By LACHLAN MOORHEAD
NARRE Warren South MP Judith Graley has comfortably retained her safe Labor seat, despite a slight swing to the Liberals.
With votes still to be counted, Narre Warren South has seen a 0.6 per cent swing towards the Liberal Party, as nearby seats Narre Warren North and Cranbourne were also won again by the ALP.
Ms Graley said her attention would now turn to ensuring the three main Labor promises for her area were delivered – fixing Thompsons Road, expanding Casey Hospital and re-building Hampton Park Primary.
“I’ll be talking to the Treasurer Tim Pallas and making sure that he knows these are the priorities for our community,” she said.
“There’s no timeline at this stage, we’ll go through a process where every MP gets an opportunity to have input into the budget process.”
Ms Graley, who has held Narre Warren South since 2006, said she was pleased the community had returned her to Parliament over Liberal candidate Susan Serey, despite what she referred to as a “toxic” campaign run by the Liberals against her.
“I think it was a very negative campaign. Residents received lots of negative material from the Liberal Party,” she said.
“I resisted going into that space and can hold my head high.”
Susan Serey, also a Casey Councillor, hit back at Ms Graley’s criticism and defended her own campaign.
“I think in politics there’s a strategy in terms of putting your message out there and reminding the community of Labor’s failures,” Cr Serey said.
“For me it’s just her (Ms Graley) being precious. That’s the nature of the game, that’s politics.”
Despite the loss, Cr Serey said she would hold Ms Graley to Labor’s promises, particularly the pledge to remove the Hallam Road level crossing.
“I’ll be very interested to see if she removes the Hallam Road crossing – only 20 of Labor’s 50 promised crossing removals have been costed and Hallam Road wasn’t one of them,” she said.
“I’ll be keeping her accountable.”
