Editor’s Desk: Durack contest likely to end predictably, but still much to play out on polling day

That time every three years which comes around much quicker than most of us would like is upon us again — it’s Federal election time. You may feel like dodging your civic responsibility or living in denial, but think of yourself as the young soccer kid minding his own business and election day as the bulky middle-aged, accident-prone pollie coming at you and taking you down with him. You just can’t get around it. And while the overall result might come down to the wire on Saturday — will Scott Morrison or Anthony Albanese be PM and will they be able to govern in their own right or have to deal with a hung Parliament — the outcome in our own sprawling electorate of Durack is likely to be a bit more predictable. All signs point to Liberal incumbent Melissa Price being elected for a fourth time, but if there’s an anti-Liberal swing on she could lose some ground. At the moment, Durack is a safe Liberal seat with a margin of 13.5 per cent. But a boundary redistribution after the last 2019 poll meant Durack gained about 25,000 electors from rural areas north and east of Perth, including Toodyay, Gingin, Lancelin, Northam and Bullsbrook, who used to be in the Pearce electorate. Durack lost parts of the Wheatbelt and Wiluna to O’Connor, the equivalent of 8500 voters — more than three-quarters voted Liberal. Mrs Price has run a noticeably low-key campaign in Geraldton and the Mid West, perhaps focusing on the new areas for Durack where she is regarded as a new candidate. Serious campaigning in an electorate like Durack is not for the faint-hearted and would spread any seasoned campaigner thin. Covering more than 1.6 million sqkm and 41 diverse local government areas, Durack is Australia’s biggest electorate and the second biggest in the world. How much of a dent, if any, Labor’s unproven quantity but eager candidate Jeremiah Riley can make in the Liberals’ buffer remains to be seen, but this time around Mrs Price might be helped with preferences from Nationals candidate and well-known former Geraldton MP Ian Blayney coming her way. The thing about living in a safe seat, is that you can often feel ignored, especially in cash-splashing blitzes during budgets and elections. Durack voters hardly had much to celebrate in the recent Federal Budget and funding commitments specific to Durack during the last six weeks of the campaign have certainly been few and far between. While Mrs Price has backed the local grassroots campaign for a jetty in Geraldton and her team has used that in their election material, the reality is the Federal Government has not promised one cent to the project to date. Sometimes it helps living in a marginal seat, I guess. If you haven’t made your mind up yet, you are probably one of countless on-the-fence voters remaining. You may think your one vote doesn’t matter, particularly in a safe seat like Durack, but that is narrow-minded thinking. As a collective, voting is the most powerful tool a democratic society has and a right some people in other countries fight and die for, so please don’t take it lightly. So use your democratic power wisely and celebrate the fact you have it with a well-earned democracy sausage.