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Independent Zoe Daniel has claimed victory in the once safest blue ribbon seat of Goldstein, the first time a non-Liberal MP has been elected to represent the electorate.
Ms Daniel is one of several so-called “teal” independents who received funding from major climate change advocates, as well as thousands of individual donars.
Incumbent MP Tim Wilson is still refusing to concede defeat, after his born-to-rule trajectory towards Prime Minister was crushed by a woman, of all people.
Wilson says he has faced an “unholy alliance” of forces that joined to oust him from office, but it was probably just the fact that moderate Liberal voters are revolted by Scott Morrison, and were frustrated by the fact that their own MP didn’t have the backbone to stand up to him.
With over 70% of the vote counted, Wilson is sitting on 46% – and does not look like he’s going to be able to get over the line.
It is not yet known what Tim Wilson will do with himself now, and many fear that he may now be unemployable in the private sector, after his confidence-shattering encounter with a merit-based selection process.
Liberal party insiders also worry that the outgoing member’s sudden retirement might have caught him by surprise, and both colleagues and mentors pray that he didn’t spend all of his superannuation during the pandemic – or worse, take his own advice and prop up the unsustainable property market with what was meant to be his retirement savings.
With treasurer Josh Frydenberg staring down the barrel at losing his own seat to an Independent as well, and Sydney’s Dave Sharma, Jason Fallinski and Trent Zimmerman also going down – even the Liberal Party accepts it has a lot of ‘soul searching’ to do.
It is unlikely that they will point the finger at the fact that neither of these ousted MPs could talk about anything other than saving their owns jobs for the last two month, as well as their really clever plan to redirect the safety nets of all young Australians into the pockets of property developers and boomer investors.
