Massive Leichhardt swing welcomes in Labor's Matt Smith

Australia Votes

Shaun Hollis

Journalist

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Labor's Matt Smith and Nita Green celebrate with their supporters after the win.

The electorate of Leichhardt has been swept up in an Australia-wide Labor landslide at the Federal Election on Saturday, with an about 10 per cent swing awarding Cairns-based Matt Smith the seat ahead of main rival Liberal National Party candidate Jeremy Neal.

And in the Senate, Labor’s Nita Green, who is also based in Cairns and has played a big part in promoting Smith during the campaign, has been returned as well.

Smith spoke of his successful campaign while casting his vote on Saturday.

“I’m proud of the campaign we’ve run and the conversations we’ve had with locals across the region,” Smith said.

Voters faced a wet and soggy morning at the Douglas Shire booths on Saturday, May 3, with many volunteers handing out how-to-vote cards from beneath umbrellas.

The good news for voters was there were few lines at the booths, with many seemingly either waiting for a break in the weather or lodging their choice early - about 47 per cent of eligible voters took advantage of prepolling and postal voting, according to the Australian Electoral Commission, up 22 per cent on the previous election.

It is unclear yet how Douglas Shire may directly benefit from the Labor victory, which was comprehensive at both a local and national level.

Smith focussed his election campaign almost wholly in the Cairns region, where about 80 per cent of Leichhardt voters are based, and made no election promises about the Shire area.

Douglas Shire Mayor Lisa Scomazzon petitioned Smith to pledge up to $5m to help build a new $5.7m disaster-relief centre, but he did not do that.

Smith told ABC Radio during the campaign he would “get up there at one point” in relation to visiting our Shire, but he did not do that.

The council has also been lobbying for federal help to build a $6.6m new 10 million litre water tank at Crees Road to help relieve stored water shortages in the region - which voters spoken to by Newsport believe to be a farcical situation considering how much it rains in Douglas Shire.

Smith said in March he would “advocate for anything that is important to the region”, but also went quiet on the water-shortage front.

Labor has also rejected a long-running LNP policy to build an $18.7m Daintree microgrid system, so it is unclear how the issue of how to provide more power to that region will play out.

One positive for Douglas Shire is the Labor promise to build a new Urgent Care Clinic in the Cairns Northern Beaches area.

Many Shire residents unable to get a doctor’s appointment in this area should be able to commute to that centre if needed.

The return of Senator Green is also a positive for the protection of the Great Barrier Reef, with Green appointed a Special Envoy to the reef by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in 2022. 

“It is not just a beautiful world wonder but it supports 64,000 jobs and brings over $6 billion into the economy,” Green said of the Reef.

Other Queensland senators voted in on the weekend include Labor’s Corinne Mulholland and the LNP’s Paul Scarr. 

The LNP’s Susan McDonald is also likely to win, along with Green Larissa Waters, while One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts was leading the race for the sixth and final Queensland Senate seat last night after 28.4 per cent of votes were counted.

In the seat of Kennedy, long-serving MP Bob Katter was easily returned.

In Leichhardt, close to 123,000 voters turned out, with Smith receiving 56.8 per cent of two-party preferred votes after 72.5 per cent of counting, while Neal had won 43.2 per cent.

In terms of first preferences, Smith had 38 per cent, Neal 26.7 per cent, Greens’ Phillip Musumeci on 9 per cent, One Nation’s Robert Hicks with 7.9 per cent, Katter's Australian Party’s Daniel Collins with 5.8 per cent and Legalise Cannabis’s Nic Daniels with 5.7 per cent of the vote.

About 18,100,0000 Australians were enrolled to vote, while about 330,000 eligible Australians were not even enrolled.

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