Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister and the government are kidding themselves if they think the result in Victoria at the state election had nothing to do with federal parliament or federal politics. Just see the results in regional Victoria, including in my seat. We won on the primary vote in Bendigo, a marginal seat, and won Bendigo East. I would have thought that at least they would have turned up in Bendigo East, but they struggled even to get their volunteers out on election day—they couldn't even be at the polling booths on election day. They had Sophie Mirabella handing out in Kyneton East. It won't surprise the House that we had a 15 per cent swing to us in that seat, which says a lot about who they are getting to hand out for them.

The lessons of the state election ring true throughout the country. What happened in Victoria was Victorian voters saying no to division and no to nastiness. What the Victorian Liberals have in common with the Liberals in this place is their nasty, divisive politics. That's what Victorians rejected on election day. They rejected the wedge politics. They rejected the race politics. They rejected the fact that this government—like the Liberals in Victoria—smash up everything that people believe in.

I want to congratulate the amazing women MPs in my part of the world who have been returned on the primary vote. There have been phenomenal efforts by Mary-Anne Thomas, Jacinta Allan and Maree Edwards.