Labor is Back in Hervey Bay
I guess it’s hardly surprising after a campaign that was dogged by gaffes, problems and personal tragedy that the coalition failed to make any real impression on the Labor government.
Late last night the leaders of the coalition parties were reduced to claiming that they were making an impression by wittling down the numbers in the seats they lost. Whether that’s a valid point of view or not the amount of wittling wasn’t much with the statewide swing to the coalition being insufficient to even get them close to victory.
Here in Hervey Bay the National’s lack-lustre campaign seemed to indicate right from the start that the party thought the seat could not be taken away from Andrew McNamara. If there was any television advertising done for Hervey Bay I missed it and there didn’t seem to be much effort by any candidates to get out and ‘press the flesh’.
I even wonder if the coalition entirely misread Hervey Bay. We’re not really a rural seat at all and the people who are moving to Hervey Bay are not coming from rural electorates so why does the coalition think that people would be prepared to vote for the National Party at all?
Older voters who have come here from the southern states well remember the Joh era and it may not be something that gives them any inclination to vote National now. At the same time I wonder if either party really understands that many of us might like to see a local member who was really interested in Hervey Bay and genuine Hervey Bay issues.
We certainly have plenty of them but most of them were not covered in advertising before the election and the sitting local member seems more interested in making a name for himself in Brisbane than getting down and dirty fighting for issues that are important to the people of Hervey Bay.
I would have thought that if anyone with a serious party machine behind them had really tackled local issues then a 4% swing against the sitting member was definitely achievable. That didn’t happen and so our local member will continue to be Andrew McNamara
