There’s a recent political precedent that Australia’s independent politicians retain their seats, but Kerryn Phelps’s mission to cement her place on Canberra’s crossbench could be more complicated.
Key Points:
-Postal votes are still being counted, but Dr Phelps is still leading Dave Sharma on preferences
-Her next challenge as an independent MP is to retain the seat at a general election
-One crossbench colleague says she faces a race against the clock
The likely member for Wentworth is staring down the barrel of another battle with a furious and humiliated Federal Government before the next election for the House of Representatives, which will be held on or before November 2, 2019.
Andrew Wilkie, the Member for Denison and Dr Phelps’s crossbench colleague, has won his seat twice and said she faced a campaign race against the clock.
Mr Wilkie claimed the Tasmanian electorate of Denison in 2010 despite finishing third on the primary vote behind the Labor and Liberal candidates.
However, after preferences, he won the seat with a margin of 1.2 per cent.
By the end of his first year, amid a hung parliament, he secured $340 million of federal funding for the Royal Hobart Hospital and another $325 million for the cost of health care.
“Her biggest challenge now is time, or the lack of it,” Mr Wilkie said.
“It’s not like she’s going to get a billion [dollars] for a bypass and she only has around six more sitting weeks to achieve something.
“If there had been an election held [shortly] after 2010, I suspect I would have lost because Labor would’ve thrown everything at it.”
The independent member for Indi in Victoria, Cathy McGowan, won the seat from the Liberals’ Sophie Mirabella in 2013 by only 0.2 per cent, but increased her margin to 4.6 per cent at the 2016 election.
Dr Phelps spent time in Canberra this week and watched Question Time on Thursday but told the ABC she was “under no illusion how difficult the task is from here”.
“The by-election has produced a tight result and I will have to hit the ground running for the next general election,” she said.
She named her first priority as getting children in immigration detention off Nauru, and also campaigned on building another public high school in Wentworth.
