While there may have been a change at the top following the results of Saturday’s Federal Election, Mark Coulton was returned for the sixth time to lead the division of Parkes.
“While the count continues, it is now known that Australia will have a new government, led by Anthony Albanese,” Mr Coulton said on Monday.
“Despite my disappointment in this result, I am committed to working with the new government to ensure the Parkes electorate is strongly represented in Parliament.
“I will also be holding the new government to account with regards to issues affecting my electorate and the country as a whole,” Mr Coulton vowed.
“It’s an incredible honour to represent nearly half of New South Wales in the Australian Parliament and I’m looking forward to continuing my work as your representative.”
According to the Australian Electoral Commission website, Mr Coulton had polled 40,339 votes from the 80,762 formal votes counted for the division of Parkes (as at the time of the paper going to print yesterday).
Almost half of the Parkes voters gave Mr Coulton their first preference votes, while 20.43 per cent directed their first preference to Labor candidate Jack Ayoub.
Pauline Hanson’s One Nation candidate Deborah Swinbourn picked up 7.39 per cent of the total votes and 6.07 per cent of voters put Liberal Democrats candidate Peter Rothwell as their first preference.
The other five candidates all polled below five percent.
The number of informal votes at this election was high at 6,848, which was nearly seven percent of the total votes, and was up on the 2019 election informal votes tally of 5,847 (5.86 per cent).
From the count at the Cobar polling place of voters who cast their vote on Saturday, Mr Coulton picked up 221 votes (40.18 per cent) from the 550 voters’ first preferences while Mr Ayoub received 90 votes (16.36 per cent).
In keeping with the trend across the electorate, One Nation’s Ms Swinbourn polled the next best with 85 votes (15.45 per cent).
At the time of compiling this article the number of pre-poll and postal votes that were cast by Cobar voters was not available.