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 21 of 27
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  6. Meguire Bob@983


    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 ?

    Those are just hypothetical numbers you cooked up.

    To be confident of winning, Labor HAS to do better than it did in 2010.

    We are not there yet and the polls have a big unknown in them, the ‘others’ or ‘undecideds’.

  7. ruawake

    [She didn’t. So how many payments to dead people did you stall is a legit question.]
    You know how disgusting it got ? For a time if the sufferer died before the case reached court then the claim also died. Now who was helping to delay cases ?

  8. fess

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

    She’s a lawyer. It pretty much goes with the territory for a lot of them.

    ru

    That bloody thread doesn’t make for very pretty reading!

  9. ruawake

    [She didn’t. So how many payments to dead people did you stall is a legit question.]
    You know how disgusting it got re Wittenomm ? For a time if the sufferer died before the case reached court then the claim also died. Now who was helping to delay cases ?

  12. [Diogenes
    Posted Sunday, November 18, 2012 at 5:08 pm | PERMALINK]

    Has the local constabulary made any headway with the burglary yet?

  14. Labor is also a bit soft in Tasmania: Bass and Braddon (6-7%) are closer than they look on paper; Denison is only held by Wilkie by 1.2% so could go anyway on the day.

    Is Lingiari in trouble for Labor?

  15. poroti

    [The problem is that Dylan’s lyrics are so important.]

    Yep and so influential on others. The Kurt stuff – I guess I was busy with full time work and trying to do university so it just past me by.

  22. Dio

    [She’s a lawyer. It pretty much goes with the territory for a lot of them.]

    Yep – client shit that you’d rather not do.

  25. [ Desert Fox
    Posted Sunday, November 18, 2012 at 11:15 am | Permalink

    The Finnigans.

    How can you say that there is ‘no smoking gun’ when you don’t even know if the money was paid into her account.
    ]

    When you don’t even know if the money was paid into her account.

    So this is supposed to be the future of political debate in this country, the PM being asked to respond to unsubstantiated claims by some troll on the internet.

    What is the best way to deal with a birther?

    I suspect ignore them and let the “full transcript” make them look like absolute fools when those in the know believe the time is right.

  28. [Can either side of politics see the high moral ground anymore assuming they have the slightest idea what it is these days?]

    Yep the Libs and Nats are rooted aren’t they.

  29. davidwh

    [Can either side of politics see the high moral ground anymore assuming they have the slightest idea what it is these days?]

    What I can see is that JBish probably behaved in accord with client instructions and that JG probably did as well.

    The Coalition started the pissing contest and any screams from them should be treated with contempt.

  34. Boerwar

    [
    It is all coming together for me. Ms Gillard was born in Kenya.

    You know it makes sense.]
    Nah. She was born in Wales and is a secret Druid. Now that you know makes sense 😆

  37. CTar I have never supported the type of smear being leveled at JG over the S&G stuff or the type of smear leveled at Newman for that matter. Both sides of politics are stuck in the gutter at present.

  39. poroti@1034


    Boerwar

    It is all coming together for me. Ms Gillard was born in Kenya.

    You know it makes sense.


    Nah. She was born in Wales and is a secret Druid. Now that you know makes sense

    No, she is a Celtic Priestess.

  40. docantk@1014


    Labor is also a bit soft in Tasmania: Bass and Braddon (6-7%) are closer than they look on paper; Denison is only held by Wilkie by 1.2% so could go anyway on the day.

    Is Lingiari in trouble for Labor?

    Yes what polling there has been here (not that much) suggests there could be savage federal swings against Labor in Tas, which places Braddon especially and also Bass in play.

    However if there are such swings then Labor will not be competitive against Wilkie in Denison, and Wilkie’s threat then comes from the Libs (who have not yet announced their candidate.) The Libs need a very big swing from Labor to even make it to the final two.

    Note also that after the exclusion of the Greens in 2010 Wilkie had 31.9%, which if not improved on would mean that a swing of about 8-11 points Labor to Liberal would put him in third and eliminate him. However, in my view it’s more likely the combined Wilkie + 1 Greens 2 Wilkie vote will exceed a third and therefore Wilkie will make the first two.

    At the moment I reckon Wilkie’s chances are good.

  41. mari@1021


    http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/guard-who-beat-wife-keeps-job-20121117-29iww.html

    What a lovely man!!!!

    [The Industrial Relations Commission found there was no connection between Michael Silling’s ability to carry out his duties at Goulburn jail and his ”out-of-hours criminal history”, ordering he be returned to work.
    Justice Wayne Haylen said the sacking of Mr Silling after his third conviction for domestic violence was ”harsh, unjust and unreasonable”.]
    Hmmmm Justice Wayne Haylen.
    Rings a bell. I think former ALP MP Les Haylen had a son named Wayne.

  43. davidwh

    [Both sides of politics are stuck in the gutter at present.]

    In Federal politics one side is retaliating, after prolonged provocation.

    Stock up on disinfectant.

    On the Bruce Wilson scam machine I’d expect that Theiss, and maybe Transfield and the like would not like to be made to tell the truth.

  46. CTar1@1043


    davidwh

    Both sides of politics are stuck in the gutter at present.


    In Federal politics one side is retaliating, after prolonged provocation.

    Stock up on disinfectant.

    On the Bruce Wilson scam machine I’d expect that Theiss, and maybe Transfield and the like would not like to be made to tell the truth.

    And about time, too. Who was that ALP person who said something like the only way to deal with an out of control thug was to pick up a bottle?

  47. Some pages back someone was listing the present govt’s alleged shortcomings and included in such the various details concerning asylum seekers. Yes there is much to deplore in the govt policies re asylum seekers but then we need to consider the so-called alternative option of the COALition and its attitudes and policies on this issue.

    Remember this?
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3WJ10xGkas

    Its a short collection of the lies of the Howard ZCOALition at the time of ‘children overboard” [sic].
    Of all the despicable characters that were then in the COALition my vote for worst always varied between 2 candidates, Kevin Andrews and Phillip Ruddock.
    In this youtube Ruddock is saying [not verbatim, but close, please check]:

    [‘children THROWN overboard….CLEARLY PREMEDITATED and PLANNED”.]

    Its that “CLEARLY PREMEDITATED and PLANNED” comment that makes me choose Ruddock as the probably the least ethical minister we have had for decades.
    Because the children, as we later found out, were NOT thrown overboard and yet Ruddock assures us this non-event was “CLEARLY PREMEDITATED and PLANNED”.
    Impossible.

    And where is Phillip Ruddock today?
    From wiki:
    [“He returned to the frontbench as Shadow Cabinet Secretary after Tony Abbott captured the Opposition leadership in December 2009.”]

    Placed in the frontbench by Tony Abbott.

    How could anyone seriously consider the COALition to be a viable alternative to the present govt on the issue of asylum seekers?

  48. davidwh@1024


    Can either side of politics see the high moral ground anymore assuming they have the slightest idea what it is these days?

    Oh come off it comrade, you know damn well what the answer to that question is.

  49. Puff

    I think it goes to show the Coalition are not going to win an election by throwing mud. Yet again.
    Remember that definition of insanity. Doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
    Not going to get an early election. PMJG popularity trending up as attack after attack fails.
    Good for Labor I think 🙂
    Abestosgate does sound good 👿

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