The city best known for smoking marijuana had the biggest double-digit swing backlash against both the Greens and Labor in the federal election.
Nimbin, in the region of the northern rivers new South WalesUsually vote for the Greens and it has a hemp embassy shop on the main street.
But on Saturday, the Greens faced a massive 19 percent drop against it in the Nimbin Central School booth within Page’s secure national electorate, Australian Election Commission results showed.
This happened despite the election campaign tour of the Greens. managing committee candidate David Shoebridge, a former Upper House MP for NSW state, who has called for legalizing recreational cannabis use.
Labor’s primary vote in Nimbin fell 10 percent, even though the ALP won the federal election.
Instead the left-wing vote went to independent candidate Dr. Hanabeth Luke, a senior lecturer at Southern Cross University in Lismore who helped court millionaire Simon Holmes with the Climate 200 campaign.
A city known as a haven for marijuana smoking had the biggest backlash against both Greens and Labor in the federal election (pictured is Greens Senate candidate David Shoebridge campaigning in Nimbin on May 2)
The environmental science academic and activist won the Nimbin booth with 29.22 percent of the primary vote, 28.65 percent over Greens candidate K Miller, Labor’s Patrick Deegan at 19.48 percent and incumbent National Member Kevin Hogan at just 6.91 percent — suffering only a 0.6 percent swing against him.
Luke said the coal seam gas issue helped him win the Nimbin booth.
“The result at this booth was a welcome surprise for me and my team,” he told Daily Mail Australia.
‘I suspect the strong result that people in Nimbin know me for my PhD work on the social and economic impacts of coal seam gas development.’
The Climate 200 campaign ran only against Liberal and National MPs as independents, but not Labor members.
This saw ‘teal’ independents elect the Liberal seats of Wentworth, North Sydney and Mackeller in Sydney and Melbourne voters of Kooyong and Goldstein.
The strategy of targeting only Coalition seats meant that the Greens were large beneficiaries of opposition voters in the Labor Party.
In the Labor seat of Richmond, on the NSW far north coast, re-elected MP Justin Elliott did not face a challenge from the Climate 200 campaign.
Nimbin, in the North Rivers area of New South Wales, usually votes for the Greens and has a hemp embassy shop on its main street
Within her electorate, Greens candidate Mandy Nolan won 54 percent of the primary vote in the Byron Bay polling booth, which overlaps with Ballina, the Greens state seat.
This is also higher than Greens leader Adam Bandt’s 47.2 percent primary vote share at his Melbourne electorate’s Dockland booth, which overlaps with a state seat of the same name.
Within Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s own electorate of Sydney’s Grendler, Greens candidate Rachel Jacobs won 44.1 percent of the primary vote in the Newtown polling booth – roughly equal to the vote share of the longtime Labor MP.
Newtown and Balmain’s Greens overlap the prime minister’s inner-city electorate with state seats.
In Griffith’s Brisbane seat, the Greens had 46 percent of the primary vote, with the winning candidate Max Chandler-Mather easily defeating Labor frontbencher Terry Butler on 26.86 percent.
The booth also falls within the State Greens seat of South Brisbane, previously held by Labor premiers Anna Bligh and Vince Geer, and until 2020 former deputy premier Jackie Tread.
Nimbin falls within the state seat of Lismore, which Labor won back in 2019 for the first time since 1965 as the coal seam gas issue turned voters away from citizens.
Instead the vote on the left went to independent candidate Dr. Hanabeth Luke, a senior lecturer at Southern Cross University in Lismore.
Dr. Luke said that while his doctorate focused on the CSG issue, his thesis helped him gain the support of Nimbin environmentalists.
‘There is a strong environmental network around Nimbin,’ she said.
Dr. Luke took credit for motivating voters against CSG.
“In my PhD work 10 years ago, I developed surveys and surveys that had very low levels of support for unconventional gas development across the region,” he said.
‘The big yellow sign on the outskirts of Lismore says “87% said no to CSG”. He came from my PhD.’
Dr. Luke Got Help From Millionaire Simon Holmes With Court’s Climate 200 Campaign
In 2003 Dr Luke was filmed confronting former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair about the war in Iraq.
In another interesting development, former Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government got the highest primary vote in the Lismore booths, where the city has been hit by two devastating floods this year.
Nationals MP Mr. Hogan received 30.89 percent of the first preference vote at the Southern Cross University campus booth.
The Greens finished third with 19.78 percent of the vote, behind Labor with 20.05 percent.
At his workplace, Dr. Luke finished fourth with 17.89 percent.