Labor's Lisa Chesters wins seat of Bendigo

Ms Chesters has held the safe Labor seat since 2013, however early polling shows a larger Labor swing of 3.3 per cent from the 2019 election.

Polling booths including Elphinstone and Taradale recorded big swings to the ALP.

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"Some of the swings are amazing," Ms Chesters said, "I never thought I could be in a seat where we're looking at over 60% Labor vote in the two party preferred."

"This says that these are areas where people care about healthcare, aged care and climate - they care about the policies that Labor care about."

Ms Chesters said early voting "felt good" and coming into Saturdays vote count, the Labor MP was confident of retaining the seat.

"It's felt really good for the last month," she said, "but you never know until you see the results."

"But it's pretty exciting to see Bendigo return Labor and myself by such a big margin."

Addressing a crowd of supporters at the Bendigo Trades Hall on Saturday night, Ms Chesters thanked her partner Matt Emond and her children Daisy and Charlie for supporting her through the campaign process.

As Ms Chesters looks to the future, the challenges of being part of a government rather than in opposition are front of mind.

"It's exciting but at the same time very challenging," she said.

"I can no longer say it's the other guys fault, it's now our responsibility and that's something that all my colleagues around the country are ready for - but definitely know how important it is."

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Ms Chesters said nine years in opposition has taught the Labor party what not to do.

"You spend nine years watching them do it really badly, so the expectation to do it better is pretty high," she said.

When Julia Gillard was prime minister, Anthony Albanese was leader of the House and Ms Chesters said that experience sets the Labor party up for success in the event of a hung parliament.

"If it ends up being a diverse parliament, then that's something we will embrace and work with the parliament on," she said.

"I've still got my fingers crossed it'll be a Labor majority but if not, big things will still get done."

Across the electorate, some minor parties also had larger swings than in the 2019 election.

Greens candidate Cate Sinclair secured 13.8 per cent of the vote - a 2.9 per cent swing to the party.

The Liberal Democrats recorded 3.14 per cent of the vote in their first candidacy for the seat.

However, United Australia Party and One Nation votes slumped as they recorded swings of -0.64 per cent and 0.77 percent respectively.

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