The Liberal-National Party coalition improved its position in all five seats surrounding the ACT. The Liberal Party won the South Coast following the retirement of Independent John Hatton. The other four surrounding seats are all safe coalition seats with two-party-preferred margins before the election as follows: Monaro 12.7; Burrinjuck 8.9; Bega 12.8; Southern Highlands 6.5. In Monaro, to the south-east, sitting National and long-time logging supporter Peter Cochran, increased the two-party preferred vote for the coaltion by between 2 and 3 per cent, taking 59 per cent of the primary vote. In Burrinjuck, to the west of the ACT, the Liberals’ Alby Schultz took his vote up, by something less than 1 per cent, to easily retain the seat with 59 per cent of the primary vote. In Bega, to the east and including Bateman’s Bay, Liberal Russell Smith, also with 59 per cent of primary vote, increased the two-party-preferred by something less than 1 per cent. In Southern Highlands, the Premier John Fahey, took the coalition’s two-party-preferred vote up by between three and four per cent. In all the local seats, except Burrinjuck, the Greens, who were not present or insignifant four years ago, took between 4.5 and 7.25 per cent of the vote _ mostly from Labor and Democrats. The Greens did not stand in Burrinjuck. They did nowhere near as well as in the Federal seat of Canberra at the weekend, but Federal Labor is seen in a worse light by the Greens than NSW Labor. In South Coast, Mr Hatton, a long-time corruption fighter, retired, leaving the way for the Liberals to capture the seat. Mr Hatton’s son, John, stood this time in his father’s place as an independent, but got only 18 per cent of the vote. His father held the seat with an 18 per cent margin.