Is Don, is candidate Jobs forefront of Corio fight

Andrew Mathieson
A SMALL business operator has pledged to save Geelong jobs from Federal Government plans for carbon reduction in his bid to win the federal seat of Corio.
Liberal candidate Don Gibson said he would campaign against the Rudd Government’s controversial emissions trading scheme (ETS), which the government has admitted could cost hundreds of manufacturing jobs in Corio.
But sitting Labor MP Richard Marles promoted his party’s economic record to create more new jobs than an ETS would cost.
The Liberal party was set to formally approve Mr Gibson’s preselection on Wednesday night after the Independent went to press.
Mr Gibson began his campaign this week warning Labor’s ETS would cost votes in the party’s Corio heartland, which traditionally struggles with high unemployment.
“It’s not going to help Richard (at the election),” Mr Gibson said.
A lawyer and company director, Mr Gibson wanted the seat’s blue-collar voters to consider him a “credible candidate.
“I’ve always focused on job creation and that’s by supporting small business and industries around Geelong,” he said.
“We (Liberals) certainly have a strong interest in that and have provided for it in the past, even though the electorate hasn’t necessarily trusted us on it.”
Mr Gibson contested the 2006 state election against Labor MP for Bellarine Lisa Neville, a former wife of Mr Marles.
Corio has been a safe Labor seat for 43 years since Sir Hubert Opperman held the seat for the Liberals. The opposition need a swing of more than eight per cent to win Corio.
Mr Gibson said closing the gap was a priority.
“We’ll be in it to win but if we don’t win, if we close the margin, we would have been very successful.”
Mr Marles expected a “close” election.
He said he was aware jobs would be the biggest election issue in the electorate.
“This Government has steered this country through the biggest global economic shock since the Great Depression and has done so in a way that has avoided recession and that applies here in Geelong,” he said.
“There are thousands of people working in Geelong who wouldn’t have been working but for the stimulus package and the economic measures put in place.”