Apart from Leigh Sales, I may have had the most enjoyable federal election of any journalist in the country.
Admittedly the bar was set pretty low with this election and us voters, I must say, didn’t exactly contribute our fair share of excitement to the proceedings, or at least we haven’t yet but let’s see.
Forrest incumbent and chief government whip Nola Marino was not just victorious Saturday evening but weathered the swing against the Liberals with a downturn I understand to be a minuscule less than two per cent. Congratulations also of course to Rick Wilson in O’Connor.
It was a good weekend for Marino: on Sunday her beloved Harvey Bulls turned in a commanding performance to claim the Harvey Cup against the HBL Lions in a riveting game of football.
Senior journalist Andrew Elstermann quipped to me “Is there anything she can’t win? She’ll probably win the bloody meat raffle after the game.”
Having seen Nola in action from the footy to the campaign trail to Anzac Day at Yarloop, I’ll go one further than a meat raffle and say this: Nola Marino for PM.
If we are to have a Liberal prime minister, I want a dynamo like Nola talking policy and footy and shoes with Barack and Michelle. Australians deserve no less. Lobbyists begin!
Anyway, apart from making ourselves Liberal Party kingmakers, how did the Mail do on election day? Results are in.
With five papers in the South West straddling the electorates of Forrest and O’Connor, we had a lot of ground to cover – 879,648 square kilometres to be exact.
We managed to visit quite a few polling stations throughout the day, more than twenty per cent of the ones in Forrest, where we met candidates and politicians from all the major parties and some of the not-so-major ones. I meant “straddling” above.
We also met voters, a lot of them, and they were not shy about letting us know what issues were motivating their decisions.
We broke some news, cleared some things up, got some exclusive pictures we’re pretty happy with, made some friends and generally had a good chin-wag with everyone we encountered. A good weekend for a journo.
This is the moment to extend a sincere thanks to everyone who spoke to us yesterday and thanks for the gossip and very warm welcomes we received. We keep secrets….
Sausage sizzles are a big part of any election, of course, and unlike some we ate our democracy sausages the way we bit into election day: starting at one end and finishing at the other.
After extensive economic analysis the Mail can report that the sizzle index was sitting at $3 in Bunbury.
In the electorate of Canning, our Mandurah colleagues reported the index was at $2.50 and suggested we were being ripped off. What they fail to realise is the premium we are only too happy to pay in the South West because of the superior quality of our food and hospitality.
The big election news for me was a change of electorate: I am now a proud Forrest voter and I couldn’t be happier.
The change was easy and the effect was immediate: I walked into the Bunbury Primary School and said I had to vote in a different electorate. A very kind woman showed me to a table where another very kind woman began to do the paperwork. The atmosphere was of kindness.
When I explained that I had recently moved to Bunbury but hadn’t updated the electoral roll, she simply asked me in which electorate I would like to vote and, when I said Forrest, of course, she updated my record then and there. No further action is required and the rolls will be updated automatically. I folded correctly and was done.
If only everything worked like this! A huge shout-out to the good people of the Australian Electoral Commission who actually do make democracy possible. Bravo, and thank you on behalf of a free press.
Now the only thing left to sort out is how to get Leigh Sales to marry me.
– Jem Hedley (I’m available, Leigh)
