Labor loses, but Danby holds his Melbourne Ports seat

A win at Southbank’s polling booth has helped Labor’s Michael Danby hold his Melbourne Ports seat in September’s federal election, despite a swing to Liberal candidate and Southbank resident Kevin Ekendahl.

Southbank’s only polling booth, at The Victorian College of the Arts (VCA), echoed the results of the overall electorate, with Mr Ekendahl scoring more first preference votes, but Mr Danby winning after preferences.

While the overall result in Southbank gave Mr Danby an 81 vote win (898-817), Mr Ekendahl received 716 first preference votes, compared with 508 for Mr Danby. His win was helped by preferences from Greens candidate Ann Birrell’s who registered 344 first-preference votes. The best of the rest was the Sex Party’s Melissa Star, who received 90 votes, which equated to 5.25 per cent of votes cast in Southbank.

Toby Simon Stodart from Palmer United Party was the only other candidate to reach double figures in Southbank, collecting 34 votes.

In total, 1753 votes were cast at VCA, including 38 informal votes.

Mr Danby was unsurprisingly pleased with the result, and told Southbank Local News he looked forward to continuing his representation of Southbank.

He said at the top of his list was opposition to the proposed tower on Clarke St and pushing the ongoing petition for a night-time security guard at the botanical gardens.