By Corey Everitt
Incumbent Jason Wood is likely to survive the Liberal Party’s nightmare election, but he will have to fight hard in three years as La Trobe is no longer a safe seat.
With 97 percent of the vote counted, the AEC has Wood with an over 2 percent margin compared to Labor’s Jeff Springfield in the two-party preferred.
Formerly holding a strong 8 percent margin in La Trobe, Jason Wood has suffered an unexpected six percent swing against him, so far in the count.
Depending on overall results, Wood could be the only remaining Liberal MP in Melbourne after voters overwhelming ditched other incumbent Liberals and ignored their renewed attempts to take seats in the inner city.
There is still some counting to be done, however, Springfield is likely to have achieved the biggest challenge against Wood since the 2016 election, where his margin was brought down to less than 2 percent by Labor’s Simon Curtis.
Booth by booth results show more concerning trends for Wood. In Berwick, typically Liberal-leaning and where Wood bases his office, he suffered 10-plus percent swings against him across all of it’s four booths in the two-party preferred. It was the Akoonah Park booth, which is now in the seat of Bruce, where he only suffered a five percent swing.
In Emerald, Wood saw a 6 percent drop in his primary vote. Emerald local Springfield received a 9 percent boost in his primary vote.
Though the Greens’ performance has been patchy amid the wave toward Labor, La Trobe candidate Jamie Longmuir looks set to increase the vote for the progressive side with an admirable 13 percent primary vote – a swing of more than 2 percent.
One Nation’s Leonardo Panetta also saw a swing of over 2 percent for the other side of politics, jumping to a seven percent primary vote.
