FROME BY-ELECTION

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (16:34): I wish to briefly inform the house of my thoughts in relation to the recent by-election in Frome. Firstly, I congratulate the former mayor Geoff Brock on his election. Not only is his electorate alongside mine but he also represents the constituency I used to represent, where I spent my previous life, where I was born and where my family farm is. Therefore, I say to him that I am happy to support him in any issue that supports his country constituency and country regions generally. I have already spoken to him about certain issues of mutual interest.

We were disappointed by the result, but by-elections are strange creatures. I ought to know because I came into this place after one in 1990 with almost the same boundaries. Much political claptrap has been spoken and written about what happened, so here is my assessment, and I speak from personal experience. People do not like by-elections, having to go out and vote when they feel it is unnecessary, expensive and a waste of money. It happened in 1990 when John Olsen went off to the Senate. People protested and voted against both major parties then, as they did on 17 January 2009. I was elected on the preferences of the National Party, and its vote was 16 per cent. So, what happened in 2009? First, the National Party vote collapsed—10 per cent down to 6 per cent; and, secondly, the Nationals did not preference the Liberal Party.

Why did that vote collapse? Obviously, the National Party leader's support of the Labor government has upset their grass roots members. This vote has been consistently 13 to 16 per cent in this region for decades. It was the same when my father represented the area 30 years ago. This is the Brinkworth/Red Hill/Koolunga area, which is the heartland of the old Country Party, now National Party. So, what happened? I have never seen it as low as this. The candidate, Mr Neville Wilson, is a reasonable fellow. He was deputy mayor, now the acting mayor following Mr Brock's resignation, and he is my neighbour and friend. I believe that he would have done much better if he too had stood as an Independent and given his preferences to us. As one might say: 'You would say that'; of course I would.

I will not hear criticism of our candidate, Mr Terry Boylan, whose family and the campaign team—and I encourage them to keep on—did a great job worthy of a better result. Nor will I hear criticism of my leader. The team effort was one of the best that I have ever been associated with, because we all knew it was going to be difficult, particularly having a by-election in the middle of January. I must record that the Premier's tactic to have it then did not help them or us.

If any criticism is to be levelled it should be at me and my inability to convince my neighbour, Mr Wilson, to abide by the long-term tradition of swapping preferences with the Liberals. After all, we are coalition partners federally. Mr Wilson, as deputy mayor, in association with his mayor, Mr Geoff Brock, was stronger and he was locked in before I had a chance to renew our alliance. To make it worse, he had a split Labor/Liberal vote for the third preference. It disappointed me greatly, and I do not think either of us will ever forget that.

Nor will I hear criticism of the previous Liberal government and its support of the Port Pirie District Council. As the member (and even when I was not) a lot of money came into that council. The trouble is that many of them would not know about it, although the previous mayor, Ken Madigan, would. He worked privately behind the scenes with me, and I in turn worked with the then minister for transport, Diana Laidlaw, all those years ago. Millions of dollars was targeted towards road projects, and mayor Madigan needs to be recognised for what he did. It has been a great secret; there was no publicity at the time.

Projects included the sealing of roads, particularly between Redhill and Koolunga, and Koolunga to Brinkworth, smack through this National Party heartland, with some 45 kilometres of road all being sealed. I do not want to hear any more claptrap. The result is zip, and we have accepted that result. In terms of former mayor Geoff Brock, now the member for Frome, I support any project he wants to put up on its merits.