Seat of the week: La Trobe

This week’s better-late-than-never installment of Seat of the Week brings us to La Trobe, one of two crucial gains for Labor in Victoria at the 2010 election which helped redressed losses in New South Wales and especially Queensland. The defeated Liberal member, Jason Wood, will attempt to recover the seat from Labor’s Laura Smyth at the next election after winning a preselection ballot earlier this week.

La Trobe has covered Melbourne’s eastern fringe since its creation with the enlargement of parliament in 1949, drifting south-eastwards over time from its starting point of Dandenong and Croydon. It now consists of two rapidly growing outer Melbourne areas separated by the Dandenong Ranges – Boronia and Ferntree Gully in the north, and the Berwick area in the south – and extends eastwards through Belgrave to Emerald, Cockatoo and Gembrook. Labor’s strength around Belgrave is countered by Liberal dominance around Berwick. The redistribution that will take effect at the next election has effected a swap of about 16,000 voters around Bayswater, who have been transferred to Aston, for a similar number in Narre Warren, who were previously in Holt. Another 3000 voters around Pakenham have been transferred to McMillan. Antony Green calculates that the changes have boosted Labor’s margin from 0.9% to 1.7%.

Along with other seats in Melbourne’s outer suburban “sandbelt”, La Trobe played a decisive role in the election of the Whitlam government in 1972, falling to Labor for the first time with a 10.2% swing. It swung almost as heavily the other way when the Liberals recovered it in 1975, but returned to the Labor fold in 1980 when Peter Milton defeated Liberal member Marshall Baillieu (part of the clan that includes the current Premier). An unfavourable redistribution in 1990 combined with the statewide anti-Labor tsunami at that year’s election to deliver a 1.4% victory to Liberal candidate Bob Charles. The seat had a remarkably stable time of it on Charles’s watch, staying with the Liberals by 2.4% in 1993, 1.4% in 1996, 1.0% in 1998 and 3.7% in 2001.

With Charles’s retirement at the 2004 election, La Trobe emerged as a contest between Liberal candidate Jason Wood, a police officer who had worked in counter-terrorism and organised crime units, and Labor’s Susan Davies, who held the since-abolished state seat of Gippsland West as an independent from 1997 to 2002. The result was an easy win for Wood, who overcame the loss of Charles’s personal vote to pick up a 2.1% swing that was concentrated in the heavily mortgaged suburbs nearer the city. Wood had won preselection with the backing of the Kennett faction after cutting his teeth as candidate for Holt in 2001. It was noted at the time he had “been a member of Greenpeace for longer than he has been a member of the Liberal Party”, and he went on to embarrass his party ahead of the 2007 election by issuing a brochure that failed to sing from its song sheet on nuclear power.

Wood went into the 2007 election with a 5.8% margin, of which only 0.5% was left after a swing that was most conspicuous in the areas that had moved to the Liberals in 2004. He was promoted to parliamentary secretary for justice and public security when Malcolm Turnbull assumed the Liberal leadership in September 2008, despite the embarrassment he had recently suffered after stammering his way through a parliamentary speech on genetically modified organisms (which repeatedly came out as “orgasms”). The 1.4% swing that unseated him at the 2010 election was fairly typical for Victoria, which collectively swung to Labor by 1.0%. The successful Labor candidate was Laura Smyth, a lawyer for Holding Redlich whom VexNews linked to the “Andrew Giles/Alan Griffin sub-faction of the Socialist Left”.

VexNews reports that Jason Wood’s victory in this week’s preselection ballot was achieved with 61 votes in the first round out of 140, against 38 for Mark Verschuur, managing director of Fairmont Medical Products (and, apparently, a former ALP member); 17 for “IT uber-nerd” and “chick magnet” Martin Spratt; 14 for local councillor and former mayor Sue McMillan; and 12 for Michael Keane, an anaesthetist and former member of the Liberal Democratic Party.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

2,980 comments on “Seat of the week: La Trobe”

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  1. Typed this when new thread was coming up

    [confessions

    Barnaby has had a Rolls Royce education, so why does he talk like an uneducated fool?

    I can only conclude that he’s bunging it on to appeal to less urbane types. Quite patronising to his constituents if true, I would’ve thought.

    One of my favourite songs is “Hello Country Bumpkin” however these days farmers,agriculturists etc, have degrees,barnaby thinks all his national party members are country bumpkins,so he talks down to his party members,will people of other parties really want him as acting PM,Whew.]

  4. Aguirre

    It will be interesting to see who replaces KJ at the HR Nicholls event

    Might take a while. They’re a bit loose with details. They’ve got last Friday’s date as the 12th on that agenda sheet. I like the subject:

    Cost, loss and disruption
    Another year of the Fair Work Act

    I’m sure that’s something Jackson would be eminently qualified to talk about.

  5. Still shows jackson in this ref:

    HR Nicholls 32nd Conference, Melbourne, 12 June 2012

    The HR Nicholls 32nd Conference, Cost, loss and disruption: Another year of the Fair Work Act, will be held in Melbourne on 12 June 2012. The after-dinner Conference speaker will be HSU National Secretary, Kathy Jackson. Further details, including the programme, speakers’ bios and the registration form, are available here.

  8. It’s interesting to see the Coalition’s rhetoric on asylum seeker policy now.

    With the realisation that the high court decision makes pretty much all off shore processing impossible without bipartisan support, it looks like now they’re going to focus on the smaller discriminatory things that the ALP won’t touch as they’re too nasty.

    My fear is that Abbott and Morrison will cross lines that even Howard never crossed on this issue

  11. Aguirre

    Not trying to dipute,but keep getting she is still there.Conference News

    [HR Nicholls XXXIInd Conference to be held in Melbourne on 12 June 2012

    Cost, loss and disruption]
    Another year of the Fair Work Act

    Travelodge Docklands,
    66 Aurora Lane,
    Docklands, Melbourne

    Our after-dinner Conference speaker will be HSU National Secretary, Kathy Jackson. Conference speakers are Mr Mark Textor, Mr Dough Williams, Dr Alex Robson, Stuart WoodSC, Ms Grace Collier and Ms Louise Staley. You can see their biographies (here).

    A copy of the Conference Agenda can be viewed (here) and the registration form can be viewed (here).

    It will be a conference not to be missed.

  12. Schnappi, you’ve got the page – now where it says “A copy of the Conference Agenda can be viewed (here)” click on the “here”. It’ll download a doc file of the agenda for the conference.

    You’ll find this at the bottom of that page:

    Conference Dinner.

    Venue: Platform 28,
    82 Village Street,
    Docklands,
    Melbourne, 3000.

    Time: 6.30pm for 7.00pm

    Guest Speaker: TBC, but guaranteed not to be missed!

  14. mmmmmmm
    [ONE of Australia’s richest entrepreneurs has decided life in Newcastle is no longer for him: Nathan Tinkler and his family are moving to Singapore…

    Mr Allerton said Mr Tinkler would travel frequently to Australia and his business interests would remain unaffected by the move.

    ”Nathan remains 100 per cent committed to the Knights, and also his Australian operations, and continues to manage them as he has,” Mr Allerton said.

    Personal tax rates in Singapore are among the lowest in the world with a cap of 20 per cent, compared to the top tax rate of 46.5 per cent in Australia.]

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/executive-style/singapore-sling-for-magnate-tinkler-20120608-201gv.html#ixzz1xGy4f73w

  16. As others said thu and fri,with a newspoll due , boats and leadership are the weekend stories, now just dumb media blogged everyhere, seems the media no longer cares about its image.

  21. jenauthor @ 18

    Thanks for sending me the invitation to sign that petition on Facebook. I signed and have forwarded to the maximum number of others.

  23. Bushfire Bill
    Posted Saturday, June 9, 2012 at 11:13 am | Permalink

    What irks me is that in the last week or so the press pack has herded itself to the other side of the ship to correct the now noticeable list to starboard that it has created all by itself.

    They’ve suddenly discovered that the economy has been being talked down for political reasons.

    They’ve suddenly twigged that, as a short term tactic, it isn’t too bad an idea but, over the long term, the chronic ennui it has created is feeding back on itself, turning the nation into a chronic confidence basket case.

    Who knew?

    The weekend AFR is just the opposite, still LABOR = BAD.

    Most articles well into the front are LABOR = BAD one way or another.

    1000 word editorial – LABOR = BAD.

    Journo after journo – LABOR = BAD.

    Worse than the OO if that possible.

    Every attempt being made to drown out a week of really upbeat economic data.

    Stutchbury must really have had a dose of the shits last night.

  24. Wilkliam

    I let it go last thread but one, but I’m going to pull you up this time.
    Instalment is not spelt installment. Your American spellcheck is misleading you.

  26. I am in clover from here-on. Somehow this inadvertently ended up in my email Junk Folder.
    [–
    Attention

    You have won the sum of $3,000,000.00 in the Commonwealth Of Nations
    E-mail Game contact Asia Pacific Couriers, Mr.Mr Kenny Kim via email:
    (deleted) @hotmail.co.uk – with

    Names:
    Age:
    country:
    Mobile:

    Congratulations once more from all members and staffs of this program.

    Yours Truly,
    Waleed Raymond
    Online Coordinator.]

    Hang on, how could I have won anything if they do not even know my name?

  27. Schnappi

    What’s happening now is that the Coalition have woken up to the fact that they can’t get offshore processing up without bipartisan support or unless they control the senate (and even then it’s dicey as people don’t like one party having absolute power) and they’re now segmenting asylum seekers into what this has always been about: Australian/Non Australian.

    The big question is where the line is in the Liberal Party. When will it get so bad that it starts out rightly offending those who consider themselves “small L Liberals” like Turnbull, Hunt, Birmingham etc

  29. Lenore Taylor’s article on electricity bills here is great stuff and something the government should have latched onto long ago to destroy Abbott’s nonsense. Lenore is not the first to point out all these issues and they have been known for ages.

    The essence of the article is that the overwhelming majority of increases in electricity bills has been caused by investment in poles and wires to cover just a few hours of peak demand each year. That point needs to be hammered.

    Lenore expresses it well.

    Including the rises scheduled for July 1, the average NSW power bill will have gone up by more than 70 per cent over the past six years, on top of inflation. Only 8 per cent of that rise is due to the carbon price.
    The other 62 per cent has been primarily caused by investment, most would say over-investment, in the “wires and poles” distribution of electricity.

    The 62 per cent of our power price increase that’s due to “wires and poles” is driven by the need to pay for peak demand periods that occur for less than 40 hours every year. A full 25 per cent of our total bill is just to pay for the few hot days when we all run our airconditioners. For the rest of the year we don’t need anything like that capacity. It’s like raising taxes to pay for 20-lane highways so that no one suffers even a second’s delay during peak hour in a thunderstorm, even if 18 of the lanes are empty for most of the rest of the year.

  30. the spectator
    Posted Saturday, June 9, 2012 at 2:58 pm | Permalink

    A great article by Shaun Carney today. The ALP must reform how can Unions who have a membership of 18% of the workforce still have 50% control of the ALP.

    *great article* and *Shaun Carney* shouldn’t be used in the same sentence as far as I’m concerned.

    The day Labor take any advice from carney is the day they should pack up shop.

    The way Carney’s employer, Fairfax are traveling it may well be a penny dreadful stock or taken over by the time the next Federal election is held.

    It is also noteworthy that two businesses Fairfax sold, Seek the online job outfit and an online used car sale website are trading on the stockmarket each at 5 times plus the price of Fairfax.

  33. [I’m sure the typo was unintentional, but soooo funny and appropriate!]

    That was so Poroti and other Kiwis will understand.

  34. Lenore Taylor’s article on electricity bills here is great stuff and something the government should have latched onto long ago to destroy Abbott’s nonsense.

    There should have been a requirement for energy bills to disclose the amount being included in bills because of the carbon scheme.

    We all know its going to be gamed by the tories etc.

  35. For those who have been following the discussion between guytaur and zoomster, here is a short article about the Green’s postion re food security and its context:
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-04/greens-leader-puts-focus-on-food-security/4050092
    [The leader of the Australian Greens says the conflict between farmers and miners will be on the top of her agenda when she visits the Darling Downs today.

    Senator Christine Milne will visit a farm at Felton that is threatened by a proposed coal mine and then attend a public meeting about coal seam gas in Toowoomba.

    Senator Milne says the future of food production on the Darling Downs is under pressure.

    “We are facing a food security crisis globally in this century, we ought to (be) protecting agricultural land wherever we can to maximise our own production not only for domestic consumption but for export,” she said.]
    There is plenty more information available for those who want to determine who is spinning on the issue.

  38. peg

    absolutely we should protect prime agricultural land. As a local councillor, I was a big advocate of that.

    But you’re mixing up two issues, as did guytaur.

    Foreign ownership of land has little to do with food security, particularly the kind of food security referred to in your link.

    Protecting prime agricultural land from inappropriate development is not the same as protecting it from foreign ownership.

  40. [The 62 per cent of our power price increase that’s due to “wires and poles” is driven by the need to pay for peak demand periods that occur for less than 40 hours every year. A full 25 per cent of our total bill is just to pay for the few hot days when we all run our airconditioners. For the rest of the year we don’t need anything like that capacity. It’s like raising taxes to pay for 20-lane highways so that no one suffers even a second’s delay during peak hour in a thunderstorm, even if 18 of the lanes are empty for most of the rest of the year. ]

    It’s an engaging way to make a point and I’m sympathetic to the general claim but let’s not over-egg the analogy. To be fair “a second’s delay” is not really the same as suffering a brownout for everyone. The costs of the latter are a lot greater than one traffic jam.

  41. I’m obviously missing something here, but the Greens argument seems to be that it is better to let people in other countries starve than to allow them to buy land in our country.

    I would have thought that members of a party which saw us all as Earthians and pushed for World Government would regard such parochial thinking as redundant.

  43. Emerson transcript up.

    http://blogs.crikey.com.au/thestump/2012/06/09/craig-emerson-rips-into-the-abc/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CrikeyBlogs%2Fthestump+%28The+Stump%29

    He opens with:

    [Here’s the ABC on the big picture again. We’ve got all these policy matters to discuss, the strength of the economy, trade deal with China – and we’re on a state administrative matter about which I know nothing.]

    [I’m here to talk about policy. I don’t know the details of what goes on in the New South Wales party administrative structure. I’m from Queensland. I don’t involve myself in those matters and I can’t help you on it.]

    [I’ve just completed a 19-day visit to seven countries which look to Australia as the envy of the world, and the ABC yet again thinks that the big picture is about New South Wales administrative matters.]

    [You can ask me the same question 23 times; I’ll give you the same answer.]

    [Twenty three times and then we’ll run out of time and you’ll say, ‘well we’ll talk about policy next week’.]

    Having been well and truly warned, the next question:

    [GEOGHEGAN: Okay. Look, we’re going to talk about policy. There is another issue in the papers today that three Labor senators….]

    [I’m not going to go to administrative matters in New South Wales; I’m not going to go to leadership. We can spend the rest of the time with me saying the same thing over and over again, or we can now move on to policy.]

  45. [the Greens argument seems to be that it is better to let people in other countries starve than to allow them to buy land in our country.]

    That’s just silly. Now personally, I should say that I’ve no problem with who buys land. My concerns begin and end with how they use the land.

    Yet even putting that aside, policies on who can own land make no difference to who gets fed or how well.

  46. [Thanks for sending me the invitation to sign that petition on Facebook. I signed and have forwarded to the maximum number of others.]

    Cheers!

  48. z

    Ownership will:

    (1) affect food distribution. This would be of concern to the billion or so people who go to bed hungry every night.

    (2) affect the degree to which sensible stewardship principles are applied. There is no particular reason to believe that Chinese interests, which are trashing the chinese environment in a big way, would be any more environmentally sensitive in its farming practices in Australia.

    (3) affect the taxation treatments on food production.

    (4) affect the amount of capital that might be invested in that land to improve productivity.

  49. [Where does the petion go o to pls jen the speaker?.]

    I think it goes to a committee via the Speaker. When there’s enough signatures to make a “statement” it’ll be sent on.

  50. Fran Barlow @ 40

    It’s an engaging way to make a point and I’m sympathetic to the general claim but let’s not over-egg the analogy. To be fair “a second’s delay” is not really the same as suffering a brownout for everyone. The costs of the latter are a lot greater than one traffic jam.

    Well that is true.

    But you are apparently unaware of the roll-out of ‘smart meters’ and the potential of that to assist consumers to manage their demand by responding to price signals when demand is high.

    The initial roll-out will not get us to that point, but it is coming. It may also be possible eventually for consumers to sign contracts for cheaper electricity in return for retailers being able to restrict their supply at times of peak usage.

    Things are going to get a whole lot smarter in the electricity market than they are now.

    Of course the luddites are out in force, their latest claim being that smart meters, just like wind turbines, make you sick.

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