An uninspiring election campaign draws to a close

By Max Stainkamph

Nov 23, 2022

Voting day: The polls will open across the region on Saturday after two weeks of early voting. Photo: Rodney Braithewaite Photo by Rodney Braithwaite

Despite having three strong, intelligent and impressive frontrunners in this weekend’s election, boy have we had an uninspiring few months of campaigning.

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No matter what some candidates have said, the public has been largely disengaged from the election.

A large part of it has been the catastrophic floods that upended lives across the region, but even those less affected have been sapped of energy from the stress.

Part of it is also coming off a brutal Federal Election just six months ago.

And part of it is there hasn’t been any great clash of ideas to take the electorate by storm.

The three main candidates, Suzanna Sheed, Kim O’Keeffe and Cheryl Hammer, haven’t presented radically different ideas for what the Shepparton district could look like four years from now.

All three support building the Shepparton bypass, all three want the sports stadium upgraded, all three believe we need to do more to support businesses.

All of which is needed.

Discussion of anything outside Shepparton within the electorate, however, has been minimal.

The nature of government is that it’s rarely sexy and flashy, but when all the main contenders are committing to fight for similar projects, there’s not much to set them apart.

As such, we’ve been left at the whims of the rest of the state.

If Labor is returned to power, we rely on what our MP can convince Daniel Andrews to throw our way, and we can enjoy another four years of back-and-forth over the bypass.

If the Coalition does the improbable and wins power, promises from the Liberals and Nationals carry more weight, regardless of whether one of Ms Hammer or Ms O’Keeffe is elected or Ms Sheed is returned.

However, whether the Coalition is returned to power will be decided on Melbourne’s fringe and in inner-city seats, not in Shepparton.

I’m not telling you who to vote for — anyone who has got this far in this column has probably already made up their mind, and if you haven’t then I’m not going to make it for you.

But the reality of many people voting based on who they expect to win government, and not due to differences in candidates or policies or ideas, isn’t an inspiring outcome.