Sustainable Population Party finishes ahead of every other minor party in North Sydney by-election.
The North Sydney by-election count has delivered the Sustainable Population Party's best result yet, although Trent Zimmerman has already claimed the seat for the Liberal Party.
The Sustainable vote stands at around 3 per cent (over 2000 votes), with around 70 per cent of the vote counted. It will therefore stay near this level, which is roughly three times their previous best of 1 per cent in the 2014 Griffith by-election.
They finished ahead of every other minor party, including parliamentary parties like the Liberal Democrats, Christian Democrats and Palmer United.
The full count is displayed in the AEC Virtual Tally Room: CLICK HERE
Sustainable Population Party faced a number of significant challenges in the campaign, including the inability to run with their new Sustainable Australia name.
Extraordinary media apathy
There was also the assumption that the by-election was a foregone conclusion for the Liberals, resulting in extraordinary media apathy towards the campaign. For example, not once did the print edition of the Sydney Morning Herald list all of the candidates prior to polling day. This mainstream media apathy made it very difficult for any minor party to cut-through.
Fortunately SPP had over 100 volunteers that took their campaign to the people. They campaigned at local shopping centres, train stations and community hubs, as well as polling places on election day. Despite this, their volunteer effort was dwarfed by the Liberal and Greens parties, as well as the main independent Dr Stephen Ruff who has a huge local community network in and around the Royal North Shore Hospital.
In addition to SPP's volunteers, the contribution of Dick Smith in generating several major mainstream media promotions for the party was invaluable.
They have certainly raised the bar in the North Sydney by-election, but still have several key areas to greatly improve on.
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