ACT seat of Bean still too close to call

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The federal election result in the seat of Bean remains on a knife edge, with only a few hundred votes separating Labor's David Smith and independent Jessie Price.

Transcript

00:00Even on polling day,

00:05Your government has said nothing. What have you done? I don't care about listening. What are you doing?

00:09Labor politicians felt a weight of expectation.

00:12It's sometimes easier to be an independent.

00:15The reality, I mean it's not easy to say that, but the reality is it is

00:19because governments have to make decisions for the whole country

00:23weighing up positions that, you know, across our caucus that Labor caucus members have

00:29and at times that makes it difficult in your own electorate.

00:33Labor increased its vote in seats around the country and the ACT was no exception.

00:38With a swing in first preference votes to Andrew Lee in Fenner of around 6%

00:43and Alicia Payne in Canberra of nearly 4%.

00:46In Bean, David Smith got around 41% of the primary vote

00:50with a swing against him of less than half a percent.

00:53In second, independent Jesse Price picked up only 27% of the vote.

00:58But that was enough to push Liberals candidate David Lamerton

01:01into third with a swing against him.

01:03And the Greens' Sam Carter came in fourth with 9%.

01:07It's preference flows that put the first-time candidate

01:10in a position to threaten the incumbent.

01:12I'm not taking anything away from Jesse or the campaign she ran.

01:16She was very highly visible. She ran a good campaign.

01:19It was actually the factor of the Liberal vote actually going through the floor.

01:24The Canberra Liberals, now soul-searching, say policies, including the plan to slash public service jobs, were a tough sell.

01:32I think there are a couple that we could probably point to that didn't go well here in Canberra.

01:37And it's now time to sit back and do what we've been doing here from the Assembly team

01:42and getting out and listening to our community.

01:44The problem for the ACT Party is, I think, that it has been too subservient to the interests of the Federal Party for too long.

01:53With public service cuts off the table, industry groups want to see Labor's promises fulfilled.

01:5840% of our members are telling us they're expecting to make a loss this year.

02:03That points to how difficult it is for the business community.

02:06So we're really looking forward to perhaps government kick-starting its work again and getting back to business.

02:12With thousands of postal votes still outstanding, County will continue for days to come.

02:17But questions about whether the major parties can convince independent voters in Canberra to come back to the fold

02:23will linger long after the final results are declared.

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