One of the most talked about seats in the Federal Election is the inner city seat of Higgins in Melbourne.

The seat is said to be a tight three-way contest between the Liberal, Labor and Green Parties. Currently however Kelly O’Dwyer holds the seat with a comfortable margin of 9.9%

The campaigns run by Kelly and her two challengers have been quite stark in their differences.

Sitting Liberal Member Kelly O’Dwyer has concentrated her efforts on the end of town where she has the most support, and has strongly aligned herself with the anti-skyrail NIMBY group, brushing aside criticism that this is a state issue.

Looking at the O’Dwyer campaign it is clear that there has been no expense spared

Whatever anyone says about O’Dwyer you have to give it to her for sheer front. While many are screaming out for a Royal Commission into banks, Kelly has the NAB sponsor her fundraiser. While debate rages about negative gearing and housing affordability, Kelly has the real estate agents paying for her corflutes and advertising on them.

Just like O’Dwyer, Jason Ball of the Greens has had a lot of money and resources to throw at his campaign. While the Greens like to refer to the Ball campaign as a grass-roots campaign, nothing could be further from the truth. The campaign is a hugely expensive stage-managed production that includes billboards, and paid polling. The best grass roots money can buy it seems.

Jason himself is seldom heard from, instead Di Natale does most of the speaking for him while Ball stands beside him like a nodding mute. In fact given the amount of time Di Natale is spending in Higgins you could be forgiven for assuming the Senator from elsewhere knows more about the electorate than the candidate.

Ball seems to have placed an awful lot of emphasis on being a gay footballer, something I’m sure is a colossal demographic in his community.

At one point there was an alleged homophobic graffiti vandalism attack on Balls campaign office, a claim many take with a grain of salt big enough to need a fork-lift truck to lift. Balls and his campaign team could have gone to police and sought CCTV footage, instead they decided to go to the press and put the Greens PR machine into action gaining publicity and donation off the back of it. Many have recalled and spoken of Adam Bandt also seeking sympathy from alleged vandalism attacks during the campaign when he was first elected.

However another gay footballer, who actually played a higher grade of football than Jason is the Labor candidate Carl Katter. However Carl has chosen to campaign on issues that affect residents in the electorate instead of attempting to cash in on his sexuality.

Another thing Carl and Jason have in common is that Carl was courted by the Greens by Adam Bandt and Sarah Hanson Young before joining Labor in an experience he has described as eye-opening. Carl joined Labor however as he was interested in real policy progression and felt that Labor was the better fit on that basis.

If there is a grass-roots campaign of the electorate of Higgins by a major party it is Carls. No billboards for Carl, just a lot of legwork and trying to meet as many locals as possible.

Arguably Carl has been the most visible of the candidates in the community as opposed to on the TV and billboards and bus shelter posters.

Carl has stuck to the Labor positive policies and campaigned hard on them and of the major parties he is currently the only one campaigning on policy. The Greens focus being the protest vote and cannibalising the progressive vote of traditional Labor supporters while the Liberals concentrate on looking after the big end of town.

These are of course not the only candidates in the electorate, there are 8 candidates in total, a couple of which are seemingly just preference harvesters for the Greens. These Parties include Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party, Nick Xenophon Team, Marriage Equality Party, Liberal Democrats, and the Animal Justice Party.

With Fairfax publishing controversial polling commissioned by the Greens in a bid to rally support and gather momentum, I thought I would rock up outside pre-poll and do some exit polling myself and see how it stacked up with the results the Greens purchased.

I stood outside prepoll on a freezing morning last Thursday and asked 206 voters who they had voted for.

To put things into perspective, volunteer numbers handing out the how-to-vote forms for the candidates were approximately 12 Liberal Party volunteers, around 8 Greens volunteers, around 4 Labor volunteers, 2 Liberal Democrat volunteers and one from the Xenophon Team.

When I was there runners Robert Kennedy of the Liberal Democrats and Liberal sitting member Kelly O’Dwyer were also there to greet voters.

As for street exposure voters were greeted by a sea of blue and green corflutes with what appeared to be a childish and pointless competition to see who could put up the most A-Frames, and who could stumble out into the cold earliest to lock in the prime positions. While I was there  a member of the Greens team was constantly in the garden picking up signs as they blew over or chasing them down the street as they blew into parked cars, pedestrians and threatened to blow into oncoming traffic on a busy road. A worthy use of time and resources I’m sure.

The results of the count were as follows

• Liberal Party – 89
• Labor Party – 48
• The Greens – 23
• Hinch’s Justice Party – 4
• Nick Xenophon Team – 2
• Liberal Democrats – 2 (1 of these being the candidate himself)
• Nobody – 1
• Abstaining from disclosing their vote – 37

So what does this tell us?

Based on these results the Liberal’s Kelly O’Dwyer would appear safe.

My feel from most of those who abstained was that they were Liberal voters based on their behaviour and given several of them seemed to have long friendly conversations with O’Dwyer on their way out after voting.

While Greens and Labor volunteers spoke of the Liberals encouraging their elderly “rusted on” supporters to vote early at pre-poll to get in early, that was not my experience. The voters I spoke with seemed to come from diverse backgrounds and various sides of the electorate.

However what was interesting was some of the commentary from the voters. Most voters who voted Green or Liberal said they voted for Jason or Kelly, whereas Labor voters said they voted Labor rather than Carl.

Current issue that were mentioned by voters I spoke with as they emerged were

• Medicare
• Education funding
• Tax breaks for major corporations
• Trust/honesty in politicians
• Cost of living
• Changes to superannuation

Current issues that didn’t rate a mention

• Marriage Equality
• Asylum Seekers or boat arrivals
• Live Export

I found it odd that in an electorate which tends to lean hard in either direction that some of the left social policies didn’t rate a mention, whereas many of the right-wing voters came out citing left-leaning economic policy as a reason they voted the other way.

This weekend however Animals Australia will attempt to give the Greens a leg up with a hastily and last minute rally on live export. The rally is being promoted as a public rally although it is held on private premises. Expect much to be made of the candidates not in attendance despite less than two weeks notice for a single issue rally on the last weekend of campaigning before the election.

I’m sure there are many different takes on the result however mine would be this. Kelly O’Dwyer clearly has public profile on her side and therefore it makes sense that people know her and will refer to her by name. The Greens have spent enormous sums of money and used every kind of media they can to put Jason’s name out there, however while that has created some recognition it has not translated into votes. One wonders what a seemingly bottomless campaign bank account would have done for Carl Katter.

Other commentary included one Labor voter making the point regarding Kelly O’Dwyer

“How can you have a Minister For Small Business sponsored by the Big Banks?”

The Liberal Democrats voter said he voted that way because of their commitment to block the changes to superannuation.

One lady emerged came out and said she voted for none of them as she didn’t trust any of them.

This was a sentiment expressed by some Liberal and Labor voters alike, voters who said the Parties weren’t really speaking for them anymore however none of the alternatives had anything to say that resonated.

The most excited to vote that I spoke with was definitely those voting for the Derryn Hinch Justice Party. This could be seen as elation at having a viable alternative to the majors parties or the thrill of a protest vote.

One thing however that seems to be certain based on the voters I spoke with, Kelly O’Dwyer is highly likely to retain Higgins and remain a part of the Liberal Party’s  Ministry team.

Here’s to hoping it’s a Shadow Ministry.

 

EDITORS NOTE

The mentioned Animals Australia live export rally was cancelled the day before it was to be held after the Greens candidate, who had confirmed his attendance, said he couldn’t attend.

Apparently the other two parties who had agreed to attend don’t count for much, this is despite changing their plans to attend, as apparently the live export issue is not important enough to warrant a rally without the Greens attendance in the eyes of Animals Australia.

Nevertheless, due to Jason Ball and the Greens inability to organise a calendar, run a diary, or display even the most basic of time management skills, the other candidates, who were showing up to the event in good faith, have had their time wasted during a crucial point in their campaigns.

To those who donate to Animals Australia, you must be devastated to see your money thrown away and wasted booking and promoting an event only to have it cancelled for political reasons revolving around one Party.

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