LYONS Liberal incumbent Eric Hutchinson is clinging on to hope he will retain his seat but admits such a victory is unlikely.
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Mr Hutchinson had not formally conceded to Labor’s Brian Mitchell on Sunday and instead chose to reflect positively on his campaign and three years in office.
“In the last three years I and my colleagues in Bass and Braddon have restarted the engine in the state and through a range of different initiatives and investment in this state we’ve seen much more resources and funding come into the electorate of Lyons than we’ve seen in many many years, so I’m proud of that,” he said.
The contest in Lyons was much closer than the one fought in Bass and Braddon by Andrew Nikolic and Brett Whiteley respectively with just a 3.7 per cent swing in Labor’s favor.
Mr Hutchison said he stood proudly beside “decent and forthright men” Mr Nikolic and Mr Whiteley.
For the last three years the trio has branded themselves the Three Amigos and positioned themselves as working in collaboration for the state.
“I have nothing but admiration for my colleagues, in particular Andrew Nikolic, who not only did they throw the kitchen sink at him, they threw the kitchen and the bathroom and well in one of the most extraordinary examples of thuggery and bullish behaviour I think you could ever imagine,” Mr Hutchinson said.
The ‘they’ in question were Labor, the unions and GetUp!, all of whom pushed hard against the Coalition’s health and education funding policies.
Mr Hutchinson said the campaign scared vulnerable Tasmanians.
“It has demonstrated that if you scare people enough, if you’re prepared to tell lies based on what were fundamentally mistruths, particularly around Medicare and around penalty rates, then you can succeed and I’m not sure what that says about the state of politics in Australia,” he said.
Mr Hutchison, who first ran for Lyons in 2010, will wait patiently for all votes to be counted before giving up his seat.
A staffer clarified a congratulatory call made by Mr Hutchinson to Mr Mitchell on Saturday night was made out of politeness and was not a concession of defeat.
Mr Hutchinson said: “Whilst mathematically possible, it’s extremely unlikely with the 20 per cent of votes still to count I could make up the ground I need to make to hold the seat.
“All I can say is that in the three years that I had the privilege to be the member for the seat of Lyons, the representative for the 76,000 voters, the 100,000 residents in the seat of Lyons, they were my focus 110 per cent of the time.”
