THE Coalition rout in a Kevin Rudd landslide of over 6 per cent ousted the Prime Minister and shortened the Liberal's safety buffer in the blue ribbon seats of Mitchell and Berowra. As expected, Alex Hawke, the 30-year-old Castle Hill resident, is the new Member for Mitchell.
He replaced the 33-year encumbent, Alan Cadman, but with a majority reduced by 9.74 per cent.
About 3 per cent of the swing is considered a protest against the treatment of Mr Cadman, who lost the numbers and retired at the 11th hour before preselection.
In Berowra, the Father of the House, Philip Ruddock, the sitting MP and Attorney-General, easily held on, despite the Australia-wide swing against the conservatives. Mr Ruddock's 38,897 votes was down on 2004 figures by just 5 per cent, with the Australian Labor Party's Michael Colnan picking up 27,386 votes, or 41 per cent.
Mr Hawke received 37,739 (or 61 per cent) of Mitchell votes, two-party preferred, compared to Labor's Nigel Gould who picked up 24,191 votes 39 per cent.
Mr Hawke thanked supporters, but was deeply disappointed in the ignominious dismissal of the Howard Government and the Prime Minister himself in Bennelong, lost to the ALP's Maxine McKew, a former TV personality.
'Now we've also lost Treasurer Peter Costello, a double blow. I would like to serve appropriately, but the first job in Opposition is to make ourselves credible. We have a leadership to resolve, then we have to form a new front of policies and ideas to get people to re-elect us.
There's a lot of hard work ahead."
As a former Army reserve officer, Mr Hawke is interested in the defence area but his passion is small business. "I'll be policy
focused on small business over the next few years and infrastructure," he said.
He promised to push hard to ensure Mitchell get's its fair share of the economic cake. "Obviously we must
ensure the F3 upgrade goes through I'm a big supporter of the former government's option and we need a second crossing of the Hawkesbury. Sooner, rather than waiting 30 years."
Labor's Nigel Gould said he has been offered "other positions" by the party but will stand again in Mitchell if invited to do so. He said he'd received "incredible support from all sorts of people, not the usual ALP voters, but conservatives who saw someone putting in the hard yards."
Showing the obvious polarisation of the electorate, electors in the Bible Belt ignored Family First and the Christian Democrats, whose candidates won just 2447 total votes.