On the edge

By Melissa Donchi
MCEWEN MP Fran Bailey’s political future hangs in the balance this week as she hopes postal votes will save her job.
At the time the Mail went to print yesterday (Monday), Ms Bailey was trailing behind Labor candidate Rob Mitchell by less than one per cent of the vote.
On Monday the results from polling booths gave Mr Mitchell 38,787 votes and Ms Bailey 38,472 votes – a Labor lead of just 315 votes.
And with such a slim margin and postal votes to count, the seat may not be decided for two weeks.
Mr Mitchell is also waiting to find out about his future but says he is happy with the overall result, whichever way his personal fortunes may fall.
It has been an emotional few days for Ms Bailey having lost many of her parliamentary colleagues and facing defeat herself.
On Saturday night, Ms Bailey watched the election from her Healesville electorate office.
While cautiously optimistic, Ms Bailey became tearful when she conceded the Labor Party had won and spent the rest of the night with her ministerial staff who, along with the Government, have lost their jobs.
The Liberal Party’s Yarra Glen branch president and secretary of the McEwen Federal Electorate Committee John Lithgow said he was surprised by Labor’s victory on Saturday night.
“I never accepted the polls,” Mr Lithgow said.
“I thought it would have been much closer than it was.”
Mr Lithgow will be overseeing the postal vote in the coming week as an official scrutineer and said he expects Ms Bailey to increase her percentage through this process.
“I’m very hopeful Fran will get there,” Mr Lithgow said. “We usually do a lot better by postal votes.”
Ms Bailey wasn’t speaking to the media at the time the Mail went to print but Labor candidate Rob Mitchell shed some light on the nailbiting situation.
“We knew it was going to be very hard but we’re very happy with how it’s going,” Mr Mitchell said.
“We’ve had a 6.5 per cent swing towards us which is the biggest swing to happen in this seat,” he said.
“People really did make their choice and voted for the person who said they’d be there for the long term.”
Mr Mitchell is not expecting to get the results any time soon after hearing the Liberals will be asking for a recount.
“It has been incredibly close so we will just have to wait and see,” he said. “Any way we look at it, it’s a fantastic result.”
Greens candidate Steve Meacher said it would have been a very different result without Green preferences.
The Greens clocked up 8.6 per cent of the vote in McEwen with an increase in almost every booth across the electorate.
Ms Bailey was the first to attribute Mr Mitchell’s success to the strong Green vote in McEwen and Mr Meacher is just as forthcoming.
“If Rob Mitchell gets across the line it’s on the back of my campaign,” he said.
“Labor was elected on Green preferences and they are going to have to bear that in mind in office.”