Seat of the week: McEwen

The Melbourne fringe seat of McEwen has long been one of Victoria’s most keenly contested marginal seats, but the addition of the Labor stronghold of Sunbury in the latest redistribution may have put an end to that.

The most electorally significant change to result from the redistribution in Victoria relates to the electorate of McEwen, a traditionally marginal seat in Melbourne’s northern hinterland which has now been rendered fairly safe for Labor. This results from the transfusion of around 35,000 voters from rapidly growing Labor-voting suburbs around Sunbury, which are counterbalanced by the loss of outer urban areas further east (20,000 voters to Casey, 13,000 to Scullin and 4500 to Jagajaga), together with 10,000 to Indi and 7,000 to Bendigo in rural Victoria. The electorate maintains a stretch of the Hume Highway including Kilmore and Seymour, together with the urban fringe centres of Gisborne, Wallan and Whittlesea. Among the areas transferred to Indi are Kinglake and Maryville, which were devastated in the bushfires of February 2009.

McEwen was created with the expansion of parliament in 1984 and held for Labor in its first two terms by Peter Cleeland, who was unseated in 1990 by Fran Bailey as part of a statewide swing which cost Labor nine seats. Cleeland recovered the seat with a 0.7% margin in 1993, but was again defeated by Bailey in 1996. In 1998 it was one of a number of marginal seats which registered a below-par swing to Labor, a circumstance that allowed the Howard government to win re-election from a minority of the national two-party vote.

Consecutive swings to Bailey in 2001 and 2004 combined with a 1.0% redistribution to put the seat outside the marginal zone, but such was the swing to Labor in 2007 that Bailey needed every bit of her 6.4% margin to hold on. At first blush the result was the closest in any federal election since Ian Viner’s 12-vote victory in the Perth seat of Stirling in 1974: Labor challenger Rob Mitchell won by seven votes on the first count, but a recount turned that to a 12-vote margin in favour of Bailey. Labor challenged the outcome in the Federal Court, but the determinations the court made regarding individual ballot papers actually increased Bailey’s margin to 27.

Fran Bailey retired at the 2010 election, disappointing Liberals who hoped the esteem she gained during the bushfire crisis would stand her in good stead in a difficult seat. The party appeared to do well in preselecting Cameron Caine, a Kinglake police officer credited with saving several lives during the emergency, but he was swamped by a 5.3% swing. This made it second time lucky for Labor’s Rob Mitchell, who won preselection with the support of the Bill Shorten-Stephen Conroy sub-faction of the Victorian Right. Mitchell had earlier won a seat in the state upper house province of Central Highlands at the 2002 election, before being frozen out by the electoral reforms that took effect in 2006.

The preselected Liberal candidate for the next election is Ben Collier, managing director of Sunbury-based information technology consultancy Collier Pereira Services.

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.

1,337 comments on “Seat of the week: McEwen”

Comments Page 20 of 27
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  2. [Cunning Abbott strikes again. Before Mesma was given the S&G “Bad Cop” role by the mad monk who gave,or even knew, a flying fcuk about her former legal life ?]

    Cunning Peta, you mean! I’m so glad the government is fighting back now.

  3. Hey Tones a song from your wall punching days that will come true.

    [Graham Bonnet – It’s all over now Baby Blue 1977

    You must leave now, take what you need, you think will last.
    But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast.
    Yonder stands your orphan with his gun,
    And it’s all over now, Baby Blue
    ……
    Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you.
    Forget the dead you’ve left, they will not follow you.
    And it’s all over now, Baby Blue]
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSBDlsTyT60

  6. Poroti, if I may be so bold as to offer a correction there.

    The Honourable Bob Dylan penned that song long before Mr Bonnet I believe.

  7. I dont know whether getting Bishop is theright move by the coalition , it will show the liberals have no confidence in their leader to hold the pm to account

  8. victoria:

    While there is ambiguity about the role JG played in the union business, there is none about JBishop’s role. It is being reported that she tried to use legal processes to deny mesothelioma sufferers their day in court.

    Kind of swamps the questions of ethics being slated at the PM.

  10. Oz

    not sure what you’re trying to prove.

    Noone is denying that the climate hasn’t changed in the past – heck, I say so in my post.

    The same scientists and the same data which tells us that the climate changed in the past are telling us that the climate is changing now, and that the nature of the current change is different, in both cause and extent.

    If you accept that the climate changed in the past, you are accepting that the data available has been used by the scientists studying it to draw the correct conclusions; therefore it is likely that the same scientists, looking at current evidence, are also arriving at correct conclusions.

    You do, however, fall into the fallacy of ‘it was warmer at X location on Y date, so it was warmer everywhere’ – a bit like a few people jumping on the ‘coldest ever winter’ data from various countries a few years ago, when in fact (globally) it was one of the warmest winters on record.

  11. MB

    the coalition needs to pick up 6 to 8 seats

    Er, no, the coalition need to pick up 3 seats for a majority, and even if they only picked up 1 or 2 seats over the 2010 result they would likely form government next time.

    I do agree that the ALP could squeak back in with the 2010 result repeated and don’t need to win more seats, but you really wouldn’t want to count on that.

    For one thing I think Andrew Wilkie being re-elected is a distinct possibility, and he is absolutely no guarantee to support the ALP over the LNP again.

    Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor aren’t certainties either. If the LNP provide guarantees that the Indies’ pet issues will be left alone – NBN to continue, carbon pricing left in place – they could well support an LNP government next time around in the same circumstances.

  12. jeffemu

    [Poroti, if I may be so bold as to offer a correction there.

    The Honourable Bob Dylan penned that song long before Mr Bonnet I believe]
    You are damned right on that point BUT. Firstly I cannot stand Bob Dylan and his nasal accent. Shudder. Secondly Mr Bonnet’s version came out back in “my day” 🙂 .

  13. The media is doing enough damage to Abbott already showing how weak and incompetent he is as a leader,

    What is the point of him being leader

  14. Jackol
    Posted Sunday, November 18, 2012 at 4:21 pm | Permalink

    MB

    Er, no, the coalition need to pick up 3 seats for a majority, and even if they only picked up 1 or 2 seats over the 2010 result they would likely form government next time.

    ——————————–

    It was the pro test vote in qld which got the coalition close

    If labor can pick up 2-3 seats in qld , it would make the coalition job harder if their primary is even the same next year

    where are those seats coming from, windsor is safe dont worry about that

    the liberals may pick up the same number of seats in nsw what they will lose in qld

    where is the coalition going to pick up the extra 4 or 5 in the other states

    If labor primary is the same or better then it was in 2010

  15. confessions

    [While there is ambiguity about the role JG played in the union business, there is none about JBishop’s role. It is being reported that she tried to use legal processes to deny mesothelioma sufferers their day in court.

    Kind of swamps the questions of ethics being slated at the PM.]

    Precisely the point i made yesterday. The coalition and msm are asking whether the PM behaved ethically. The same question can be asked about JBishop.

  18. Poroti, my friend.

    If I may use the current term of the week here… It is not so much Bobs nasal accent that could be called the problem. You must understand the “context” and the originality of his talents too.

    I love Robert Zinnerman and all things Dylan.

    But as my old man always said when it came to music, each to their own.

    (pssst I hope you realise it is all your fault that I am now stuck in a timezone watching Youtube right now.)

  23. Who else could the Liberals have turned to to take up the S&G stuff because now Abbott has to be a kinder, gentler soul? It has to be a woman, and preferably someone in the HoR so the PM can be asked directly. That leaves:

    JBishop has her own questions over ethics from her past career.

    Sophie has her own ethics problems after what’s been alleged about her.

    Bronnie who lost her Ministerial job over nursing homes bathing residents in kerosene.

    Who is left? The rest are nobodies.

  24. [ there is none about JBishop’s role. It is being reported that she tried to use legal processes to deny mesothelioma sufferers their day in court.]

    Bishop says she was only doing her job, which was to protect the profits and assets of her client.

    The delay in compensation can be extremely distressing for the families, more so for the victims, whose main worry is that their wife and kids are going to be alright once they are gone.

    Many years ago when I was paymaster in a large organisation an employee came to me and asked what the total of his leave entitlements were as he was going to resign. When I asked him why he was resigning he said he had been diagnosed with cancer and 6-12 months. He was resigning so that his entitlements would pay off the mortgage, leaving his wife and kids secure and he could spend the time he had left with them.

    I told him not to resign, he could claim his work super insurance policy. His claim was successful, got a large lump sum concessionaly taxed, as were his leave benefits, giving him a far larger lump sum than he was expecting.

    I kept in touch with him, about 18 months later he was in remission, 4 years later back in the workforce again.

    He said that the extra payments from the super and concessional tax had taken a load of worry off his mind as to how his family were going to fare and had help him focus on beating the cancer without the added stress of the financial worry.

    I don’t think that any payments to the mesothelioma victims would have helped them battle the disease, but it would sure have made their surviving time with their families so much more stress free knowing that they would not be suffering financial hardship after they were gone.

    As Bishop says, she was only doing her job, which was to protect the profits and assets of her client, nothing illegal with that. Just leaves you with a low opinion of the person.

  27. Meguire Bob@941


    This is where Peter Van Onselen predictions that labor are the ones who need to pick up seats, its not accurate

    Meguire Bob, all your rantings like this are just plain nutty.
    To gain majority government, Labor needs to pick up seats.
    Simple arithmetic.

  31. ‘fess
    [Who is left? The rest are nobodies.]
    How about Kelly O’D…granted she hasnt particularly impressed to date, but this is a project she could get her teeth into, she has background (Freehills I think) and she could get to make a bit of a name for herself internally within the federal parliamentary party

  32. castle:

    What JBishop did wasn’t illegal, just morally reprehensible.

    As victoria said, she is the last person who should be dispensing accusations of failed ethics at the PM.

  33. bemused @ 977

    lets say in 2013 = LABOR 2PP

    Qld Labor 47-48% / Coalition 53-52 %

    Nsw Labor 47-48% / Coalition 53-52 %

    W.A Labor 45-46% / Coalition 55-54 %

    The coalition would lose more then they win ?

  38. ‘fess

    I dont think she was that senior at Freehills (certainly not a partner) before she left to work with Costello, so I doubt that there would be much of substance

  40. Poroti # 962 – plus Grahame Bonnet’s version is contemporaneous with the LOTO’s time at Sydney Uni.

    On the subject of Mr Bonnet, were you aware he had a stint as singer with Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow? Yes, seriously.

    Gentleman guitarist Ritchie (he’s soooo nice) is reported (by Roger Glover) to have said of Bonnet “God gave him his voice – and then said thats all you get “

  41. victoria

    Perhaps the important thing is just “to be known”.

    Consider Scott Morrison: from some tourism dude to Mr. Boats. He is “known.”

  45. [quote]jeffemu

    Poroti, if I may be so bold as to offer a correction there.

    The Honourable Bob Dylan penned that song long before Mr Bonnet I believe

    You are damned right on that point BUT. Firstly I cannot stand Bob Dylan and his nasal accent. Shudder. Secondly Mr Bonnet’s version came out back in “my day”[/quote]

    Thats alright [del]Ma[/del]Poroti
    I’m only dyin’

  46. [You are damned right on that point BUT. Firstly I cannot stand Bob Dylan and his nasal accent. Shudder. Secondly Mr Bonnet’s version came out back in “my day”]

    Poroti, solly to spoil the Party – Ms. Baez’s much better version came out long before that

  49. [What JBishop did wasn’t illegal, just morally reprehensible.]

    Yes Ms Bishop’s reason will be that she was acting on her clients instructions. Simple thing is she could have chosen not to act for CSR.

    She didn’t. So how many payments to dead people did you stall is a legit question.

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