BENAMBRA MP Bill Tilley has called for politicians from all sides of politics to “behave with integrity and honour” when the new Parliament sits.
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And perhaps channelling his former career as a policeman, he vowed to apply an investigative eye to keeping the government to account.
“Let’s not spin it, let’s go out and gather the facts and prosecute them on the evidence,” Mr Tilley said
“We need to ensure when they say something we make sure they deliver, and the evidence will be on facts admissible in any jurisdiction.”
His comments came as he criticised Labor for using “misleading comments and scurrilous claims” to bring down the Coalition government.
The sitting MP was comfortably returned for a third term on Saturday, with current figures showing he claimed 54 per cent of the primary vote and 59.6 per cent of the two-party preferred vote — a swing of 6.5 per cent toward Labor, double the state average.
While his opponent Jennifer Podesta celebrated the result as “a testament to our hard work”, Mr Tilley said he expected the swing to drop back to 3 or 4 per cent once the remaining third of pre-poll votes were counted.
Either way, the seat will remain a safe Liberal stronghold — albeit this time in a Labor government.
The Coalition had promised about $15 million in pre-election sweetners to the district, which Mr Tilley said he would now bring to the attention of the relevant incoming ministers, noting Labor had not promised Benambra anything.
“They’re certainly not big asks in the grand scheme of things ... the reality is a lot of the people who will be sworn in as ministers are the same former ministers from the Bracks/Brumby government and in past experience they’re very slow to respond to correspondence,” he said.
“But they may well be invigorated a bit — their catchcry is putting people first, so let’s see how true to their word they are.”
Mr Tilley said he wanted to see a change in how politicians conducted themselves, acknowledging all sides were guilty of poor behaviour at times.
“In this day and age I don’t think people regard politicians very well,” he said.
“I want to see politicians behave with integrity and honour so people will take more consideration into the work they do.”
Ms Podesta was pleased with the result, having achieved the goal of making a dent in Mr Tilley’s margin, who she said would be “a fairly impotent local member in opposition”.
“We’re proud of what we’ve done, it was a very locally-based campaign with little help from Melbourne,” she said.
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