Kristy McBain has cemented her position as the Labor member for Eden-Monaro by not only holding the seat but increasing her winning percentage in the two candidate preferred battle.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
In the previous election where Ms McBain was up against the Liberals Fiona Kotvojs the margin was 50.85 per cent against Dr Kotvojs' 49.15 per cent. However, in this election Ms McBain led in the two-candidate preferred battle by 58.95 per cent compared with the Liberals Jerry Nockles 41.05 per cent (at the time of writing there were about 8000 envelopes from postal voting still to be processed).
Ms McBain's increased percentage marks her out among many of her colleagues where although Labor may have won, the percentage win was down either due to The Greens or Independents taking a higher share of the votes.
In terms of first preferences Ms McBain took 43.7 per cent of the votes (37492) against Dr Nockles 32.29 per cent (27,702).
Ms McBain took over 70 per cent of the votes (two candidate preferred) in Braidwood Central, Central Tilba, Queanbeyan, Queanbeyan City Central, Tathra, Woden, Wyndham, but the small village of Tanja took the top slot at 86 per cent in Ms McBain's favour.
She polled consistently well across the Bega Valley including Merimbula, Pambula and Bega; in Eden Ms McBain polled over 53 per cent at the Eden booth and 56 per cent at the Eden Central booth.
READ ALSO:
Dr Nockles had some success in the Snowies with Adaminaby, Dalgety, Delegate, Khancoban and Nimmitabel but the population sizes were too small to make any impact.
In the race for Eden-Monaro, The Greens Vivian Harris was placed third with 8.93 per cent of the first preference votes (7664 votes) an increase of 0.15 per cent on the previous election.
Despite having 10 candidates to chose from, Eden-Monaro voters tended to go with either Labor or Liberals. Independent Andrew Thaler did not cut through in the electorate polling 1684 votes (1.96 per cent) but was in front of Informed Medical Options Party representative Toni McLennan who polled 781 voted (0.91 per cent) and Greg Butler of the Australian Democrats who received 561 votes (0.65 per cent).
They will lose their deposit, as will James Holgate (Sustainable Australia Party), Maxwell Holmes (Liberal Democrats) and Darren Garnon (UAP) as they did not receive 4 per cent or above of the vote.
Interestingly 3629 people chose to vote for Boyd Shannon of Pauline Hansen's One Nation despite him making no appearances at any debates, having no profile online and in fact leaving a question as to whether the candidate actually exists.
But the elusive Mr Shannon collected 4.23 per cent of the vote and so will be entitled to the return of his deposit.
READ MORE - something that's not the election:
Have your say. Send a letter to the editor using the form below
Sign up for our free weekly newsletter bringing you the best in local news
Our journalists work hard to bring you all the latest news and information. To support us please consider subscribing, which gives you unlimited access to ACM websites across the Far South Coast and The Canberra Times. To those who already subscribe, thank you. For anyone wishing to support the work we do, please subscribe by clicking here