Liberals not looking at Dunkley by-election result ‘as a loss’

Shadow Finance Minister Jane Hume says Liberals aren’t seeing the Dunkley by-election result as a loss. While Labor retained the seat in Melbourne’s outer east at Saturday’s by-election, the party suffered an almost four per cent swing against it. Both the government and the Liberal Party are claiming the result as a victory, given the pre-election margin of 6.2 per cent. “We are not looking at this as a loss – quite frankly, our primary vote came back in a way that we haven’t seen in more than a decade in Dunkley,” Ms Hume told Sky News Australia. “This is really quite exciting for us, and Dunkley was not a marginal seat.”