’s Leonardo Panetta also saw a swing of over 2 percent for the other side of politics, jumping to a seven percent primary vote.
Winning his seat while his party lost for a second time, Wood said the biggest loss is that his many local commitments cannot come to fruition.
