By NOEL MURPHY
IT MIGHT have been the major parties’ pork-barrelling exercise par excellence but the federal battle for the marginal seat of Corangamite is so far more fizzer than fight, while the fight for safe Corio is a lop-sided grab-bag of Labor sweeteners.
Election offerings for Corangamite – Australia’s most-marginal seat – in the federal election are few and far between. Compared to the grandiose promises and achievement claims of recent elections – ring roads, football stadiums, libraries, highways and more – they’re chicken feed.
Labor’s Darren Cheeseman has announced $12 million to kick off Epworth’s Waurn Ponds hospital, $3 million for a child centre at Torquay and $2 million for supported disability accommodation.
The Liberals’ Sarah Henderson has stumped up $3.5 million for a sports pavilion at Ocean Grove and $330,000 in solar project assistance.
Compared to the hundreds of millions on offer at previous federal elections, Corangamite’s status as the tightest seat in the country has assumed a different definition of tight – and a backseat in this election.
Liberal party focus has been more on broader issues – a campaign for cash for the Great Ocean Road, $1.5 billion for Melbourne’s East-West Link, $100 million to fix mobile phone spots and a broad promise of job creation.
Labor has focused on the Great Ocean Road also, moves toward a super fire station at Torquay, rail links to the Surf Coast and Bellarine Peninsula, plus broader school funding, manufacturing and disability funding.
But Corio where Labor enjoys a 13.5 per cent stranglehold, is a vastly different, and unusual, story. It’s enjoying benefits normally reserved for marginal seats.
Richard Marles detailed a lengthy list including $1.5 million for a Covenant College trade training centre, $200,000 for Godfrey Hirst clean-energy initiatives, a new Geelong Centre for Emerging Infectious Diseases, a National Disability Insurance Scheme headquarters, Kardinia Park lights worth $10m and a $24 million Geelong Innovation Investment Fund, the bulk of it from federal funding.
Liberal challenger Peter Read offered little, requesting an email when the Independent asked for a snapshot of the party’s promises for Corio.
A Liberal website offered a statement that Mr Read was focused on local issues affecting Geelong residents “such as cost of living pressures and the local economy”.
