By Mikayla van Loon
The Croydon district’s election results have been counted, seeing a Liberal retainment of the seat as party candidate David Hodgett gained a majority of the first preference vote.
While votes were still being tallied at the time of publication, it seemed to be a clean sweep for Mr Hodgett with 51.7 per cent of the vote compared to Labor’s Sorina Grasso with 48.3 per cent.
Although not conceding the win on Monday 28 November, Mr Hodgett was fairly certain of his re-election despite only a 0.8 per cent swing towards the Liberal Party.
“It’s pleasing that with 75 per cent of the count, we’re ahead. It’s better to be in that position than behind but you’re always a bit anxious until the results are officially declared,” he said.
“There’s still a bit of counting to go yet so mathematically it can still go either way.”
Knowing every four years the last Saturday of November means election day, Mr Hodgett said truly the last year for him has been focused on winning the seat of Croydon again to represent his community.
“I’m enormously grateful to have the opportunity to represent the electorate for another four years and get on with doing that.
“I get a great deal of enjoyment from being a local member, trying to get things done in your local area, advocating for upgrades and changes and that’s what drives me. I really enjoy the people side of it and representing locally.”
Working under the Labor government for another four years, Mr Hodgett said he will continue to work with them, raise issues and get along with them to bring better outcomes for Croydon.
“It’s obviously more challenging if you’re not in charge of the Treasury benches but people should never assume that you can’t get good outcomes for your area if you’re not in government,” he said.
“We’ve continued to work with the government of the day to try to get good outcomes and we’ve achieved a lot in Croydon in terms of grants, upgrades to sporting clubs, rebuilds of schools, social housing, a lot of things, we’ve worked constructively with the government.”
Focused on the week ahead and chatting to colleagues on both sides of the political spectrum, Mr Hodgett said he would then turn his attention to the first sit in Parliament which is expected to be before Christmas.
Over the next four years Mr Hodgett will work on outcomes for schools, health and regulating the overdevelopment of the Croydon district.
The rest of the results saw Greens candidate Brendan Powell get 10.3 per cent of the first preference vote, followed by Family First Victoria with 4.3 per cent, Democratic Labour Party on four per cent and Animal Justice Party on just three per cent.
The Greens saw a 1.4 per cent swing in its favour, whereas Labor saw a five per cent swing against the party, as well as the Liberal Party seeing a 2.5 per cent swing against it.
As at Monday 28 November 10am, 39,236 votes had been counted of the 52,544 people enrolled to vote at the time of enrollment which closed in early November. Of those 3.8 per cent or 1,506 were informal votes.
Labor candidate and runner up Sorina Grasso was contacted for comment but was unable to supply a response.
