The electorate of Melbourne produced a watershed result at the 2010 election, with Labor suffering defeat at the hands of the Greens in a seat it had held without interruption since 1904. It thus became the first federal lower house seat to be won by the Greens at a general election, and the second overall after a by-election victory in the New South Wales seat of Cunningham in 2002. Currently the electorate extends from the central business district westwards to the Maribyrnong River, northwards to Carlton North and eastwards to Richmond. The redistribution has transferred around 6000 voters in Clifton Hill and Alphington to Batman, and another 6000 at Fitzroy North to Wills.
Contributing to the Greens’ strength are the second youngest age profile of any electorate (the first being the strongly indigenous Northern Territory seat of Lingiari), substantial student populations associated with the University of Melbourne and RMIT University campuses, and the nation’s highest “no religion” response in the 2011 census. Other demographic features include substantial Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean populations. The Greens are strongest in the inner-city bohemia of Carlton, Fitzroy, Collingwood and Richmond, excluding some local-level concentrations of migrant populations which remain strong for Labor. They are weakest in and around the central business district itself and at Ascot Vale in the seat’s outer north-east, which are respectively strong for Liberal and Labor.
Melbourne was held for Labor from 1993 to 2010 by Lindsay Tanner, who in turn succeeded Hawke-Keating government Immigration Minister Gerry Hand. Their highest profile antecedent in the seat was Arthur Calwell, member from 1940 until 1972. A leading light of the Left faction, Tanner became Finance Minister when the Rudd government was elected, and emerged as part of a four-member “kitchen cabinet” which dominated the government’s decision-making. On the day that Kevin Rudd was deposed as Labor leader, Tanner dropped a second bombshell in parliament when he announced he would not contest the election, which he insisted was unrelated to events earlier in the day. He has since emerged as a public critic of the leadership change and the political process more broadly.
Tanner’s exit at the subsequent election brought into play a seat where the Greens had rapidly grown as a threat since the 2001 election, when their vote lifted 9.6% to 15.8% on the back of concern over asylum seeker policy. It rose again to 19.0% at the 2004 election, when the party harvested much of a collapsing Democrats vote. A further breakthrough was achieved in 2007 when their candidate, Adam Bandt, overtook the Liberal candidate to reach the final preference count. On that occasion the primary vote for Labor’s Lindsay Tanner was 49.5%, enough to ensure him a 4.7% margin after preferences. With Tanner’s retirement at the 2010 election, the Labor vote fell 11.4% while the Greens were up 13.4%, which panned out to a comfortable 6.0% win for the Greens after preferences.
Adam Bandt came to parliament with an instant national profile by virtue of his position on the cross-bench of a hung parliament, which events since have only enhanced. However, he has twice received portents from the sphere of state politics that he will face a tougher environment at the next election than the last. The first was in the state election campaign of November 2010, when the Greens’ high hopes for breakthroughs in the electorate’s corresponding state seats were dashed by a Liberal Party decision to put Labor ahead of the Greens on its how-to-vote cards. This decision was seen by some as a catalyst for the Coalition’s election victory, and there seems a high probability it will be repeated federally. The effect at the state election was to cut flows of Liberal preferences to the Greens from around three-quarters to around a third, which would have cut Bandt’s two-party vote by over 9%. The second was the Greens’ failure to win the by-election for the state seat of Melbourne, despite an expectation that they would profit from annoyance at the mid-term departure of the outgoing Labor member Bronwyn Pike.
Labor has again preselected its unsuccessful candidate from 2010, Cath Bowtell, a former ACTU industrial officer, current state party president and member of the Socialist Left. Bowtell won the preselection against what proved to be token opposition from Harvey Stern, the state president of Labor for Refugees.
OMG, fargo, do you realise that the government has a monopoly on roads?
There is only one roadway leading to my driveway. I demand choice!
Most houses have one sewer pipe leading out into a communistically controlled sewrage system. This oppression should not be tolerated!!
Let alone the basic flaw to our whole system of government, with its Stalinist insistence that I can only have one local council, which is imposed upon me. And only one State and Federal MP.
The communists have taken over!
Centre, if you would be kind enough to predict about three days of constant rain for Mansfield 4122, it would be appreciated.
C@tmomma
I know that many here always claim they are from Menzies Hse and all that but often the persistent ones just come across, to me, as a bit ‘needy’ – just being provocative to generate some social interaction.
Zoomster, good luck with all that.
Yes, I do but it might not be that smart to link as SMH is also under the Ferguson gun for printing it. Directions on how to find it are in here. And article in question was also by Coorey.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/opinion/political-news/oakeshott-outraged-by-ministers-legal-threat-20121102-28pgz.html
CTar1,
Maybe the troll is just filling in time baiting the ‘Lefties’ before he goes to his BBQ this afternoon, in order to have some stories to regale his pisspot mates with? 🙂
Diogenes @144,
I think one has to be careful before making claims about the actions of the Minister.
Firstly, three more quarters to go this financial year to determine what revenue has been raised by the MRRT.
Secondly, making claims that the Minister may have acted in a deliberate way to favour the miners over the national interest is a very provocative thing to say if that is what Mr O actually said.
I remember reading the article in the SMH at the time and thought it was a bit ordinary for Mr O to say it but thinking about it I cannot recall if that was a direct quote or not.
If it was a direct quote I can understand the Minister but still think behind doors would have been much better.
C@tmomma – Or lack of mates?
joe2 @155,
Thanks for that.
cheers.
Doyley
So do I but I think the spat is over now so let’s move on.
Doyley
Politicians are always being accused of acting against the national interests. Gillard and Abbott get that all the time.
They don’t go running off to their lawyers every time they are criticised.
Frankly, Ferguson acting so defensive about it makes me think Oakeshott may well have been right.
Actually the point about attention seeking is a good one.
I’ve had an amusing three days with a climate change ‘sceptic’ sending me multiple tweets on an hourly basis (I think he thinks I’m someone important & he’s tying up my time…)
Then yesterday he complained that I wasting his time!
So Fargot61, you are effectively predicting that the MRRT will never raise revenue.
That’s like predicting snow for Darwin.
Look yes, the MRRT is a profits based tax. It is a tax on so called “superprofits”.
No, the MRRT was agreed to and negotiated, that’s a nice word, NEGOTIATED, a word you Loops don’t understand 😆 – by the government and the major mining coys who will mostly contribute to it.
No, capital costs are a tax deduction in accordance with authorised accounting standards.
CTar1,
Honestly though, like Abbott, the trolls want to simply be able to smart arsk us ‘Lefties’ into submission with their cutting jibes. Which is pathetic really as it exposes them as not having much else to fight with other than that. 🙂
CTar1 @160,
Fair call.
cheers.
Centre
Evidently the Darwin Hospital used plans based on a hospital in northern Europe (Sweden I believe) and its built to handle snowy conditions.
CTar1,
Or lack of mates?
Nah, ‘misery loves company, as my old mum used to say, and as Phil Vee demonstrated earlier, there are a lot of miserable gits around, unhappy that Labor are in power, and that love the sound of their own shallowness and donkey braying.
One Trick Tony Dispatched to The Knackery
Dio
The Darwin Hospital and what was originally the Woden Valley Hospital (now the main building of Canberra Hospital) were build using the same plans, I believe.
“Notice the Troll is mute about Coalition State Governments actually putting a wrecking ball through Mining Companies by jacking up Royalties?”
Once again, personal attacks and troll references.
I do support highler royalties, they should have been put up years ago to support spending on roads, schools and hospitals etc. That was one of the reasons given by Swan In the first place for a federal tax, and about all he got right about it.
And as for destroying them, who is parroting Abbott style nonsense now?
Given how upset the msm get when they totally fail to foresee a major political upheaval, you think at least a couple of journos/columnists would be hedging their bets and writing a “Who will replace Abbott?” column or doing a bit more analysis of the disunity in the party room….but no…
Obama now 5/1 on after the jobless figures.
Fox News and it’s commentators are now in the bunker waiting for General Wenck.
Diogs @ 166
They can never be too sure I suppose 😆
zoomster@151
zoomster, it gets even worse where I live. We have only one electricity distribution company with one set of cables, there is only one gas main to supply us, only one bus company running busses on the closest bus route, only one railway operator servicing the whole melbourne metropolitan area.
It is just rampant communism everywhere and it has been going on for as long as I can remember.
Oh, but we do have 2 competing tv cables in our street. A massive waste of resources.
How do I get back into stfuto add someone? I have checked all over the Firefox page and I can’t workout how to get to my list. Help appreciated.
CT
I didn’t know that but I just looked the story up. Darwin Hospital really has snow shields.
http://www.petermartin.com.au/2007/04/tuesday-column-case-for-states.html
Nate Silver’s latest:
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/
fargo
royalties are actually worse for mining companies than the mining tax, because royalties apply from the second you start digging stuff up, which can be years before you actually turn a profit – let alone pay a super tax.
So a fairer system – and the original design of our present MRRT – would be to remove royalties all together, and instead impose the super tax on all mining.
Hopefully a re elected Gillard government will be able to start working towards this.
Puff,
Below the comments box
bemused
Comrade, I feel your pain. It’s socialism by stealth.
Centre,
You are wrong yet again…
Capital costs are in fact not ordinarily deductible on revenue account. Depreciation and amortization are ordinarilly deductible on revenue account.
I do not predict snow for Darwin.
I do predict more name calling from C@tmomma and others
Dio – A bit of trivia from an untidy mind.
I hope they learned from the siting of WVH. It’s built on a slope and at some point they had to dig a huge hole on the northern/down slope side and fill it with concrete to stop a slow move down the hill.
And the only support you get for your worries is a tepid “good luck with all that”.
I don’t think Fargo you understand an economic rent tax. Your capital / revenue thing doesn’t make any sense in a PRRT / MRRT context.
Time for Martin Ferguson to go. His overreaction was like a comedian crying on stage after being heckled. A terrible and unprofessional look. Sorry Marn but you want to sit in the front seat, you’re expected to act a certain way and spitting the dummy like that is inexcusable!
zoomster@180
But some of it is cunningly disguised by Lib govts.
Although I can only receive poser from one distribution system, there are a whole lot of companies competing to print my electricity bills! Ain’t competition marvellous?
Ummm @ 186 ‘poser’ is obviously meant to be ‘power’.
Zoomster, some valid argument, but only as far as the timing of the imposition of the royalties is concerned.
The resources are owned by the state (in my case the state of QLD) and it is only right that the state be compensated by the mining companies for their use of state wealth.
Incidentally that is another flaw with the MRRT, the allowance of a deduction for increased royalties.
Fargo 61
is right i am not accessing the nbn at this point, but this time next week i will be on the nbn network 🙂
WWP- it makes perfect sense given the actual engineering (design) of the MRRT. Calling it one thing does not make it that thing. It is what it is defined to be by its nature, not the nomenclature.
It has been perfectly designed to raise no tax, whether that was the intention or not.
Like so many Liberal voters, I want access to the NBN yesterday! 😀
Thanks Duckie,
That is one bit of weeding done.
C@tmomma
AFAIAC, no Liberal voters should be connected to the NBN until all non-Liberal voters have it. I don’t include National voters because they can’t be expected to know any better.
There has to be consequences in this world. 👿
Fargo61@188
I am just hoping that the HC will teach certain recalcitrant states that they are actually a part of Australia and the term ‘Crown’ applies to ‘Australia’ and state royalties disappear. 👿
Then we can move to a truly rational taxation of mining activities and the Australian people (which includes those in Qld) can get a proper return on their minerals.
Who do we vote for to get the NBN connected yesterday? I’ll vote for them.
I dont want it yesterday, I would just like to know roughly when it will be available.
I also think it is not unreasonable that new estates hav a basic phone line connection from day one. Shops etc are a red herring. The phone line is a basic service.
Bemused, I am not aware of any H C dispute concerning this matter, please elaborate.
Fargo61@196
Go to the NBN website. They have maps.
New estates can be provided with interim phone services via GSM. It is just a beat up.
Wouldn’t want the goverment to force that though, that would be communist.