THE National Party’s Alison Penfold will be the next Federal Member for Lyne, succeeding the long-serving Dr David Gillespie.
As of Monday morning, Ms Penfold held 60.55 percent of the Two candidate preferred count over Labor’s Digby Wilson (39.45 percent) after Saturday’s federal election.
Ms Penfold took 37.20 percent of first preference votes, with Mr Wilson trailing on 19.68 percent and Independent candidate Jeremy Miller claiming 15.84 percent.
All other candidates received less than 10 percent of the first preference vote.
The informal vote rate was about eight percent.
“I am very grateful for the support from so many individuals from across the four corners of the electorate,” Ms Penfold posted to social media on Sunday.
“It will be a great honour and privilege to represent the people of the Lyne electorate and I will do my very best as your representative in the federal parliament.”
Independent candidate Jeremy Miller congratulated Ms Penfold on her win.
“The people of Lyne have chosen you as our representative, and now we look to you to be our voice in Canberra – to listen, to engage, and to deliver real outcomes for our community,” he said.
Receiving around 16,000 first preference votes, Mr Miller believes his campaign sent a strong message to the major parties.
“While we didn’t quite get over the line this time, we have changed the political landscape in Lyne,” he said.
“The major parties now know they can’t take this community for granted.”
Since its creation in a redistribution back in 1949, Lyne has been a historically safe electorate for the Nationals, only having been held by one Independent, being Rob Oakeshott (2008-2013).
Mr Oakeshott started his political career as a Nationals candidate in the 1996 State election for the electorate of Port Macquarie, choosing to become an Independent there before successfully contesting the 2008 Lyne by-election.
