Corangamite has covered a shifting area around Colac 150 kilometres west of Melbourne since its creation at federation, its complexion changing somewhat with the absorption of the Geelong suburbs of South Barwon and Belmont in 1955. It was one of Labor’s two gains in Victoria when Kevin Rudd came to power in 2007, giving Labor its first win in the seat since the Great Depression. In its current form the electorate includes the Geelong suburbs south-west of the Barwon River and the Great Ocean Road as far as Apollo Bay, together with rural areas to the west and north. The Geelong suburbs, which include Liberal-leaning Highton and marginal Belmont and Grovedale, contain a little over a third of the electorate’s voters, and are distinguished (along with Torquay) by a younger demographic profile and a preponderance of mortgage payers. Growth in Geelong, Torquay and the Bellarine Peninsula left the seat over quota at the redistribution to take effect at the next election, resulting in the transfer of most of the Bellarine Peninsula (accounting for about 5700 voters) to Corio. This has had a negligible impact on the Labor margin, which on Antony Green’s calculation goes from 0.4% to 0.3%.
Labor’s only wins in Corangamite prior to 2007 were in 1910, when future Prime Minister Jim Scullin became member for a term (he would return as member for the inner Melbourne seat of Yarra in 1922), and at the 1929 election when Scullin’s short-lived government came to power. The Country Party held the seat for one term from 1931, after which it was held by the United Australia Party and then the Liberal Party. The enlargement of parliament in 1984 cost the electorate its most conservative rural territory in the west, but it took another 23 years before Labor was able to realise its hopes of gaining the seat. It was assisted to this end by the “sea change” phenomenon, the ABC TV series of that name having been set in the electorate at Barwon Heads. This has drained about 10% from the Liberal primary vote in the Great Ocean Road towns since the early 1990s, with the Greens vote there burgeoning to 17% at the 2010 election.
Corangamite was held from 1984 to 2007 by Stewart McArthur, who to the dismay of some in the Liberal Party sought another term in 2007 at the age of 70. His Labor challenger was 31-year-old Darren Cheeseman, an official with the Left faction Community and Public Sector Union who won a hotly contested preselection over Peter McMullin, the Right-backed mayor of Geelong and candidate from 2004. Cheeseman went on to overwhelm McArthur’s 5.3% margin with a 6.2% swing that was evenly distributed throughout the electorate. Faced at the 2010 election by a fresh Liberal candidate in Sarah Henderson, a former state host of The 7.30 Report and daughter of former state MP Ann Henderson, Cheeseman was brought within 771 votes of defeat by a 0.4% swing that went slightly against the trend of a 1.0% statewide swing to Labor. Cheeseman went on to receive substantial publicity in February 2012 when he declared Labor would be “decimated” if Julia Gillard led it to the election, which set the ball rolling on Kevin Rudd’s unsuccessful leadership challenge a week later.
Sarah Henderson will again represent the Liberals at the next election after winning a fiercely contested struggle for Liberal preselection against Rod Nockles, an internet security expert and former Peter Costello staffer who also sought preselection in 2010. Henderson’s backers reportedly included Tony Abbott and Michael Kroger, with Nockles having support from Peter Costello, Andrew Robb, Senators Arthur Sinodinos and Scott Ryan and Higgins MP Kelly O’Dwyer. In the event, Henderson won a surprisingly easy victory with an absolute majority on the first round.
@TheKouk: I see estimates that Coalition carbon strategy will cost $24 billion; wipes out all surpluses in the forward estimates http://t.co/mbn5LUQJ
lizzie:
The reports SHY had been in talks with Morrison about accepting offshore processing completely undermined her embarrassing performance when O’s bill went to the Senate.
Her colleagues must’ve been fuming at the spectacle of it all.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/judge-me-from-scratch-gillard-20120629-2181n.html
LOL 🙂
At least it appears to be dawning on some in the ALP that a “judgement” has been delivered!
Best of luck asking the Australian electorate for another one….how did that go for Premiers KK and AB when they tried it on recently?
Well the test will be brant
Lets watch closley what he votes on
Did he vote with the gov. On thursday
[rummel
Posted Saturday, June 30, 2012 at 8:48 am | Permalink
Morning bludgers.
I see Gillard is good for boat people, good for people smugglers and good for there profits.]
rummel:
I wonder how long it will be for the “blood on their hands” bloggers to be out and about this morning claiming Gillard has blood on her hands?
Unless of course that was a dirty political smear using innocent deaths for political advantage and not an honest assessment of the situation….no-one would stoop that low in the ALP would they?
If the greens don’t start thinking about how they can help Labor to get re-elected in 2013, or at least minimise the magnitude of a defeat, if it occurs (instead of crapping on about how they are going to win government themselves) they may well find their precious carbon price/ETS trashed by an Abbott dominated senate.
Mod Lib @106
Abbott said he never do deals, and it has shown the coalition did do deals wiht the greens
that is worse then any thing the liberals can put on gillard
Torbay is coping a bit of flake this morning wiht abbott in bed with the greens
flake i mean
flak
Mod lib s arrived.
Do t u have a life
Are a liberal but u like spendi g you days with
Labor people
Educsted peop,e with many debrees
Do t usu’ally start with lol
And neither do males
Off to soccer
But mod lib
Milne did us a big favour
Labor voters have now been woken up by milne
In their thousands
scorpio
Ah, Christine Milne.
Both Labor and Liberal found her impossible to work with in minority governments in Tasmania, and then changed the electoral laws so they wouldn’t have to again.
What a legacy….
She doesn’t seem to have learnt much.
Aguirre said:
[Is Milne saying that she’d have been willing to negotiate and compromise with the Coalition to reach a solution, but that any and all attempts by the ALP to reach consensus with the Greens ought to be rejected? ]
This begins from a false premise — that The Greens are unwilling to compromise. We have always stood ready to compromise. What we reject are rotten compromises.
The most important compromise to which we Greens agreed was of course supporting Gillard as PM, despite our serious objections on asylum seekers, Afghanistan, gay marriage and so forth. Others include the MRRT, which we regarded as utterly inadequate but supported as a modest step forward. We weren’t entirely happy with the CEF package either, but again, we accepted that it was a modest step forward and the best that could be achieved in the current political circumstances and on that basis, backed it. We would have liked a more robust approach on poker machine legislation, and on tobacco taxation but again, we have continued to support the government.
Given that the government has itself sided with the Liberals against proposals that we have supported, it seems amazing that the ALP would cite voting coincidence with the Liberals as reflecting poorly on us.
Nothing in Milne’s statement implies that we would have compromised any point of principle in our negotiations with the Liberals. Our position has been clear all along — we will never support involuntary rendition or punitive detention of vulnerable people. The Liberals themselves affirm that. That’s why in the end, they could not work with us. That doesn’t ential thinking that we ought not to try to find some common ground on which we could agree — such as lifting refugee intakes and increasing support to the UNHCR in Malaysia and Indonesia.
[that is worse then any thing the liberals can put on gillard]
I don’t think so….there are so many things the liberals can put on Gillard, and have been doing very, very effectively.
She can beg to have a clean slate, but what is actually going to happen is her and the MPs that made the error to stick with her are going to be cleaned out
Darn @ 109
[ If the greens don’t start thinking about how they can help Labor to get re-elected in 2013, or at least minimise the magnitude of a defeat, if it occurs (instead of crapping on about how they are going to win government themselves) they may well find their precious carbon price/ETS trashed by an Abbott dominated senate. ]
This is the key issue in a nutshell. Abbott is mad enough to roll everything back and with a wildly cheering and biased MSM he would go close to succeeding.
I think there some labor supporters need , to think it may be disappointing that greens were in bed wiht abbott
On the bright side it shows shown the coalition and Abbott as traitors and Liars to their electorates
ML
I find it scary when I am agreeing with you. However some things are above political division. I think the point you make about the rhetoric is well founded. It is up there with inflammatory statements Alan Jones has made about Julia Gillard.
I must admit I did not expect to see such rhetoric from Labor. That is with the experience of the witty barbs of one Mr Paul Keating. I do not recall him using rhetoric along those lines.
[Educsted peop,e with many debrees
Do t usu’ally start with lol
And neither do males]
Classic!
Mod Lib @ 117
its hurting torby today in what the coalition did, and there is nothing the coalition can do to make Abbott as a clean skin
Meguire Bob Posted Saturday, June 30, 2012 at 9:27 am | Permalink
Mod Lib @106
Abbott said he never do deals, and it has shown the coalition did do deals wiht the greens
that is worse then any thing the liberals can put on gillard
Maquire bob
So glad u agree
Livi g in tas gives u a sence who vote for greens, tbey could not get in on their own
The hare clarke system lets your vote work
1/8
So therfore a green goes in tne mix
Tas, wa tbere base
It will be there demise
[That is with the experience of the witty barbs of one Mr Paul Keating. I do not recall him using rhetoric along those lines.]
Keating was quite entertaining to listen to, even for a lib like me!
Then again, I thought Costello was as well, which obviously won’t go down well here!
Ah….. for those days back eh?
One for ModLib…
[Stephen Koukoulas@TheKouk
Did you know that in the last 40 years, only the Gillard/Rudd and Whitlam Govts have never had an unemployment rate above 6%?]
[Greg Jericho @GrogsGamut
“Opposition climate plan could cost extra $24b” via @lenoretaylor http://bit.ly/KRNe1g ]
[Meguire Bob
Posted Saturday, June 30, 2012 at 9:32 am | Permalink
Mod Lib @ 117
its hurting torby today in what the coalition did,]
How much of his 60+% primary vote do you think it will wittle away?
Interesting read: http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4101044.html
I especially liked this bit, but then I’m biased:
“Then we look at Tony Abbott’s demolition job on the carbon tax which, while highly effective in the short-term, may jump quickly from a goose that keeps on giving to the monkey on the back in a political blink of an eye.
The Coalition’s key line of “worst possible time to introduce a carbon tax”, by then highlighting global economic volatility, is intellectually thin and will get ‘found out’ too quickly to be any real political asset.
Come July 1 when the sky doesn’t fall in, the Leader of the Opposition may be left wanting. The Coalition needs to come to terms with the fact that a race is now on to secure the green and clean tech jobs and innovative edge that the globe’s future will be all about.
Hence the longer Australia waits to get running in that race, the more we risk forgoing the competitive and technological lead to other OECD countries leading innovation. The Coalition is at its best when it talks up its strengths of being an economic manager. But at present its Direct Action centrepiece policy is at stark odds with their free market credentials, and their implied “wait until later” message on the carbon price fails to recognise that the longer Australia waits, the further behind we fall in the global green/clean tech jobs race.
Another interesting aspect to the carbon price conversation is the perception that the Coalition is too close to the big miners. When people like Campbell Newman say ‘we’re in the coal business’, it doesn’t give voters comfort that the Coalition’s song gives balanced support to all sectors. There is no doubt the mining boom has added unprecedented wealth to the nation, but small business still dwarfs mining in terms of employment and contribution to GDP, and small business has traditionally looked to the Coalition to lead on their behalf.
The other aspect of the boom that may prove tricky is the very Coalition itself, because when farmers see Barnaby Joyce saying, “We have a very simple business plan – we survive on the charges we raise to allow people to dig up black rocks and red rocks,” they are justifiably concerned.”
Confessions
Didn’t you see the footage of Milne and Sneerer Morriscum in deep conference in a hallway on Thursday. That she even talks to that p*ick is enough to condemn her.
[zoomster
Posted Saturday, June 30, 2012 at 9:33 am | Permalink
One for ModLib…]
If you want to use individual statistics, there is a lot of material to use against Keating as well you know!
That is the advantage of comparing averages over the entire period, evens out the ebbs and flows of individual economic events you know….
My Say
Enjoy the soccer! I coach my daughters under 9 team and it is a great distraction from the Peter Reith’s, Abbotts
Winter in Hobart means I need to run around – hope the rain holds off – l love this place
mod lib and rummel do not like to discuss policy just glib little statements just like the coalition – what ever makes you feel good i s’pose!
I think I’ve had enough depressing thoughts for today.
I’m off to talk to the chooks.
[my say
Posted Saturday, June 30, 2012 at 9:29 am | Permalink
Mod lib s arrived.
Do t u have a life]
Two in fact: the fantasy PB one and my real one as well.
Doesn’t it mean you are here as well if you are posting comments? How does that work?
Okay, well I’ve had a closer look at that Milne article:
She’s wrong about that. The ALP are negotiating minority government just fine, thanks. They’re getting legislation through the lower house without much trouble at all, because they’re prepared to deal with the independents; and where the preferred policy can’t go through, the next-best is sought. That’s how you negotiate minority government, and that’s what’s happening.
It’s the Senate where some of the problems are occurring. And not having a majority in both houses is not exactly a new issue, so I don’t know what Milne is going on about there. There’s no “new paradigm” – not one that causing problems anyway.
That one I don’t quite understand. If she’s referring to “carbon tax”, then it’s not a failure to negotiate minority government because there wasn’t one when the message was delivered. I don’t know, maybe it’s a failure to anticipate one. I too am angry Gillard is not psychic. It would solve a lot of problems.
Again, I might need that one explained to me. Is she saying Gillard should try to bring Abbott into the decision making process? Or is she saying ‘do what the Greens tell you to do and you’ll have no trouble getting legislation passed’?
mod lib @ 127
Torbay will be lucky get over 45% in 2pp
[Mod Lib
Posted Saturday, June 30, 2012 at 9:35 am | Permalink
zoomster
Posted Saturday, June 30, 2012 at 9:33 am | Permalink
‘One for ModLib…
If you want to use individual statistics, there is a lot of material to use against Keating as well you know!
That is the advantage of comparing averages over the entire period, evens out the ebbs and flows of individual economic events you know….]
The mention of Keating fires up conservatives as he implemented some great reforms and they know it….the mention of his name fires up conservatives
Guytur
And i feel sorry that you are
U have to realise mil e is not
Bob brown she and bob led the franklyn debate as well
Families where tore apart.
Go back and read the thigs said,
Bob brown had a way with him
So many you g peop,e now old looked upto him, but i think with him gon e
To my son in the nineties bob was god.his generation now will forget tbe greens as bob was tbe greens in their eyes
Milne does not have his mild manbere Meguire Bob Posted Saturday, June 30, 2012 at 9:27 am | Permalink
Mod Lib @106
Abbott said he never do deals, and it has shown the coalition did do deals wiht the greens
that is worse then any thing the liberals can put on gillard precence
SK
Last night you asked about bark beetles in the context of the wildfires in the US.
The bark beetles are a wake-up call to those who think that climate change will sort of gradually creep up on us. This will happen for some systems in some places. Elsewhere, AGW will be disruptive.
There have always been bark beetle outbreaks. But the current bark beetle outbreak is without parallel. Colder night used to kill lots of them off. Now they are surviving in warmer winters and each spring start with ever-larger numbers. This is important because of what happens next. A tree can usally ward off a small number of boring attempts by the beetles. But once a large number of beetles attack at the same time, the tree runs out of defence sap, literally.
An estimated 30 billion conifers have been killed in north america by bark beetles. In Canada alone it is thought that he bark beetles, by allowing CO2 release as trees decay, have more than negated the (somewhat pathetic) entire national emission reductions effort.
There are images of, literally, clouds of bark beetles.
Quite a lot of research has been done on the relationships between bark beetles and wildfire. They are not linear for various reasons. But dense patches of dry, dead trees, as you might intuit, are a curse for wildfire fighters.
The bark beetles are already having major impacts on forestry, tourism, land management costs and human settlement.
As with the bark beetles, so with a growing list of other AGW disruptions: the pacific oyster industry suffering from changes in ocean pH, for example. Maple syrup production is down on average because of the changes to the harvesting seasonality. US commercial fish species are moving away from US territorial waters which are warming. A striking feature of the Arab spring countries is that hunger and food costs were part of the spark. This, in turn, was related to drops in winter rainfall in those areas, leading to poor soil moisture at the start of the planting season as well as poor outcomes from winter crops.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/bark-beetles-aided-by-climate-change-are-devastating-us-pine-forests/2011/11/08/gIQA0B0CWO_story.html
There are, IMHO, three big concerns arising. The first is that AGW will speed up our mass extinction event. The second is that this will impact directly on humans. The third is that we face irregular and unpredictable disruptions to climate.
The bark beetles will do what they do. The climate will do what it will do.
It is only humans who have choices. We are choosing a mass extinction event. We are choosing untold misery from AGW disruptions.
We are a strange lot.
manbere/ manner
Cross paste got in some where
my say@ 123
Yeah i agree the greens wont be stronger then they once were
Fran seems to have written a novelette in response to my post. Can anyone summarise?
A
[“Neither of the major parties in Australia can get their heads around (the fact that) when they are a minority government, they don’t actually have the numbers to deliver themselves,” said Senator Milne.]
Neither does Ms Milne have the numbers to deliver herself. She chose the larger of two evils. Her call.
Darn:
[If the greens don’t start thinking about how they can help Labor to get re-elected in 2013, or at least minimise the magnitude of a defeat, if it occurs (instead of crapping on about how they are going to win government themselves) they may well find their precious carbon price/ETS trashed by an Abbott dominated senate. {my emphasis}]
Last I heard it was a precious achievement of the ALP government. If the ALP don’t fold in a heap then Abbott will not have his way in the senate. The fate of the ALP regime is almost entirely in their own hands. They need to look to their own conduct if they want to become competitive. Suffering as they do the view that “boats” are an existential threat to the country which they are failing to deflect is an own goal of massive proportions. Allowing people to describe the carbon price as “a tax” was and remains a massive own goal.
Now you want to hand the credit (odium?) for the carbon price reform onto us. Amazing. That’s grist to those who say the green tail is wagging the ALP dog. That’s an own goal because you don’t even get the upside of any policies we help you implement but you cop all of the downside.
Actually, we have probably done you something of a favour by putting some serious distance between us and you over this matter. It probably helps the ALP defend itself against the claim that it is a plaything of The Greens.
[The mention of Keating fires up conservatives as he implemented some great reforms and they know it….the mention of his name fires up conservatives]
Yeah, why don’t you dump Gillard and bring Keating back.
Apparently, the Australian electorate just loves him to bits and he could gain you decades and decades of ALP rule…
In Gillard’s immortal words (a little funny given the last year or so of polling):
Bring it on!
y
My son in law coaches uder 6 boys smc off to mt nelso n now
Enjoy the soccer! I coach my daughters under 9 team and it is a great distraction from the Peter Reith’s,
[Meguire Bob
Posted Saturday, June 30, 2012 at 9:38 am | Permalink
mod lib @ 127
Torbay will be lucky get over 45% in 2pp]
2PP or Primary?
So you think there is about to be a 20%+ swing against him do you?
Just heard in radio that Abbott will announce 1.5 billion dollar funding contribution to Victoria for funding of East West Link. Project will cost at least 5 billion dollars. guess he thinks this will win votes for him in Melbourne
[Latika Bourke @latikambourke 4m
Clive Palmer: when on #QandA w. Labor minister who opposes offshore processing but they had to say they supported it but I cld say otherwise]
View details ·
[Latika Bourke @latikambourke 19m
Alexander Downer says Australia is letting Indonesia off scot free on asylum seekers and he didn’t ask to turn back boats – he just did.]
View details ·
Boerwar,
Thanks for that. I didn’t realise what an indicator the Bark Beetles were. I had seen the odd comment but didn’t understand how they fit.
It will be ironic, if the most intelligent creature on the planet destroys itself because of its stupidity.
Aguirre
Milne is talking there about the way things get done. I think she means more multi party committees and the like. This tends to blunt the extreme of all parties.
One of the reasons the very contentious carbon price sailed through the Parliament in legislative terms was due to that process.
Keep doing it and even Dr No will be dragged into such committees and finding himself saying yes on occassion.
[Just heard in radio that Abbott will announce 1.5 billion dollar funding contribution to Victoria for funding of East West Link. Project will cost at least 5 billion dollars. guess he thinks this will win votes for him in Melbourne]
And more for the now up to $100 billion black hole (just added $24 billion courtesy of the Kouk’s link).
You’re doing well Tone – keep it up!
SK
[It will be ironic, if the most intelligent creature on the planet destroys itself because of its stupidity.]
There is a serious discussion around the idea that the reason we have not been contacted by extra-terrestrials intelligent for space travel is because they would have destroyed themselves before they got here.
Fran:
I think you’ll find that the ALP is not so much “suffering the view that boats are an existential threat”; rather they are of the view that the needless suffering of those drowning after being lured onto unseaworthy boats – and the suffering of their rescuers- deserved to be addressed.
Do you ever give yourself a break from sanctimony?