More pride than disappointment filled the Invermay Bowls Club as the Northern Labor headquarters silenced to listen to Labor leader Rebecca White’s concession speech.
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While the election was lost, Deputy Labor leader Michelle O’Byrne thanked her supporters, volunteers, and fellow candidates for fighting a “decent, honest campaign”.
Ms O’Byrne was returned to her Bass seat with a strong polling of more than 10,000 first-preference votes, and while the final Bass seat may take longer to determine, it could be a second Labor candidate taking the seat from Greens MHA Andrea Dawkins.
With plenty of applause for Ms White’s fiery concession speech, the Northern Labor team were clearly proud of a hard-fought campaign that saw a strong swing toward Labor.
“I think everyone has been incredibly inspired by Rebecca White throughout the campaign and particularly tonight,” Ms O’Byrne said.
“We have run an ethical and decent and honest campaign.
“We’ve campaigned on our values, we’ve campaigned with a grassroots campaign, some 200,000 conversations.
“We haven’t had the money, whether or not that’s been the impact I’m not sure, but I do know every one of us can look ourselves in the mirror tonight and know we’ve done the right thing.”
Ms O’Byrne said the count over the next few weeks would be “interesting” to determine the final make-up of the parliament, with the potential for another Bass Labor representative to join her.
“For the Labor party to hold this government to account in such a way is testament to the amazing amount of work by so many volunteers and so many part members,” she said.
“There’s a great feeling in the room today and any one of those people could be joining us in Parliament, and any one of them could be an amazing representative of this community.”
