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Final election wrap – Templeman’s majority at 13,142 against 371 in 2019
No longer the country’s most marginal seat by a long way – with pretty much 100% of the votes now counted for Macquarie, straggler postal votes finish next week – it is clear there has been a substantial shift against the Liberal Party across our region with the seat changing from the country’s most marginal to one with a buffer of over 13,000 votes for Labor’s Susan Templeman on a two-candidate preferred basis.
A senior Liberal told the Post feedback from booths on the day suggested voters were often making a choice between the candidates personally.
The swing to Ms Templeman was 7.5% and on the two candidate preferred basis she picked up 49,312 votes against Liberal candidate Sarah Richards’ 36,170.
Ms Templeman snared 57.69% of the vote against Ms Richards’ 42.31%.
The turnout was 82.88% and there were 4.61% informal – or spoiled and unusable votes.
The senior Liberal who did not want to be named told the Post today – Friday, “the swing in Macquarie against our [Liberal] candidate on first preferences is substantially higher at 10.09% than the national average of 4.34%.
“Voters have been prepared to return a Liberal member for Macquarie for 31 of the last 50 years.
“The fact is that 13,142 voters who put Liberal ahead of Labor in 2019 have switched in their allegiance.
“Feedback coming from many booths suggested voters were making a choice between the candidates personally rather than their parties and policies.
“If you look at adjacent seat Lindsay, Melissa McIntosh [Liberal] actually picked up a swing to her of 0.7%.”
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