By Star Weekly
By Charlene Macaulay and Alesha Capone
Returning Werribee MP Tim Pallas has suffered a swing against him in the polls as the Labor Party stormed to victory at the weekend to reclaim government.
Wyndham’s three lower house seats look set to remain in Labor hands as the majority of seats in the west followed a statewide swing towards Labor, giving premier Daniel Andrews a second consecutive term in office.
Media representatives for Mr Pallas and new Tarneit MP Sarah Connolly refused to grant interviews with Star Weekly on both election night and on Monday, despite repeated requests.
Mr Pallas, who held a 15.3 per cent margin in the safe Labor seat coming into the election, currently holds 44.74 per cent of the primary vote with just over 76 per cent of votes counted.
Independent Joe Garra received 20.87 per cent of first preference votes, followed by the Liberals’ Gayle Murphy, who is currently sitting on 16.91 per cent.
Mr Pallas is currently 11.9 per cent behind on first preferences compared to his 2014 victory, thanks largely to the strong showing by
Dr Garra, a Werribee GP.
The final swing against Mr Pallas – reported by the ABC on Monday as almost 4 per cent – is expected to be determined later this week once all votes are counted and preferences are distributed.
Dr Garra said he would continue to advocate for Werribee and hoped to work with Mr Pallas to achieve more funding for the region.
“I’m very proud of the volunteers and humbled with the support I’ve received,” he said. “I’m really proud to have achieved a swing against a sitting ALP member, one of only a few Labor MPs who had a swing against him.”
With more than 65 per cent of the votes cast in Tarneit counted by Monday afternoon, Ms Connolly had more than 19,000 of first-preference votes (57.6 per cent), followed by Liberal candidate Glenn Goodfellow, who amassed more than 8000 first-preference votes (24.3 per cent). That represents a swing of more than 10 per cent to Labor and a 2.1 per cent swing away from the Liberals since the last election.
On a two-party preferred basis, Ms Connolly had 69.1 per cent of the votes and Mr Goodfellow 30.9 per cent.
Greens candidate Beck Sheffield-Brotherton gained more than 2300 votes (7.1 per cent) and Wyndham councillor Aaron An managed 721 votes (2.18 per cent).
Ms Connolly replaces former Tarneit MP Telmo Languiller, who retired following allegations he abused his parliamentary entitlements.
In November last year, when Star Weekly interviewed Ms Connolly after she announced her candidacy for Tarneit, she promised she would provide the area “a very loud” voice in Parliament. Ms Connolly, who lives in Altona North with her family, said she would consider moving into the Tarneit electorate if she became the area’s MP.
In the seat of Altona, incumbent MP Jill Hennessy has held on to her seat, securing 65.73 per cent of the primary vote with two-thirds of the vote counted.
Wyndham councillor Tony Hooper achieved 12.13 per cent of the primary vote.
