Whether Cathy McGowan wins her audacious bid for the seat of Indi, unseating veteran Liberal Party frontbencher Sophie Mirabella, the message to every other sitting MP will be the same.

McGowan — who now has a 1449-vote lead in latest counting, after 1000 “misplaced” votes were discovered yesterday — told ABC News Breakfast today:

“We knew people had felt they were being taken for granted. It was called a safe seat, [the parties said] there was no feeling in the electorate that things needed to change … but in the electorate there was that feeling. It was clear to us that neither Melbourne nor Sydney, the Liberal and Labor Party headquarters, were thinking of us …

“You take a seat for granted, you stop listening and you stop giving us policies that work for rural and regional Australia and people are going to say, ‘it doesn’t work for us’.”

Nobody is safe, if a good rival puts up a decent fight. Which is exactly how it should be.