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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s birthday wish has come true as Labor is expected to retain its seat following a by-election in Melbourne’s Dunkley electorate sparked by the death of MP Peta Murphy.
ABC election analyst Antony Green awarded the seat to Labor with 59 per cent of the votes counted at 8.45pm on Saturday.
Both Labor and the Liberals tempered expectations of victory in the vote sparked after Murphy lost his battle with cancer in December.
Community leader Jodie Belyea retained the Labor Party seat despite a change in the seat. Ms. Murphy maintained a 6.3 percent margin.
Anthony Albanese’s birthday wish has come true as Labor retains a crucial seat following a by-election in Melbourne’s Dunkley electorate (the Prime Minister is pictured with candidate Jodie Belyea).
Labor Party supporters are seen celebrating in Frankston as the announcement is made.
The opposition pinned their hopes on Frankston City Council mayor Nathan Conroy running for the Liberal Party, but the 3.8 per cent swing he achieved was not enough to secure the seat.
Albanese made an early appearance at a polling station on Saturday, his 61st birthday, along with Belyea and his fiancée, Jodie Haydon.
“What I want for my birthday is obvious today, which is a win for Jodie Belyea,” Albanese told reporters.
The cost of living was front and center in the campaign, with Albanese talking about a bigger tax cut for low- and middle-income earners under the government’s revamped tax package.
On Saturday he claimed his opponents had outspent Labor in the run-up to the by-election, which he described as a “negative right-wing campaign” fueled by money from anonymous billionaires.
“We’ve seen people in this electorate be inundated with misinformation and fear on Facebook and in all the advertising that’s been done,” Albanese said.
Belyea promised to “bat for the fighters” while speaking of his connections to the community.
Liberal senator Jane Hume praised Conroy for his efforts on Saturday night.
“Dunkley was never a marginal seat… but, damn, it’s a marginal seat now,” Mrs Hume said.
He earlier joined Conroy at a primary school polling station in Langwarrin for a press conference that was frequently interrupted by heckling people.
“We don’t yell at people,” Conroy said when a protester interrupted him.
“What we do have is a strong positive campaign.”
Conroy said the rising cost of living was the number one issue for voters, while promoting investment in local infrastructure.
‘We need to have more jobs, more businesses, more options, more homes for people. “If you look at crime, crime is increasing and that is due to the housing crisis and the cost of living,” he said.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton did not appear on Saturday but had previously said that while the vote will not change the government, it could send a message to the prime minister that he was not doing enough.
He said any variation greater than three per cent by the government would be a terrible outcome for Albanese.