Friday, March 29, 2024

Electorate win for MacKillop, Party loss

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Sheryl Lowe, Naracoorte Community News

From sheep farmer to Parliament House, first term Member for MacKillop Nick McBride MP gained ground in the March State Election with a convincing win over his opponents, but the Liberal Party was defeated in a landslide swing towards the Labor Government. He was also defeated in his bid for Leader of the Opposition but told The News he will continue to advocate for his constituents in MacKillop during his second term in office.

Nick McBride
Member for McKillop, Nick McBride (R).
Photo: Naracoorte Community News.

“About a week ago, the party and all of the party members who survived the last election found themselves in Opposition, needing a new Opposition Leader as the former Premier Stephen Marshall resigned as leader one or two days after the election. So, obviously we needed to find a new leader.”

“I put my name forward along with two others. Josh Teague announced he was contesting the leadership and then David Spiers confirmed his intent to nominate about a week before the ballot.”

“The election was held on Tuesday 19th April at nine o’clock in the Terrace Room on the top floor of Parliament House. A vote was taken and David Spiers was successful in being elected the Leader of the Liberal Party. John Gardner was elected Deputy Leader for the Lower house or the House of Assembly which I belong to.” The ballot results – David Spiers 18, Josh Teague 5 and Nick McBride 1.

“I think David Spiers has qualities that will put him in good stead for being in Opposition and the Leader of the Liberal Party.”

“There will be a review conducted to discover why we (the Liberal Party) did so badly in the election and why this landslide went against the Liberals. I have my own personal views, but my personal views don’t really hold a lot of weight and you do need some sort of professional insight into what went wrong and how we could have avoided what eventually happened.”

Mr McBride said, in his personal opinion he thought the outcome of the March election was more likely a loss by the Liberals, than a win by Labor. He said some of his fellow elected members had the same views but others did not.

“Well, we may even have better hospitals, better schools, better roads, better communications and all the other things we’re aspiring to, than what we received over the 16 years when they (Labor) were last in government, and over the past four years while we (Liberals) were in too. But I will make sure we get the best “bang for our buck” in MacKillop.”

We asked Mr McBride about Health in the Limestone Coast, “We know our local GP’S and their interaction with their hospitals has been broken and broken for a number of years, not just through a Liberal government but broken through the Labor government particularly. It does need to be fixed because the Locum model is not only very expensive, but it only just works and, and there’s a better way of doing it and that’s by using our local GP’S, having interaction with our hospitals and making sure they have every reason to be in our regions looking after our regional people. So, the $188 million dollars promised by Liberals to do this if we were returned to government, well I don’t know if Labor will honour that.”

“We, the Liberals promised to increase the PATS travel allowance but Labor has already said they will not support this move. Their way of handling this is to improve services in the regions so people don’t have to travel to Adelaide or Melbourne for treatment. Labor has promised $50 million to the Limestone Coast, including $8m for the Naracoorte Hospital and a half million dollars over seven years for the Keith hospital.”

We asked Mr McBride about ambulance ramping which had been a prominent election issue by Labor. He said he wondered why it had gone very quiet since the election and asked the question, “Has it been fixed in one month or what?”

“It will be interesting to see what Labor does about roads in the Limestone Coast. Our roads are 17 years past their use-by date and again, we picked up some of the messaging the new premier, Peter Malinauskas used, when he said the Limestone Coast doesn’t need Adelaide, but Adelaide needs Limestone Coast. So, it’s just giving reference to the fact they’re going to value the Limestone Coast and look after it.”

Mr McBride told The News, “It is really pleasing that we had such a great result in MacKillop. My first preference votes went up by about 6%, to about 62% and just bear in mind, you only need 50% plus one and then you don’t need to worry about two party preferred and preferences. You just need one and you’re over the line.”

“I really appreciate the support I’ve got and I thank the constituents of MacKillop for that support. People obviously recognised that I’m doing all I can for McKillop and I will continue to do that.”

Naracoorte Community News 27 April 2022

This article appeared in Naracoorte Community News.

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