He was devastated, didn’t see it coming. She’d fallen out of love with him. After moping around, Mick decided to try and win back Bella’s heart, so he’s been seriously courting her over recent months and, in a couple of weeks, he will get down on one knee offering commitment.

It’s a courageous thing for Mick, but these affairs of the heart often see us doing crazy things.

Will Bella say “yes”? We’ll all know on the night, because, you see, the Mick in question is Mick Gentleman and Bella is the electorate of Brindabella.

Mick was a Labor member for Brindabella between 2004 and 2008 and sat on the backbench in the Stanhope majority government. He was a “touchy-feely” local politician, whose opponents argue was not very effective. His supporters speak of an MLA who spent a lot of time dealing with the concerns of constituents. Among his achievements was the passing of the solar feed-in tariff legislation.

In 2008, despite increasing his primary vote from four years earlier, he was out-preferenced by Joy Burch, whose electoral victory was one of the great surprises of the last ACT poll.

He’s having another go on October 20.

Mick has suggested to me that his relationship with Brindabella  has gone on much longer than his four-year term, rattling off a long list of community activities that he’s been involved in before and since his stint in the Assembly.

Right now, he’s campaigning like a madman. He wants to “finish what he started”.

Brindabella will be important to all three parties. If the Liberals are to win Government, they must win three of the five seats. That’s never been done before. It would require a Liberal primary vote of between 45 and 50 per cent.

Opposition Leader Zed Seselja and his deputy Brendan Smyth are almost certain of re-election, but the question is will they get enough first-preference votes to drag Val Jeffery over the line, probably at the expense of the Greens’ Amanda Bresnan?

ACT Labor is hoping that the inclusion of Gentleman can stem the flow of votes to the right, although retiring Labor MLA John Hargreaves has put his support behind energetic first-time candidate Karl Maftoum, whose impressive list of achievements includes that he is the keyboard player in John’s rock band!

And as far as the relationship of Bella and Mick….don’t they say that going back to your ex is like reading the same book over again. You already know how it ends.

Mark Parton is the breakfast announcer on 2CC.