By Andrew Cantwell
Labor has survived a big primary vote swing against it at Saturday’s poll to comfortably hold the Federal seat of Holt after preferences.
Labor’s Cassandra Fernando has succeeded long-serving Labor member Anthony Byrne to take the seat with just under 57.5 per cent of the ‘two candidate preferred’ vote, down 1.15 per cent overall.
Liberal candidate Ranj Perera managed to take 29.5 per cent of primary votes, for a ‘two candidate’ tally of 42.5 per cent, according to the electoral commission count as at 1.35pm Sunday.
Voters appeared to be looking to alternatives to the two major parties, with the Labor primary vote down a whopping 8.75 per cent, and the Liberal vote down almost 6.3 per cent.
United Australia Party candidate Geraldine Hansen recorded 10.16 per cent of primaries with a swing of just over four per cent up on the 2019 count; the Greens Sujit Mathew took 8.05 per cent of primaries, up by almost a per cent; with One Nation candidate Sandy Ambard gaining 4.26 percent of primaries. Independent Ravi Ragupathy (2.9 per cent), the Liberal Democrats (2.58 per cent) and the Australian Federation Party (0.76 per cent) picked up the other primary votes cast on Saturday.
Prepoll and absentee votes have yet to be counted
Previous member Anthony Byrne had held the seat since 1999. Mr Byrne was most recently embroiled in an IBAC investigation into allegations of improper conduct involving former Victorian Government minister Adem Somyurek, who was at one time a former electoral officer for Mr Byrne
