As of the weekend, Mr Crouch had secured 51.4% of the vote to hold the seat for the Libs with 85.3% of the vote counted.
Mr Boughton at one stage last week was being applauded by the ALP for a likely win in the seaside seat, but the call proved premature for the popular local physio and surfer and he held 48.6% of the vote when the seat was called by the ABC on Saturday.
Mr Crouch had previously held the seat by a healthy 12.5% margin.
Elsewhere across the Central Coast, it was business as usual for the ALP with Wyong’s David Harris, Gosford’s Liesl Tesch and David Mehan of The Entrance all comfortably returned.
Mr Harris 70.6%, Ms Tesch 65.5% and Mr Mehan 57.6% all enjoyed resounding wins in their respective seats, proving that long hours of attending local events and listening to the concerns of local voters about housing, health, education and a myriad minor concern paid rich dividends.
The overall victory also showed the people of the Central Coast are struggling under severe rental and body corporate hikes, inflation and the stress on medical services, roads and education.
Add to this the deteriorating standard of secondary education discipline brought on by bureaucrats seemingly more interested in the future of the perpetrators than the average student who is falling victim and you have a backlash across the board.
Coast people are also worried that their beautiful laid-back area is being swamped by an inrush of new residents which would have seen 75,000 plus people move here over a 20-year period with the current population already under serviced by Macquarie Street.
Mr Harris’s big win is especially significant for the region because he is now effectively the Minister for the Central Coast and that is a position that now has enormous potential to get things right for the average citizen.
The Coast has no democratically elected Council and was perceived to have been badly let down by its ALP dominated councillors which led to the sacking of the organisation by the State Government.
Mr Harris wisely stood apart from the mess and Mr Mehan was deeply critical of several key problems affecting his residents including poor roads, flooding and a general lack of support for The Entrance by local and state governments.
So, it means the new State Government will need to set about fixing the “local things” that play a key role in the life of the average resident, rather than concentrating on the “big picture” for the Coast’s future touted by the LNP and the previous Council management.
Getting the balance right will be critical. Part of the ALP success story of 2023 has been winning the tradie and small business vote.
COVID hit hard across the board and was particularly damaging to the construction industry and small business on the Coast.
The problem is, they rely on a healthy, affluent economy to survive and grow and that inevitably means regional growth while servicing and enhancing the current lifestyle of voters. Putting the infrastructure in place to meet that growth while fixing the “little things” is a balancing act requiring the finest skill.
Only time will tell if they get it right.
