The election is done and dusted and Mark Coulton is our Member of Parliament for another three years. Well done, Mr Coulton.
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Both Mr Coulton and Jack Ayoub, the Labor candidate, commented on how respectfully the race for Parkes was contested. It was in sharp contrast to how the campaign was run federally.
They both commented on the policy, not the person mantra they followed during the election.
"I think its been a splendid campaign and it's an example to all others about how a campaign should be run in Australia," Mr Ayoub said.
"Its been a campaign about policy. That is the difference in those policies and how they affect people, not about the people and the politics of identity."
"This campaign has been conducted very civilly," Mr Coulton said.
"Jack was my strongest opponent, and we've had a very civil relationship."
Mr Ayoub might be painted as a sore loser, but he did make a good point after his defeat.
"Fears have won out over hopes," he told the Daily Liberal. "I think when you deal in the politics of fear, you hold the Australian people with a deep contempt that you go to that visceral part of them."
He is right. There was no 'death tax' in any policy Labor put forward, nor was there a 'pensioners tax', but that didn't stop both lies being told liberally by the LNP and Clive Palmer right up to the close of voting on Saturday.
That's a shame because what it will do now is make every election from this point onward about fear.
No opposition will ever be so bold with an agenda again; it didn't work for Labor this time as it didn't work for John Hewson and the Liberals in 1993.
We will see timid oppositions going to elections now with very small agendas for fear of losing. Australians don't like change; it seems, fear wins, and we will be the poorer for it.