Liberal candidate Mic Fels returns to the farm in time for the end of seeding after losing his bid for Swan

Liberal candidate for Swan Mic Fels says he is looking forward to spending some hours in his tractor on his farm in Esperance after eight “taxing” months on the campaign trail.

Mr Fels lost the Swan electorate with only 35.6 per cent of the two-candidate-preferred vote to Labor’s Zaneta Mascarenhas, who secured her second term with a landslide win.

Swan was one of the key seats it was hoped would turn blue after West Australian farmers who had mobilised behind the Keep the Sheep movement targeted the marginal seat with messaging about the importance of live exports to regional communities.

Talking to the Countryman, the businessman and immediate past president of the WAFarmers grains section looked fondly on his time as a member of the Liberal Party.

“It has been fascinating and amazing, and I’m obviously disappointed to have lost it,” he said.

“I’m especially disappointed not to have had an opportunity to change Australia for the better.”

Mr Fels — who bought a home in the electorate four years ago and splits his time between Perth and Esperance — said he threw his hat in the ring to run for the electorate after despairing at the way the country was being run.

“I got frustrated with the state of politics and what I saw as the lack of enough people from the real world in politics, and I thought ‘I can’t keep complaining about it. I should do something about it’,” he said.

“I also thought that if I could win a difficult seat like Swan, it might be enough to unseat the Albanese Government and that one seat might be enough to make the difference.”

The seat was held by Liberal MP Steve Irons for 15 years, only falling into Labor’s hands for one term in 2016, until Ms Mascarenhas turned it red with a 12-point swing in 2022.

Mr Fels said he was proud of the effort his team put into the campaign, and felt “indebted” and “overwhelmed” by the support that he had received.

“It was just an amazing experience, and all the people I met in the community in the Swan electorate are some amazing people,” he said.

“I’d like to thank everybody who helped me through the process and the trust they put in me.”

When asked if he planned to run again, Mr Fels said he would re-evaluate closer to the time after the Liberal Party had had a chance to become a “more relevant” and “viable contender” at the next election.

“In all honesty, there was a lot of challenges that came from within the party system that made it, in my mind, a lot harder for me to win an election,” he said.

Mr Fels said his wife Marnie — who took over the running of their farm alongside their farm manager during the campaign — was “very pleased” to know an experienced tractor driving was coming back to the farm.

“I’ll help them finish seeding and, to be honest, I’m very much looking forward to spending some hours on the tractor. . . switch off from it all,” he said.