• The Nats defied doomsday predictions and retained party status.
• The Liberals and Greens failed to increase their primary votes.
• The media darlings (Greens) won't win a lower house seat.
• Labor no longer holds any seats in Gippsland.
• The Labor primary vote in Mildura was just 6.53%. Has the ALP ever polled that badly in any seat anywhere?
• The winners: Steve Bracks and Peter Ryan.
• The losers: Ted Baillieu (despite his bluster) and the Greens. 

Several high-profile members of the Traralgon ALP branch have quit the party and one, Lisa Proctor, will stand as an independent and direct preferences to the Nationals.

Another who resigned, Derek Amos, formerly held the seat for Labor. Apparently the current Member doesn’t live in the electorate.

I met Proctor when I was consulting for Pauls and she struck me as an impressive lady. As a Latrobe councillor she was a fierce advocate for Traralgon. I had no idea she was a member of the ALP until reading The Age article.

I’m pretty sure she would have been opposed to Traralgon’s forced amalgamation by Jeff Kennett with Morwell and Moe to form Latrobe. That was probably one of the worst amalgamations in the state and it caused a lot of bitterness in Traralgon, which had a strong identity as the capital of Gippsland that has now been devalued.

The Nationals candidate in Morwell is Russell Northe, a relatively young man who lives in Morwell and formerly played football for Traralgon. He’s a good candidate and can be expected to poll between 15 and 20 per cent. If it’s at the higher end he could win the seat.

Assuming the Liberals are ousted first in the preference count, either Northe or Proctor will win on the other’s preferences if the Labor primary vote is restricted to less than 45 per cent.

That will be a significant blow for Labor in a working class industrial heartland.

The possibility of Bracks losing the election is remote, but it now appears possible.

For the Nationals, if they happen to win Morwell and Benambra, where sitting Upper House member Bill Baxter is running after the long-serving Liberal MP Tony Plowman retired, it would be their best result for decades.

Preferences have to be finalised this weekend and there’s talk that Labor and the Liberals will do a deal to freeze out the Greens and Nationals. I think the only seat where the Nats will need Labor preferences is Shepparton, although pundits have mentioned Rodney, Swan Hill and leader Peter Ryan’s Gippsland South electorate as well.

Labor appears vulnerable to the Greens in a couple of inner city seats, so they would clearly benefit from Liberal preferences.

It’s shaping to be a much more fascinating election than first thought.

Jackie must have a love for regional Australia, and I admire her for that. She recently came through North East Victoria performing a one-woman theatre production.

I didn’t see the show, but it reminded me of her visit to Gippsland in the late 1980s. There’s a picture of me with her above at the Tinamba Hotel, between Maffra and Heyfield.

I can’t remember why she was there. It might have been something to do with the Maffra Mardi Gras, of which my friend Damien was chairman of the organising committee.

Anyway, here I am sitting next to this gorgeous (but short), famous, sexy doll of a woman. And my conversation skills completely dried up!

I think we chatted about her husband Derryn Hinch, who received a jail sentence around that time for contempt of court (he was a radio broadcaster and journalist). They’ve since divorced.

Then I was lost for words. What a waste!

Here is a clip of Jackie on YouTube talking to USA Today:

It was cold all day and I expected snow, but we didn’t get the precipitation they had in Gippsland. I saw TV footage of Mirboo North, which is lower in altitude than Porepunkah, and they had a foot of snow on the ground.

The school there and roads were closed. Snow fell at Inverloch on the coast!

This will interest everyone who’s concerned about the loss of democracy in Victorian councils since the so-called Kennett reforms and subsequent changes by the Labor Government.

The only true democracy in local government now occurs every four years at the ballot box. The scrutiny, checks and balances that used to exist have been removed.

Linette is an East Gippsland Shire Councillor and a past president of Ratepayers Victoria. Her experience gives her a unique insight and the authority to comment.