Fisher on a razor’s edge
The future of the seat of Fisher is on a razor’s edge after counting of pre-poll votes today, with the Liberals making a big comeback to overtake Labor.
Electoral Commission figures show the Liberal candidate Heidi Harris is now ahead of Labor’s Nat Cook by just 17 votes, with only about 400 postal votes to come.
Earlier today, Electoral Commissioner Kay Mousley warned that the laborious task of counting 4,650 pre-poll votes – and the closeness of the count – meant that a result in the Fisher by-election might not be known until the weekend.
Cook’s lead has been whittled at every turn after the regular votes were counted on the weekend.
Cook’s lead was trimmed to 451 votes from more than 600 after the Electoral Commission counted 1,217 postal votes on Monday.
Before today’s counting, the Electoral Commission has Cook leading the two-party preferred count on 8,118 votes and Harris on 7,667.
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At the end of the day’s counting, Harris was leading 10,186 to Cook’s 10,169.
Independent Dan Woodyatt is in third position on the primary votes, and still considers himself some chance to overtake Cook.
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Mousley told ABC radio today that she had doubled the commission’s staff in order to get through the remaining 4,650 votes today.
She said the by-election attracted possibly the largest number of pre-poll votes ever.
“We haven’t had the luxury of time to go back and check our figures but it is an exceptionally high number of early votes,” she told ABC 891.
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“Typically for a by-election you will possibly get more early votes but not the volumes that we’ve seen on the last couple of weeks.”
The outcome would not be known until “very late this afternoon”, or even later in the week if the count gets closer.
“It quite well could be that we won’t really know then because if the votes get closer between the three main candidates it will only be determined on Saturday when we distribute the preferences.”
Meanwhile, recriminations continue within the Liberal Party about its poor performance in the poll.
While some of his state and federal colleagues blame him for the result, Defence Minister David Johnston rejects the notion that his attack on shipbuilder ASC had anything to do with the vote.
Just over a week before the by-election, Johnston outraged the state Liberals by claiming in the Senate that he wouldn’t trust Adelaide’s ASC to “build a canoe”.
Labor used the comments on election flyers and posters and strategists in both major parties believe it played heavily into fears about job security within the Fisher electorate.
SA Liberal leader Steven Marshall said yesterday the comments were unhelpful and untrue.
Today Johnston insisted that his comments weren’t a factor.
“I just would reject the premise of that given the Labor Party had a primary vote of 27 per cent,” Johnston said. “I just reject the premise that I had much to do with it quite frankly.”
The by-election was called after the death of long-standing MP Bob Such, who held the seat for 25 years, first as a Liberal member and, since 2002, as an independent.
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