Was Jerusalem gold for Southwick?

Victoria’s most Jewish electorate went against the state-wide trend but not enough to prove the theory of Jewish exceptionalism, writes JULIE SZEGO.

In the column I wrote in prelude to the Victorian election I said that if the sitting member for Caulfield, David Southwick, wins he can take that result as a personal endorsement and if he loses, he can take consolation from his being a victim of larger forces beyond his control.

I stand by that assessment in the aftermath of the weekend’s poll, more or less. We pundits and prognosticators operate within a margin of error that allows for the odd over-statement and colourful generalisation.

At the time of writing on Monday morning the Liberal Opposition is coming to terms with a loss so breathtaking you have to admit it takes talent. In terms of seats, the final wash-up between the parties is likely to be little changed, the Liberals still the diminished contingent they were after the last poll. Their vote has even gone backwards in many of the key eastern metropolitan seats where elections are traditionally won.

Yet Southwick, the MP for the state’s most Jewish seat, is on track for a comfortable victory, Currently, he’s at 53.79% of the vote, after preferences.

On election night, it looked like Labor’s Lior Harel could take the seat. A beaming federal MP Josh Burns stood alongside his comrade Harel in a quietly triumphant interview with the ABC, against a background of cheering red-shirted volunteers.

To be fair, there were several such premature celebrations across Victoria, and Southwick had entered the fight with significant handicaps. A redistribution made the seat notionally Labor by a whisker — but in 2018 Southwick had prevailed with a mere 50.27%.

In his own live-cross to the ABC a noticeably exhausted Southwick said — and I’m paraphrasing— that given his near-death experience last time his wife was too traumatised to accompany him to his after-poll gathering.