 Jordan Crugnale, Labor  Aaron Brown, Liberal  Brett Tessari, National | By Catherine Watson FOR election nerds, the contest for the seat of Bass is a thriller with enough clues and red herrings to keep them awake at night. Ten candidates cover the full electoral spectrum, from the Animal Justice Party and Greens on the left to Family First, the Freedom Party and Labor DLP on the right. (I said it was going to be confusing!) Battling it out in the middle are the three heavyweights: Jordan Crugnale (Labor), Aaron Brown (Liberal) and Brett Tessari (National), all with a chance of winning. The seat is currently held by Crugnale, who secured a 7 per swing in 2018 to win the seat for the ALP for the first time since it was created in 2002, with a margin of 1.8 per cent. Labor has since spent a bucketload of money in the Bass electorate this term and Crugnale would normally be a sure thing, but several factors make it impossible to predict with certainty. Following an electoral redistribution of Bass that removed largely urban areas of Pakenham and Clyde, the Victorian Electoral Commission now puts the Liberal Party narrowly ahead, 50.6 per cent to Labor’s 49.4 per cent, based on the 2018 votes. Sportsbet actually has the Coalition as a hot favourite to win Bass back from Labor, offering odds of 3.00 for a Labor win with 1.55 for the Coalition. |
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 Liberal Party candidate Aaron Brown has big shoes to fill and he’s determined to do it his way. By Catherine Watson
ASKED at the recent Island Voices forum in Cowes why we should vote for him, Liberal Party candidate Aaron Brown sticks to the script: he’s a fourth-generation resident of the Bass electorate, he has two children, he wants a fair share for the people of the Bass electorate. There are no grand claims, no vision thing, no bluster, no belittling of his rivals. He doesn’t even attack his rivals’ policies or claims. If you were talking football, you might say he doesn’t have enough of the mongrel in him. When he does speak, his words are carefully chosen and often spoken so softly that you have to strain to catch them. But he actually prefers listening to speaking.  Brett Tessari: no sign of moleskins, RM Williams boots andakubra. No private school education either. By Catherine Watson
IF NATIONAL Party candidate Brett Tessari needed any introduction to life on the land, he’s had a crash course over the past couple of months. He’s been knee deep in mud and sludge, zapped by an electric fence, threatened by bulls and slashed across the torso by a rogue barbed wire fence. He’s got two nail holes and a screw hole in his hand from a misfired nail gun and a wayward impact drill. And that was just putting up his billboards, which now dot the countryside from Inverloch, at the southern end of the electorate, to Devon Meadows in the north. Each evening after work, he and his wife Leanne have loaded up the car and trailer and headed out for a couple of hours of hard physical yakka. Tessari jokes that his years as a real estate agent have come in handy at last. “I’m a whizz with a sledge hammer and a board.”  Independent Jeni Jobe with daughter Eleanor. Standing as an Independent is her way of serving her community. By Catherine Watson
COME November 26, says Independent Jeni Jobe, the most likely result is a Labor Government, ideally a minority one with a strong cross bench – including her. “If our representative is in Opposition they have to ask their party for permission to stand up and speak. If I get onto the cross bench I can talk to any party. I can look at any situation from the viewpoint of the Bass community.” She sees standing as an Independent as her way of serving the community that nourishes her. “The only chance we have to make the government listen is at the polling booth. I want to contribute to setting up a minority government. By Catherine Watson
WHEN it comes to election commitments for the Bass electorate, the Coalition is outspending Labor in its efforts to wrest back the seat. It has so far announced $379 million in spending commitments, carefully targeted at almost every community, compared with $313 million for Labor. The difference becomes starker if you factor in the Coalition’s commitment of $928 million to extend metro rail to Clyde and to conduct preliminary planning for a potential extension to Koo Wee Rup. The parties have matched each other with funding for the second stage of the Wonthaggi Hospital and an upgrade for Wonthaggi Primary School. The Coalition commitment of $42 million for a Phillip Island aquatic centre has not been matched.  Animal Justice Party candidate Elly Mousellis’s extended family includes her dwarf rabbit Leona. By Catherine Watson
ANIMAL Justice Party (AJP) candidate Elly Mousellis’s extended family includes a cockatiel, a gecko, 27 fish and a three-year-old Netherland Dwarf rabbit called Leona. Elly adopted her cockatiel Petrie from the pet store where she works when it became apparent she had special needs due to past treatment. Her wing feathers had been severely chopped to prevent flight and she had sight and anxiety issues. Petrie is now thriving and her flight feathers have grown back in full. Elly has always loved animals – she is also a wildlife rescuer – but has only recently become political about it. Her work brings her into contact with a lot of pet owners struggling to pay for suitable care for their pet animals with the rising cost of food, veterinary treatment and flea treatments. FROM a safe Liberal seat to a cliffhanger, the Bass electorate has played a crucial role in Victoria electoral history, including bringing down the Kennett Government.
Alan Brown (father of current Liberal candidate Aaron Brown) was the Liberal MP for the equivalent seat, known then as West Gippsland and before that Western Port, from 1979 to 1996. Brown’s resignation in 1996 to take up the post of Victorian Agent-General in London forced a by-election for West Gippsland. It was such a safe seat that Labor didn’t bother running a candidate. Instead a local, Susan Davies, ran as an independent and unexpectedly won the seat.  Meg Andrews had no intention of standing for Parliament again – but when the Labor Government floated its offshore wind turbine plan she blew her stack. By Catherine Watson
ENTERING the Wonthaggi Baptist Church on Thursday night for a candidate forum, Meg Edwards must have felt a touch of déjà vu. Just over six months ago she was on the stage as a candidate for Monash in the federal election, when she stood as a Liberal Democrat. This election Meg is standing as a ”conservative independent” for Bass in the state election. “I honestly was not planning to be doing this again,” she told the forum. “What tipped me down this path was the offshore wind turbines planned for our coast.” In October the Commonwealth and Victorian governments agreed to jointly fund feasibility studies and fast track Victorian offshore wind projects, most of them off the Gippsland coast, where there is no shortage of wind power.  It’s been quite a year for Callum Bugbird: first he landed his dream job and then he stood for Parliament. By Catherine Watson
ROUND these parts there’s not a lot of competition for the job of being Greens candidate. In the 2018 state election the Greens scored just 5.69 per cent of the vote in Bass. So when Callum Bugbird was asked to be the Greens candidate for Bass he said no. Aged 20, he had a full-time job and better things to do. Not that he wasn’t interested. As a student at Wonthaggi Secondary College, he’d joined the Bass Coast Climate Action Network. He helped to lobby the council to declare a climate emergency and introduce a climate action plan. |