WHILE there might be a wait to find out who Australia’s prime minister will be, there was a clear winner in the battle for New England.
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Nationals leader and incumbent member Barnaby Joyce received 52 per cent of the primary vote according to updated figures from the Australian Electoral Commission yesterday.
His closest competitor was independent candidate Tony Windsor, who received just shy of 30 per cent of the vote.
While the pair were the clear frontrunners in a high profile and drawn out campaign, Labor’s David Ewings was the third most popular contender with almost 7 per cent of the primaries.
He was followed by independent Rob Taber with 2.91 per cent and Mercurius Goldstein of The Greens receiving 2.7 per cent, while Country- Minded’s David Mailler and Stan Colefax of the Christian Democrats both recorded 1.36 per cent of the primary vote.
Peter Whelan of the Liberal Democrats was next in line with 1.1 per cent and independent Philip Cox and Online Direct Democracy candidate Robert Walker with .89 per cent.
On a two party preferred basis, Mr Joyce was also the clear front runner with 58.1 per cent of the votes and Mr Windsor at 41.87 per cent.
About 81 per cent of 109,000 people eligible to vote had actually cast their vote in this election, with an informal vote weighing in at 6.81 per cent.
Electoral commission staff and volunteers worked into the early hours of yesterday morning to count and tally almost 30,000 pre-polling votes from across the region.