TIM McCurdy hopes the ties of Victoria’s premier-elect, Daniel Andrews, will lead to more attention on the North East than seen under previous Labor governments.
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He believed Mr Andrews’ home town of Wangaratta falling in the middle of Ovens, the renamed Murray Valley electorate, could be a positive.
The Nationals MP was easily returned for a second term, with 55.9 per cent of the primary and 66.9 per cent of the two-party preferred vote.
That equated to a swing of 2.3 per cent to Labor, in line with the state average.
He said he believed he would have a good working relationship with the new government.
“I have always made a habit of not being someone who wants to go out and belt the opposition all the time,” he said.
“Hopefully that’s good going forward because we need to work with the government now.”
He was pleased the Wangaratta saleyards would go ahead, with Labor having matched that pledge, but said that with “Andrews touting himself as a person who grew up in country victoria, I thought he may have delivered more”.
He hoped Mr Andrews would be “true to his roots”.
“We have a huge future and we don’t need to go backwards,” he said.
Australian Country Alliance candidate Julian Fidge, who pitched himself as Mr McCurdy’s biggest challenger, will finish with about 10 per cent of the vote — a “pleasing result” with an increase of 3 per cent on 2010.
“I’m happy to make steady progress in building the party and, from a personal point-of-view, I’m happy to see the previous government ousted because of what they did to Wangaratta Council,” the ex-councillor said.
“The idea that the council had to be a National Party lunch-club was nonsense.”
He was also pleased with the contest between the Nationals and an independent in Shepparton, former local government minister Jeanette Powell’s old seat, because “what goes around comes around”. Ms Powell was responsible for sacking the Wangaratta Council.
He said whether he again sought office at a local, state or federal level was a decision for “my wife and the party”.
Labor’s Gail Cholosznecki claimed 21 per cent of the primary vote and 33 per cent of the two-party preferred, despite being absent from much of the campaign.
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