Eureka!

By Lachlan Ellis

The state election is over, and the people of the new seat of Eureka have voted in Labor’s Michaela Settle as their representative at Spring Street.

Ms Settle was elected the Member for Buninyong at the 2018 state election, but that seat was abolished and largely replaced by the new District of Eureka ahead of the 2022 state election.

The new District of Eureka takes in Moorabool and Golden Plains Shire along with the eastern suburbs of Ballarat such as Golden Point, Mount Clear, and Canadian.

Ms Settle said it was an honour to be re-elected to the Victorian Parliament, and to be elected as Eureka’s first MP.

“It’s a huge honour to represent your community in the Victorian Parliament and I am grateful for such strong support in the election,” she told the Moorabool News.

“Over the last four years, I’ve spread my time over every part of Moorabool Shire, in communities big and small. I will keep it up over the next four years because locals know what communities need, and because I’m here to help.”

At the time of writing, 66.1 per cent of the votes in Eureka have been counted, with Ms Settle currently leading her Liberal counterpart Paul Tatchell 56 per cent to 44 per cent on preference count.

Per current results the seat has seen a 3.6 per cent swing towards the Liberals, compared to the former District of Buninyong.

Mr Tatchell congratulated Ms Settle on her win, and said he would “continue to work with her on Council”.

“Michaela has been a good Member for us anyway and we get along, it was a clean campaign. I’m not overly disappointed, it was a fairly big margin to make up, and we’ve had a fairly healthy swing,” he said.

“When postal votes and pre-polls are counted, we’ll probably end up with a five or six per cent swing. What you take out of that is that it keeps us out of that ‘extremely safe seat’ status…that will ensure we keep the funding tap flowing, which was the main premise of me running.”

Mr Tatchell thanked the team of volunteers who joined his campaign for their “extraordinary support”.

“We had a very small team, but a large group of volunteers who offered their services for the cause. From that perspective I couldn’t be more pleased,” he said.

Among her main priorities as the inaugural Member for Eureka, Ms Settle says, are “making sure important local commitments like improving traffic flow and a new home for the bowls clubs in Bacchus Marsh are on track”.