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.
[BK
Posted Monday, June 11, 2012 at 10:23 pm | Permalink
Julia has not once mentioned Abbott tonight.]
nice pick up.
Rummell he is your supreme leader , with policies for lads like you.
[Boats. This is actually getting boring.]
It is Q&A, more liberal party staff time goes into their attempted Q&A setups than goes into Abbotts bike shorts and policy development combined. Q&A is likely a paid weekly lib ad, it is almost entirely and permanently boring.
I’m still trying to comprehend how the people smuggling ‘mastermind ‘ making thousands of dollars through his nefarious activities was working as a trolley collector. – you’d think he’d be sunning on a yacht or something?
love the tories bagging the PM while their pin up boy proves he’s a complete soft ****.
And she whacks Jones again!
[bemused
Posted Monday, June 11, 2012 at 10:20 pm | Permalink
Mr Squiggle @ 2715
Brilliant question from the latino… ‘Why are we importing so many migrants when the earlier migrants are still unemployed’.
This is the point on which the population debate will hinge, what happens when established migrants want to reduce the migration rate??
Bring it on
Damn weird things are happening here!
I am agreeing with Mr Squiggle.]
Oh my god,
How could you have played into the racists’ hands.
I already alerted William Bowe about the racism.
Why are you doing this, bemused?
BK good pick up…..he won’t be happy…
Third time for Jones to display his ignorance!
You may have noticed Gillard absolutely refuses to dump on Abbott or the Coalition in this type of forum. Shows class. Plus she’s not afraid to tackle any question and answer it head on. She doesn’t steer the answer into safer areas. I think even if I was an LNP spruiker I’d respect that in her.
re gaybo’s ghetting married
JG said it is a conscience vote
TA dont want one
ATTACK TA NOT JG
whacked jones on the qld rubbish
[my say
Posted Monday, June 11, 2012 at 10:24 pm | Permalink
Rummell he is your supreme leader , with policies for lads like you.]
Mysay
he has policies for you to love and enjoy in 15 months.
Tony Jones should be required to wear a sign around his neck which say I Hate Gillard’s Guts.
gus
One of the reasons Abbott is too yellow to go on QandA
It has nothing to do with that,
We need the job done not for the mine owners but for australians,
Like the snowy scheme
Gonski question!
We want Paul
Who would be scathing. Your skin would be shredded. So don’t.
Don’t be silly.
His family lives in Adelaide. Partner works, kids go to school and or work.
Exactly why Gina wants foreign slaves.
In the mining industry, skilled local labour remains an untapped resource
http://theconversation.edu.au/in-the-mining-industry-skilled-local-labour-remains-an-untapped-resource-7407
[Miners commonly cite a shortage of workers as the main reason for this enthusiasm but the reasons are more complex…..
….Overall, given the relatively small percentage of employment that comprises the mining sector, the apparent enthusiasm of locals for employment in this sector and the concern that new forms of labour market flexibility has the capacity to undermine employment conditions of the existing workforce, many will continue to question the motives behind EMAs, such as that proposed for Roy Hill.]
Preface: I struggle to work out who is more stupid, the Christian lobby or the gay lobby on this ‘it is my word’, ‘no it is our word’ debate.
While JG’s position is by labor standards incredibly weak, TA is just playing. If the greens grew up and learned how to play grown up politics and not cut off their own noses to spite their faces once just every couple of months, it would work a lot better for everyone.
The Pm is on top of all subjects,abbott would be a howler
Gonski report: $5 B
Wait till will get our new super tax on the banks to fundit.
Andrew Elder (@awelder)
11/06/12 9:58 PM
I call upon @abcmarkscott to declare full confidence in Tony Jones #qanda
[We want Paul
Who would be scathing. Your skin would be shredded. So don’t.
Don’t be silly.
His family lives in Adelaide. Partner works, kids go to school and or work.
Exactly why Gina wants foreign slaves.]
I’m quite serious, this fellow wants to earn a living from WA resources, doesn’t even have the decency the foreign slaves as you call them would have and actually live here, and then whinges about the cost of his stupid and insulting decision. He can even buy peas here to make his own hideous pea thing.
[Why can’t we give these mining jobs to the huge army of unemployed Aboriginal people out there?]
I won’t know that until someone starts to describe the ‘skilled’ in ‘skilled migration’
What are the skills, is truck driving, drill bit replacement? what..
Please notice PM Gillard has not mention Tony Abbott at all #qanda If it has been abbott, he would have blamed PM all the way
[I give Rudd credit for listening to his economic advisors Swan and Tanner and Treasury and going with their advice. ]
Don’t talk crap. Swan knew almost zero about anything at that time. Kudos to Rudd for listening to Henry, having his own suggestions and then having the guts to go with it. Swan was nowhere, Tanner would have been the smarter man in the room.
The GFC solution was Rudd/Henry.
[I object on the grounds of racism.
since when have we Australians ever identified a person as a “latino”?]
I don’t know her name, and I was able to identify her accent as latino….its part of growing up in a multi-cultural society, isn’t that part of the point of cultural diversity?
Garbage TP! Swan was equally alive to what was going to happen. You tell a lot of lies!
Finns
She was all class tonight.
Now, precisely WHEN is Abbott coming on to QandA?
Thomas Paine
[The GFC solution was Rudd/Henry.]
IMO 90% Henry.
[Swan knew almost zero about anything at that time.]
Proof?
[ Never ever met an aust. With a fish n chip shop ]
Cough, cough! Pauline Hanson????????
Stevens also helped.
Rummell dont verbal me
You are very very words fail me
As if ,
DONT INSULT MY INTELLEGENCE
Abbotts australia is nothing like even you woukd be use to
Grow up look after your family needs no you would vote agai st their best interests
You will wonder what hits you,
How old are you 30 something.
You havent lived yet
I grew up with no hecs
No pbs. No medicare
That was menzies for u, then along came gough, hawke keating
YOU RUMMELL ARE USI G THE SERVICES THEY GAVE U
hypicrite
tp
and your evidence for that is…?
[I won’t know that until someone starts to describe the ‘skilled’ in ‘skilled migration’]
They specify the skill sets in the agreements. The companies are massively resourced and pretty much can outwit the Govt Dept. Under resourced Govt departs are almost as big a threat to democracy as msm.
One category of ‘skilled’ migration that should be chopped off quick smart is management.
Companies are very happy to pay more than $1 million a year for ‘home office’ bodies, where a local body would barely cost them $200k. Then these home office bodies at more than $1 million a year complain that our tradies cost too much, and largely they get away with it.
Even the good projects that have lots of Australian workers, have the Australians on contract, temporary agency type work, and ‘we can get rid of you as soon as the construction is over’ arrangements, while the home office boys have jobs for life.
[Ken Henry publicly indicated that Rudd led on the topuic and was MORE up with OS events than the Treasury.
pretty bloody full on praise if you ask me]
Well if Henry said something like that then it is the best possible and unassailable praise you could get. Kudos to Mr Rudd for saving many thousands of families from disaster.
Interesting how jolly and smiley Tony Jones can be…in other company on My Q.
finns
I told JG that TA is just a guppy
[Swan knew almost zero about anything at that time.]
You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of our system of Govt. Perhaps go back to primary school and work your way up.
my say 2758
Well said.
Qld and tasmania are world aparts
And it shows scopio, migrants your end probably worked on the sugar cane. A lot of italians
Still live in cairns
kezza2 @ 2757
Stop being stupid.
Squiggle was merely identifying the woman. Latino is not a pejorative term as far as I am aware.
You just seem to want to go around picking fights over nothing.
TP has no evidence! Swan did study some economics, Rudd didn’t. Both Rudd and Swab were told on visits to US early 2008 re coming crash.
[People will look back at the carbon price and]
In your dreams Julia.
Laughs for Abbott non appearance.
Isn’t Newspoll 2nite?
“Abbott is a gutless flake” says Jones.
Well, words to that effect.
Fit/Proper Gusface @GenGusface
Remember 90% of the workforce earns less than $80k #qanda