The electorate of Fremantle covers Perth’s coastal southern suburbs from North Fremantle south to Henderson. It extends only a short distance eastwards along the southern bank of the Swan River to Bicton, Liberal-voting riverfront territory beyond being accommodated by Tangney, while going deep inland as far as Jandakot and Banjup further to the south. Liberal support is strongest along the riverfront, in the Jandakot/Banjup area, and in recently developed Port Coogee south of the city. The Greens polled between 25% and 30% in the Fremantle city booths in 2010, reflecting a strength of support that allowed Adele Carles to win the state seat for the party at a by-election in April 2009. However, their competitiveness in the federal seat is curtailed by the more traditionally working-class complexion of the suburbs further south.
The electorate of Fremantle has existed in name since federation, with the entirety of the Perth metropolitan area being divided between it and Perth until parliament was expanded in 1949. Only then did the port city and its surrounds sufficiently dominate the seat to allow Labor to secure its hold. John Curtin became the member in 1928 after unseating independent incumbent William Watson, who recovered it at the 1931 election as the candidate of the United Australia Party. Curtin was back for the long haul in 1934 and succeeded Jim Scullin as Labor leader the following year, although he survived in Fremantle by only 641 votes at the 1940 election.
After leading the country through the sharp end of the war years, Curtin became only the second prime minister to die in office in July 1945. Fremantle was retained for Labor at the ensuing by-election by Kim Beazley Senior and remained a home for high-profile Labor figures thereafter: Keating government Treasurer John Dawkins succeeded Beazley upon his retirement in 1977, and former Premier Carmen Lawrence in turn assumed the seat when Dawkins quit in 1994. Fremantle was the only WA seat left standing for Labor after the twin disasters of 1975 and 1977, but it was overtaken by Perth as Labor’s strongest seat in WA at the 2010 election, by which time the statewide tide to the Liberals had worn the margin in Fremantle down to 5.7%.
Fremantle has been held since Carmen Lawrence’s retirement in 2007 by Melissa Parke, a former United Nations human rights lawyer factionally aligned with the Left. Parke has thus far been overlooked for promotion, but made headlines over the past term after criticising the government’s “Malaysia solution” and decision to resume live cattle exports to Indonesia. As one report put it, Parke was “widely believed” to have voted for Kevin Rudd when he challenged for the leadership in February 2012.
Danny Lewis@502
*chuckle*
[I don’t recall Rudd winning by inflicting nasty personal attacks that have nothing to do with good government. ]
Rudd was worse than Abbott: he shafted and whiteanted his own mob while at the same time spraying the Liberals with ‘bipartisan’ goodies and niceness. A plum appointment here, a key position there.
[After a PM who, bless him, had the most vicious line in personal abuse of any Australian politician in living memory!]
Here I would have thought you’d have a good grip on the difference between a smartass line (which Keating did brilliantly) and substance free attack on the person as policy … oh wait perhaps not, nevermind.
If ever you are interested there is a fine distinction between playing the game hard, and not playing the game, playing the man. One is admirable, the other is despicable.
Ah, love the name “CANdo” because nothing says positivity and ability than a group dedicated to opposing progress and decreasing rights.
Also love when hardline anglophilic monarchists talk about having a “Tea Party”. They do know to whom the Tea Party refers, right?
[Rudd was worse than Abbott: he shafted and whiteanted his own mob while at the same time spraying the Liberals with ‘bipartisan’ goodies and niceness. A plum appointment here, a key position there.]
You and Adam have clearly been taking the same drugs, I can’t debate stuff you are just making up Abbott style.j
[Clearly some in Labor and the Liberals play politics like this. They shouldn’t it is a disgrace.]
Then you’d better change your name from WeWantPaul to WeWantBambi.
[Abbott just can’t undertand why anyone would not do what he wants. After all, his whole life people have done whatever he wanted – his parents, his sisters, his school, the Jesuit network, journalists, the Liberal Party]
Leone, “the Jesuit network”?
McCarthy used to see Reds under the beds.
That sounds like Pats under the slats.
Turned on the radio last night about 11.30 pm. just as I hopped under the shower. For some inexplicable reason it was tuned to Redneck station 6PR.
Trapped.
Anyway, some elderly and possibly retarded codger named Frank was on the line had all his local Liberal branch talking points to work through.
“Slipperace” (to rhyme with Liberace) was the Liberal Party pejorative de jure, Brough was innocent of all wrong doing, but the judge was corrupt anyway, it was all Gillard’s doing, how could she appoint a well known proven woman hater like “Slipperace” speaker, Abbott runs rings around the bitch, etc etc ad infinitum.
All very much what you would expect, nay, is mandatory on 6PR, home of Howard Sattler, Paul Murray and a never ending cacophany of Liberal happy clappers.
But here’s the amazing thing.
The host, (I was too dumbfounded to commit his name to memory), let the halfit have his say, then turned him off and stated clearly that Brough was in a conspiracy up to his neck and was guilty as sin, that Ashbygate was a Liberal Party plot reaching to the very top, and that the whole affair was a national disgrace.
Next caller (I was rinsing my ears by that time and didn’t hear her comment too cleary) was on about public transport.
Blow me down, the announcer said that the Liberals always stuffed up and ran down public utilities, including transport, that WA would have been in even deeper transport doo doos if we hadn’t recently had two terms of Labor Goverments, and that we would have to give Barnett and the Liberals the arse in the next State election if we wanted things to improve.
Honest, I actually heard this!!
WeWantPaul@605
Those drugs are shared around quite a lot on PB.
When you see someone like confessions who allows her hatred of Rudd to exceed her dislike of Abbott then you really have to wonder what side she is on.
Briefly,
[These are interesting questions, but now I have to to bring in the washing, water the fucshias, the angel hair, the lavender and the little white bougainvillea, take a shower, re-make the bed, iron a shirt and dress for dinner, where I will argue the case for inquiring into the contempt of the House.
I hold out few hopes of succeeding, but will not feel regret if I fail. Is it possible to experience one without the other?]
Which is one of many reasons why I honour you.
For those who have forgotten what a nightmare Kevvie was:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/rudd-undone-by-the-enemy-within/story-e6frg6z6-1225887059051
http://www.smh.com.au/queensland/half-of-state-less-likely-to-vote-lnp-poll-20121216-2bhfp.html
[Half of state less likely to vote LNP: poll
December 16, 2012 – 7:16PM
Bridie Jabour
brisbanetimes.com.au reporter
Half of Queenslanders are less likely to vote for the LNP in the federal election next year because of the performance of the Newman Government, new polling shows.
The ReachTEL poll, commissoned by Channel 7, surveyed 1134 people on Friday night and asked, ‘‘Has the performance of the Newman State Government made you more or less likely to vote for the LNP at the upcoming Federal election?’’]
[Also love when hardline anglophilic monarchists talk about having a “Tea Party”. They do know to whom the Tea Party refers, right?]
It’s completely lost on them, which really is a hoot. Poor old Flintie seems to think Tea Party means an afternoon at Alan Jones’ place spent sipping Earl Grey tea from Wedgewood cups and nibbling scones prepared by Alan’s butler while plotting to bring back knighthoods.
was he new announcer if u check their sight the name may be there
leone,
Do you sit around having tea with your old boyfriends?
The polls at this point are irrelevent, but FWIW I think Neilsen will follow a similar tracking point to the others, ie it will blow out to the coalition.
For all you boring farts out there, it’s not a question of how good or bad Rudd is or was, but how bloody friggin’ hopeless Abbott is and will be.
Get over yourselves and your petty obsessions FFS!
Good point, My say, Steve Gordon is the name.
adrian
I’ll take that as a stupid comment.
Acerbic Conehead
Yes, the Jesuit network. In Abbott’s own words –
[Well, look Emily-Jade, I was a journo. I was 30 years-old. I had been a student or a journo all my life and I thought it was time to get some experience in the real world and I was friendly through the, I suppose, the Sydney Jesuit scene with Sir Tristan Antico who ran Pioneer Concrete and I summoned up my courage and went to see Tris one day and said, look, do you have anything that someone who’s lived most of his life in an ivory tower could usefully do and he said well, the best preparation for life that I know of is being a batching plant manager for Pioneer Concrete. So he sent me out to one of their subsidiaries called Boreham…]
http://www.tonyabbott.com.au/News/tabid/94/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/7303/Interview-with-The-Cage-Triple-M-Brisbane.aspx
[You and Adam have clearly been taking the same drugs]
What a bizarre thing to say given what we now know about the Rudd era. All objective evidence in full view to anyone who cares to look.
GG
Not that it’s any of your business, but no, I don’t.
adrian
Hear! Hear!
leone:
I meant to respond to your coffee rant earlier, but got sidetracked by gay sex (as one does, it would seem).
I’m not a tea drinker, but agree with your observations about coffee freaks. I’m sick of people cluttering up takeaway coffee orders with their bizarre, almost inhuman demands that coffee (a stimulant) somehow be non-stimulatory, and fat free into the bargain!
That’s what herbal tea is for!!
GG I take that as a compliment coming from a boring fart like you.
[The polls at this point are irrelevent, but FWIW I think Neilsen will follow a similar tracking point to the others, ie it will blow out to the coalition.]
I tend to agree with you, but there’s always miracles!
I said something the other day about how Labor needed a couple of miracles, and how a finding of abuse of process in the Ashby case would be a good start.
Lo and behold! It happened!
I’m hoping the public sees the difference between a concocted “Scandal”that’s 20 years old, and one that has been sown, budded, developed, flowered, seeded and been bountifully harvested in the space of the last 12 months.
The public distrusts Abbott even less than they distrust Abbott.
Now that they’ve seen Slipper stitched-up in a bona fide dodgy court case they may even have some sympathy for him.
It’s a pretty natural reaction, not in all, but in a good proportion of people. Slipper got a raw deal, fair’s fair and all that, but they (the Libs) shouldn’t have done it to him that way.
Slipper’s lost everything, Ashby is still afloat,as are his gloating, over-confident lawyers and the buffoon, Brough.
Brough’s protestations ring awful hollow except among the LNP bumpkin glitterati of the Sunshine Coast. So do Abbott’s, and they’re already starting to lose some of their shine.
The media has disappointed, sure. Faced with a reprise of their misreading of the zeitgeist over The Speech, they’ve smartened up and, rather than argue the point about the story, they’ve buried the story altogether. How can you discuss a buried story?
That’s the plan, anyhow.
Bury it = It never happened.
No argument over the “context” is then possible.
We’ll see.
But major movements in polls are rare in a short period like a week, so probably nothing immediate will come of it. Punters don’tlike to admit (even to themselves) that they were wrong.
[leone
Posted Sunday, December 16, 2012 at 8:51 pm | PERMALINK
Also love when hardline anglophilic monarchists talk about having a “Tea Party”. They do know to whom the Tea Party refers, right?
It’s completely lost on them, which really is a hoot. Poor old Flintie seems to think Tea Party means an afternoon at Alan Jones’ place spent sipping Earl Grey tea from Wedgewood cups and nibbling scones prepared by Alan’s butler while plotting to bring back knighthoods]
Yes it amuses me The Tea Party with all the monarchists etc naming themselves thus- have been to Boston and really can’t understand why they picked that name, perhaps a more enlightened PBer may be able to enlighten me 🙂
Leone,
Tony Abbott’s link to a Jesuit Network in particular, or Catholicism in general, is as substantial as the steam off your piss on a cold winter night in Coolamon.
Tyr a different record – that one’s stuck.
leone 613 & mari 627, it doesn’t surprise me though. They tend to revise history.
BK
If you are able I would love for you to do your dawn patrol posts on the xmas blog when crikey has it.s break.
http://www.inquisitr.com/440669/westboro-baptist-church-counter-protestors-devise-ways-to-block-connecticut-shooting-pickets/
This is shocking!
adrian:
If the discussion bores you, then you are always free to go elsewhere.
BB:
What will happen in the event Neilsen is worse for Labor than previously, is that OM will simply use that as ‘evidence’ the public are over Ashby/Slipper, and ramp down the reportage even more than they already have done.
Liberals on Sky today were already floating the idea that the public are sick of Ashby, and that therefore Rares’ ruling can be discounted. They’d love nothing more than a right now poll as further fodder for their position.
[Carey Moore
Posted Sunday, December 16, 2012 at 9:13 pm | PERMALINK
leone 613 & mari 627, it doesn’t surprise me though. They tend to revise history.]
True strange bedfellows though.
BTW What has happened to Michelle O Carey , I really liked her gracing your comments?
confessions
I enjoy a properly made cup of tea but they are hard to find out there in Cafe Land. Ask for what they call a pot of tea and you’ll get a teabag or two drowning in a metal pot of almost-hot water that has been simmering in an urn for a few hours. Absolutely vile, and you’ll pay a fortune for it.
[BTW What has happened to Michelle O Carey , I really liked her gracing your comments?]
I decided to change on account of the US political season closing.
I went with the Earl of Lemongrab from the cartoon “Adventure Time” because, like him, I tend to annoy everybody and not understand why 😉
http://adventuretime.wikia.com/wiki/Earl_of_Lemongrab
I have a post up on the ReachTEL Queensland poll.
leone, very well put. 🙂
[Plot foiled, Labor still left with a barely there majority and still very much the government, Abbott left wondering why everyone won’t play by his rules.]
Yes indeed confessions, that goes without saying. Sometimes I wonder however if you regulars realise how this blog can appear to a relative newcomer.
The way just about any topic of discussion reverts to how terrible/wonderful Rudd is/was is way beyond tedious.
Perhaps you and a few others could start a blog to indulge your tiresome obsessions.
I think that Rudd prefers a soy latte to a Maccona, and his taste in tea is woeful.
Wendy Carlisle @Wendycarlisle
@TonyAbbottMHR who in the APH IT dept advised your office that the APH servers were out by 10 hours on the 23/24th of April? #Ashby #slipper
This is interesting Wendy is a journalist with ABC I believe
http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/legco-ices-forestry-peacesurrender-deal.html
Just for those interested, me on the Tasmanian Legislative Council deferring the forests peace deal.
First half is basically just me getting stuck into the process that led to the deal (especially on the green side) and second part is political coverage.
Yes indeed confessions, that goes without saying. Sometimes [I wonder however if you regulars realise how this blog can appear to a relative newcomer.
The way just about any topic of discussion reverts to how terrible/wonderful Rudd is/was is way beyond tedious.
Perhaps you and a few others could start a blog to indulge your tiresome obsessions.]
Thank. You.
Both sides get so freaking tedious on here!
adrian@638
Stick it out adrian, there are some quite intelligent people posting on this blog who will appreciate what you have to offer.
Joe6pack
Just point me in the right direction and it’s done!
adrian:
I’m sorry that you find reality tedious, but a lot of what is wrong with modern Labor goes to the environment which was created which enabled one Kevin Rudd to assume the leadership and to rule in such dictatorship fashion.
Hate Julia Gillard if you must (and you aren’t alone), but at least do commenters here the courtesy of at least recognising what is and has gone on within the ALP for the last 2+ years.
adrian
You could be right about Rudd’s woeful taste in tea. A while back Rudd won a contest to have a Twinings Tea he blended himself released. The members of the public had to vote for the celebrity they thought most deserving of the honour or something like that. Anyway, my tea-loving family insisted on trying the Kevin Rudd Australian Afternoon blend and they loathed it. The packet is still in the depths of the cupboard somewhere, no-one wants to drink it.
BK
http://pbxmastragics.wordpress.com/
thanks
[Nielsen predictions?
53-47]
Just saw this.
Probably in line with the other polls, so 54-46
FFS confessions, where the friggin’ hell did I say that I hate Gillard? You really are a piece of work.
Carey Moore@642
A bit unfair there Carey.
There are a couple of idiots like TP and TLM who fit your description as one eyed Rudd supporters, but as for the rest, I think you will find they are aware that, like all human beings, Rudd has weaknesses as well as strengths.
OTOH, there is the Julia adulation society who will admit to no blemish or imperfection in the performance of Julia Gillard. Now that really is tedious.