LABOR’S Nick Champion has secured a fifth-consecutive term in federal parliament after becoming the first person elected to the newly-renamed seat of Spence on Saturday.
Mr Champion, 47, has represented the local community since winning office in 2007 – previously for the now defunct electorate of Wakefield – and again received overwhelming support from his constituents at the polls over the weekend.
Heading into Saturday’s contest with a seemingly insurmountable 17.2 per cent buffer, the long-serving Labor member had claimed 52 per cent of first preference votes as of Monday afternoon, with nearly 75 per cent of the votes tallied.
Liberal challenger Kathleen Bourne, who ran against Mr Champion in 2016, had collected 25.3 per cent of first preference votes, with United Australia Party’s Rod Fiedler (7 per cent), The Greens’ Daniel Jury (6.9 per cent), independent Nathan Herbert (5.5 per cent), and Animal Justice Party’s Rita Kuhlmann (3.3 per cent) falling in behind.
While Mr Champion was thankful to have received the support of his electorate, he agreed the victory was somewhat bittersweet given his Labor Party’s shock election defeat to prime minister Scott Morrison’s Liberals.
He said the party would have to enter “a period of retrospection and observation about the results” to determine why it lost what many thought to be an unlosable race.
“The good thing about democracy is that there will always be another election, so we’re going to have a look at what the Australian people are trying to tell us,” Mr Champion said.
“We failed to get the majority in the key seats that mattered, so there will have to be some lessons learnt.
“I think the Labor Party base liked our policy platform; I don’t think we’ve got a problem with our base vote.
“I think what we’ve got a problem with is winning what might be described as ‘middle Australia’, those people in marginal seats.”
Labor went to the election with promises to curb negative gearing and franking credit rebates, among others, subjecting it to an intensive scare campaign from the Morrison Government.
Mr Champion surmised his party’s policies may have been too “bold”, and attributed to the result.
“Australians are a pretty cautious bunch, and it might that be having a very bold agenda is not what people want in the first instance,” he said.
“I think they would prefer a more cautious approach to national politics, so we’ve got to factor that in.”
The fallout from Labor’s shock election defeat is already in full swing, with leader Bill Shorten resigning in the aftermath of Saturday’s result.
As of yesterday, frontbenchers Anthony Albanese and Chris Bowen had announced they would challenger for the leadership, while Joel Fitzgibbon and Jim Chalmers had also indicated they might run.
Deputy opposition leader Tanya Plibersek, tipped by many to throw her hat into the ring, declared on Monday she would not be nominating for the leadership.
Mr Champion said he would not be making a decision on who to support until all candidates had been announced.
“At some point I’ll flag my intentions once we know who’s running,” he said.