As Australia’s most accurate amateur psephologist, I’m surprised at the number of people seeking my tip as to the winner of today’s by-election in the outer-Melbourne federal seat of Aston.
You would have thought there might have been at least one.
But seeing there’s still some time to get some on, here’s what my ever-increasing gut feeling is telling me.
History is with the Liberal candidate Roshena Campbell, wife of that repulsive reptile and LNP publicist James, who I understand is currently facing charges for impersonating a journalist. That’s the loving couple above.
So that gut of mine says put something on her, although the odds the last time I checked aren’t all that rewarding.
But above that quivering gut, my head and my heart are at loggerheads in their fight to wobble that gut to their whim.
Roshena is facing considerable headwinds in convincing the good folk of Aston that she’s better at politics than picking a spouse.
Firstly, she’s a barrister which knocks any likeability factor to billyO.
Then there’s this: Victoria used to be the jewel in the Liberal Party’s crown. Roshena and her hubby are from that section of the Liberal Party that has turned Victoria into a steaming slagheap of unpleasant dross.
They are both apparently members of the Institute of Public Affairs and had they lived in the 12th Century, Genghis Khan would have been barely visible on their left flank.
They are privileged and powerful and not lacking in pomposity. Put bluntly, they don’t like working-class people all that much. That’s right. They are exactly the sort of people responsible for the once great party of Robert Menzies now having trouble at mustering 35 per cent of the vote at any election, state or federal.
Roshena has other problems too. She lives way out of the electorate and as far as I know hasn’t even made the usually required noises of promising to move there should she win. That will be her first broken promise if she wins: I can’t see her lowering herself to actually live with those people in the outer-west. Attending an electorate office there every now and then would be a chore in itself. There’d be a bottle of very strong disinfectant at the door.
Other hurdles? The voters of Aston would be entirely entitled to be pissed of at having to vote less than a year after they reelected arguably one of Scott Morrison’s worse ministers. Big call, I know, considering the depth of the competition, but Alan Tudge has pulled the pin to spend even more time away from his family.
Roshena would also be aware that Tudge last May turned the once-safe Liberal seat into a fairly marginal one with a 2.8 per cent swing now needed for it to fall to Labor. Labor at this point in time is travelling better in the polls than the 2PP result back at that federal poll.
So, can you now see the dilemma facing the gut, heart and mind of Australia’s most accurate amateur psephologist?
I suspect my heart might be able to sway my gut to change my prediction to a Labor victory.
But my mind screams out for a narrow but comfortable win for dear, dear Roshena, if for no other reason than it will shore up Peter Dutton’s position.
And surely keeping Dutton as federal Opposition Leader for as long as possible is in Australia’s best long-term interest?
Don Gordon-Brown
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