Seat of the week: Deakin

Update (3/9/12): Essential Research. The weekly Essential Research report has fallen into line with other pollsters in giving Labor its best result since March – up two on the primary vote to 34% and one on two-party preferred to 55-45. The Coalition is down a point to 48%, a result it last recorded in April. The poll has 52% thinking female politicians receive more criticism than men against only 4% less and 40% the same, and very similar results (51%, 6% and 38%) when the subject is narrowed to Julia Gillard specifically. A question on which groups would be better off under Labor or Liberal governments find traditional attitudes to the parties are as strong as ever, with wide gaps according to whether the group could be perceived as disadvantaged (pensioners, unemployed, disabled) or advantaged (high incomes, large corporations, families of private school children). Respondents continue to think it likely that a Coalition government would bring back laws similar to WorkChoices (51% likely against 25% unlikely).

Deakin is centred on the eastern Melbourne suburbs of Blackburn and Nunawading, extending eastwards along the Maroondah Highway to Ringwood and Croydon. At the time of its creation in 1937, it extended far beyond the city limits to Seymour and Mansfield, before gaining its wholly urban orientation in 1969 and assuming roughly its current dimensions when it lost Box Hill in 1977. A trend of increasing Liberal support as the electorate extends eastwards is better explained by diminishing ethnic diversity than by income: in its totality, the electorate is demographically unexceptional on all measures. The redistribution has cut the Labor margin from 2.4% to 0.6% by transferring 18,000 voters in the electorate’s south-western corner, at Blackburn South, Burwood East and Forest Hill, to Chisholm; adding 8000 voters immediately to the east of the aforementioned area, around Vermont South, from Aston; and adding another 10,000 voters around Croydon in the north-east, mostly from Casey but partly from Menzies.

For a seat that has been marginal for most of its history, Deakin has brought Labor remarkably little joy: prior to 2007 their only win was when the Hawke government came to power in 1983, and it was lost again when Hawke went to the polls early in December 1984. The seat presented a picture of electoral stability from 1984 to 2001, when Liberal margins ranged only from 0.7% to 2.5% (although the 1990 redistribution muffled the impact of a 4.3% Liberal swing). Julian Beale held the seat from 1984 until the 1990 election, when he successfully challenged controversial Bruce MP Ken Aldred for preselection after redistribution turned the 1.5% margin into a notional 1.9% margin for Labor. Aldred accepted the consolation prize of Deakin and was able to retain the seat on the back of a sweeping statewide swing to the Liberals. He was in turn unseated for preselection in 1996 by Phillip Barresi, who held the seat throughout the Howard years.

Barresi emerged from the 2004 election with a margin of 5.0%, the biggest the Liberals had known in the seat since 1977. The substantial swing required of Labor at the 2007 election was duly achieved with 1.4% to spare by Mike Symon, whose background as an official with the Left faction Electrical Trades Union had made him a target of Coalition barbs amid controversies surrounding union colleagues Dean Mighell and Kevin Harkins. Symon’s preselection had been achieved through a three-vote win over local general practitioner Peter Lynch, the candidate from 2004, who reportedly won the 50% local vote component before being rebuffed by the state party’s tightly factionalised Public Office Selection Committee. Andrew Crook of Crikey reported that Symon had backing from the Bill Shorten-Stephen Conroy Right as a quid pro quo for Left support for Peter McMullin’s unsuccessful bid for preselection in Corangamite. Symon was re-elected in 2010 with a 1.0% swing in the face of an attempt by Phillip Barresi to recover his old seat, which was perfectly in line with the statewide result. He was rated by one source as undecided as Kevin Rudd’s challenge to Julia Gillard’s leadership unfolded in February 2012, but soon fell in behind Gillard.

The Liberal candidate at the next election will be Michael Sukkar, a 30-year-old tax specialist with Ashurt, the law firm previously known as Blake Dawson. Sukkar emerged a surprise preselection winner over John Pesutto, a lawyer and Victorian government adviser said to be closely associated with Ted Baillieu. VexNews reported that also-ran candidates Phillip Fusco, Terry Barnes and Andrew Munroe were eliminated in that order, at which point Pesutto was in first place, state government staffer Michelle Frazer was second, and Sukkar and former Melbourne candidate Simon Olsen were tied for third. After winning a run-off against Olsen, Sukkar crucially managed to sneak ahead of Frazer, who unlike Sukkar would not have prevailed against Pesutto in the final round due to a view among Sukkar’s backers that she “wasn’t up to it”.

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.

1,969 comments on “Seat of the week: Deakin”

Comments Page 36 of 40
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  1. [Mark ‏@markjs1
    What do the National Party think of #Gonski?….Silly Q…they’ve only had report 6 months…still struggling with ‘Contents’ page ]

  4. I had a look at Gonski. One thing I noticed was that lots of countries had better education outcomes than us and spent less on education.

  5. [ Just Saying’
    Posted Monday, September 3, 2012 at 6:38 pm | Permalink

    Pollbludger is, BTW, the ONLY website on Android that gives me grief… ]

    Business Spectator and the Guardian sites both load mobile versions until I use the work around.

  6. Boerwar
    [test the electric fence]
    (blush) No, I did that. I turned it on when he was still straddling it! I was too far away to hear him yell “No!”

  7. CTar1

    We had peace and harmony amongst the Bludger Cow Cocky Community, and along comes a Bludgiemite political stirrer to lay on some tractor disdain in order to stir up tractor envy.

  12. My father in law – a city slicker if there ever was one – held us spellbound as he moved his leg forward, came in contact with the electric fence, jerked, pulled it backwards, moved it forward again… the whole process repeated several times before he asked us, “Is the fence on?”

  14. [Canberra Blugers are invited to attend Queanbeyan RFS station 1930h this Friday on behalf of all bludgers to partake in the nights events and BBQ.]
    rummel
    I hope all goes well for your team and that you pull up well!

  17. thirdborn314

    [My education in NZ agriculture was from Footrot Flats, so it was quite detailed

    We never used the numbering system for wire grades though, that was far too sophisticated]
    There was no other grade of fencing wire . It was ALL No.8 . Whatever that means. There was No.8 ,barb wire and electric. That was it.
    As for Footrot Flats it was not a cartoon it was a documentary. Oh so many situations were exactly those you faced on the farm. My fave ( cos I been there ) was Wal,carrying the eggs from the chooks in the front of his shirt, stepping over an electric fence finding his gumboots had become stuck in the mud. Stuck in the mud and slowly sinking. Testicles and electric fences not being a good combo. The dog was thinking “What would lassie do in this situation ?”

  19. ABC TV News predictably devotes 25 seconds of its 30 second intro to the Gonski policy by telling us what Tony Abbott says.

    All they can talk about is “spending” and (Simkin’s favourite) “Electoral Battle Grounds”.

    Why can’t they talk about Education? Not one f**king word on what’s actually IN the policy.

    Once again, lazy journalists assuming the public has read the report and that they want to know what the indolent, unelected, know-all Press Gallery thinks about it all.

    Vale Katharine Murphy’s quest for “New Excellence”.

  20. Whilst raiding a starling nest on the top of the dairy wall, I climbed the steel fence to reach it. Unknown to me I managed to line up the electric fence wire arcing into the shed through the roof with the nape of my neck. The shock laid me on my back on the concrete – to this day I can’t go near an electric fence.

  22. Nothing quite like sprinting (as well as you can in gumboots through foot deep slush) through the dairy yard and feeling that sudden freedom which means you’ve left one boot stuck a metre behind you….

  23. I had to kill a possum once with a shovel, one that (I think) my dogs had caught.

    Luckily it was dead before I found the implement.

    The hardest thing about killing a live animal is summoning up the courage to hit the thing like you hate it. If you squib the blow the poor creature just survives.

    I learnt this lesson early, but it’s never easy to behave like you hate something that has done you no harm.

  25. BW

    [to lay on some tractor disdain]

    Life’s hard and I’ll need to leave you cow cockies to it!

    But now I’m under serious orders (from Sydney airport) to produce real gravy and steamed broccoli for a hungry woman on her way from far away (my bog standard chook, potatoes and a large onion in the Weber with some microwaved peas require embellishment it seems).

    As the most recent phone call was from CBR airport I better get at it.

  26. poroti

    I agree re footrot flats – I swear that Wal was my brother and I was Cooch. We even had the short wheel based Landy, border collie/kelpie sheep dogs, tough hunting dogs, a big tough cat that used to catch rabbits – the only thing foreign to us were the deer, helicopters and eels. Even the footy was the same, we played in a country team so all the farmers would come in on the weekend to play.

  28. BB

    I am struggling with their coverage today. The load of bollocks being served up now compared to the details being offered by the PM earlier is heart breaking. I feel like asking them why they hate Australia so much? Don’t they think we can cope with a higher order discussion?

  30. Cane toads are easy to kill. Serious alien pests, and ugly as sin, even a bit evil looking really. No moral qualms at all about doing them in.

    Though do believe you should make it as quick and painless as practically possible.

  31. BB

    Ah, now they are talking about the cost for the Syrian refugees. Tears of GG for refugees followed by the cost of supporting them. And this is the ABC!

  33. [Ahron Young ‏@AhronYoung
    It appears all Melbourne media outlets have been served warrants tonight by Vic Pol seeking raw footage of Grocon IR dispute ]

  34. Just Saying @ 1729 said:

    Pollbludger is, BTW, the ONLY website on Android that gives me grief…

    Interestingly, from my home network I cannot access this blog if I login to Crikey. Other pages at Crikey seem to work, but not this one. I can login and see this blog from my work computer. I’m assuming it’s something to do with my router (a Cisco 877).

  37. BB

    [I had to kill a possum once with a shovel, one that (I think) my dogs had caught.]

    I killed a sick cat with a shovel once. Clean and quick is a kindness but it does not feel kind.

  38. poroti

    I thought David was connecting 9/11 with Bin Laden (fair enough) but then extending both to Iraq. If so that is quite wrong. I suspect Bush was told there was no connection but that didn’t suit him at all.

  39. I collect my cane toads and fling them into Clive Palmer’s Resort. Gives me a perverted sense of returning the young where they belong. 😆

  40. z

    Ah, the sound of one gumboot hopping through the cowshit…

    Everyone else laughs while the victim tries to hop in a circle without having to put the other foot down.

  42. So, the level of education debate in the MSM is 50 shades of ‘No!’, ‘No Trust!’ and ‘No Money!’ from the Coalition.

    Easy.

  45. thirdborn314

    [bw

    And remember to wear a wide brimmed hat in the dairy pit ]
    Never !! To do such a thing is to admit failure to become a peripheral vision ninja 😉

  46. Tom no I was just saying the bad decision to go to Iraq made the Afghan situation impossible and people have been paying a very high price since.

  47. Finns

    I find myself increasingly energised by the fantastic journalism I can now consume online from the best media outlets in the world. The digital bounty has changed my own news consumption habits fundamentally.
    These days I hoover up blogs in London, New York and Washington, scour the American political website Politico (one of the great success stories of this period), admire the methodical journalism of ProPublica, watch live politics coverage on The Guardian and The New York Times, and use Twitter as a brilliant aggregator as well as a breaking news channel in its own right.
    These options at my fingertips provide daily coverage with such authority, clarity and technical innovation it’s hard to conclude decisively that we’ve entered end times.

    Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/read-all-about-it-journalism-has-a-future-20120902-2588i.html#ixzz25OkwKovk

    Poor Murphy, she thinks that what she does is journalism, anyone can and thousands do exactly the same.

  48. [1780
    Just Me
    Posted Monday, September 3, 2012 at 7:18 pm | Permalink
    Cane toads are easy to kill. Serious alien pests, and ugly as sin, even a bit evil looking really. No moral qualms at all about doing them in.

    Though do believe you should make it as quick and painless as practically possible.]

    But like the russians in ww2 kill ability is not the problem, it’s the millions of them that caused the Germans problems.

  49. Bernard Keene doing a great job on ABC radio this morning spouting Lib talking points. Mentioned Hockey’s comments on Labor’s black hole without any mention of Mr Hockey’s one. The “interviewer” even had an Abbott-like slogan for the education reforms “spending money you dont have, for a time you wont be in power”. May as well just hand the mike to Abbott and Pyne and be done with it.

    Very poor “journalism”

    We see the PM cant win, if she talks, vision/narrative/values and tries to plan BEYOND THE NEXT ELECTION, she is dismissed as not being able to pay/ deliver.

    For all the column inches written about the PM’s woes, the simple fact is that the reporting is so negative, it is very difficult for her to get anything positive through.

    Abbott (as expected) being devoid of policy has been left flatfooted. No alternative policy, no vision, just NO. we cant afford it. we can however afford to scrap a mining tax that the mining companies have coped OK with

  50. Boerwar @1792,

    I may be naive, over the top optimistic or just stupid but I really think the MSM is redundant in this debate.

    Unions and other teaching associations are onside and have already demanded state governments get on board.

    Parents will get their info direct from schools and teachers and will judge on that, not the MSM.

    Where does the MSM rate in relation to teachers ? Not even close.

    Parents want what is best for their kids and will go directly to the source which will include news letters from schools and direct interaction with teachers and principals.

    The MSM can try its hardest but I think this issue will be further proof of its growing irrelevance.

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