A bittersweet victory

Abbott’s victory speech. Image: The Age

With Rudd still warm in his grave, I can’t help but feel that Saturday’s Liberal victory was more a of loss than a win – well, for me anyway. The justifiably jubilant celebrations have somewhat caused us to forget that there were indeed some casualties of war this election.

Having campaigned with south-east Melbournian Liberal candidate John Nguyen for the past three months, watching the vote count build against him was an excruciating blow – even more so for him, I’m sure. Augmenting the pain of the imminent defeat was the fact that if the election had depended solely on the primary vote count, John would’ve succeeded Labor MP Anna Burke in a stunning and hard-fought victory… leading by almost 3,000 votes.

Alas, the voting system isn’t thus.

Adding a secondary layer of suffering to Saturday’s sorrow is the loss of the WikiLeaks Party (yes, that’s right, you did read that correctly), meaning my International Human Rights & Law tutor, Dr Binoy Kampmark, definitely won’t be assuming Julian Assange‘s position as a senator for Victoria anytime soon.

It makes me wonder, perhaps politics requires more than reason, experience, and intellect. Of course, Palmer’s election tells us that money can also get you over the line (reportedly spending a cool $12 million on advertising in the lead-up to the election – yet remaining ‘a bit surprised we didn’t do better’).  I now believe you have to have some kind of memorable eccentricity, exuberance, or gimmick to your name to achieve political success.

The other qualities listed above are apparently optional.