By Colin MacGillivray
Saturday’s state election heralded a changing of the guard in the north of Melbourne region, with Labor’s Ros Spence elected to the newly-created seat of Kalkallo and Lauren Kathage all but assured victory in Yan Yean.
Labor will form government again in Victoria, and of the four women elected to represent across the region, three are Labor members – Ms Spence, Ms Kathage and Mary-Anne Thomas who was re-elected to the seat of Macedon.
The Nationals’ Annabelle Cleeland will follow in the footsteps of the retiring Steph Ryan in the seat of Euroa.
While Daniel Andrews has vowed to see out the four-year term as Victorian premier, Liberals leader Matthew Guy has stepped down as party leader following the poor performance at the polls.
Ms Spence, the former Member for Yuroke, will represent Beveridge and Wallan as part of her new electorate, while Ms Kathage will represent Wallan East, Wandong-Heathcote Junction, Donnybrook, Whittlesea, Yan Yean, Wollert, Mernda and Doreen in Yan Yean.
Ms Spence stormed to victory in Kalkallo, recording more than 55 per cent of the primary vote and two thirds of the two-candidate-preferred vote with about 65 per cent of the vote counted yesterday afternoon.
The Liberal Party’s Bikram Singh garnered about 23 per cent of the primary vote.
Ms Spence, who was elected as Member for Yuroke in 2014, said she was honoured to become Kalkallo’s first representative.
“It is an interesting seat for me, having represented half of it previously and now having the new areas of Beveridge and Wallan,” she said.
“With some of the issues I’ve previously had in Craigieburn, I can see many of them are going to occur more and more in Beveridge and Wallan with the growth they’re experiencing.
“I want to use my experience to make sure that with the growth, we’re on top of what the community’s needs are so it gets the infrastructure that’s important.”
Ms Spence said her first priorities would be to follow through on election pledges by securing funding for a Hume Freeway diamond interchange at Wallan’s Watson Street and stage one of the Greenhill Recreation Precinct development.
“I want to make sure we get the funding for those in the budget because they’re really important,” she said.
“I also want to talk to the community more. I did a lot of that during the campaign, but it has always been a priority of mine to communicate with the electorate as much as possible, because that’s how you know what advocacy you need to do as a member.”
Ms Spence said she believed there would be ‘more opportunities to get things done’ with Labor holding power at both state and federal levels.
“I’m excited and honoured to have the opportunity and I’m looking forward to getting stuck in and having great things happening in the area,” she said.
As of yesterday afternoon, Ms Kathage had a lead of about 1800 votes on a two-candidate-preferred basis over Liberal Party candidate Richard Welch, with about 53 per cent of the Yan Yean vote counted.
While the ABC, The Age, Channel 9 and other news outlets projected Ms Kathage as the winner of the seat, she yesterday declined to speak on the record to the Review as the result was not yet official.
The Victorian Electoral Commission website showed Ms Kathage had received about 42.3 per cent of the primary vote, with Mr Welch receiving 35.5 per cent.
The results represented an 11.7 per cent swing away from Labor compared to the 2018 state election, although the Liberal Party had disendorsed candidate Meralyn Klein prior to the poll, leading to a landslide Labor victory.
Ms Kathage will replace long-serving Labor Member for Yan Yean Danielle Green, who has retired from state politics after 20 years representing the electorate.
