Seat of the week: Fremantle

There have been suggestions that the electorate of John Curtin might be lost to Labor at the next election as part of a statewide conservative sweep, although they have faded with Labor’s recent improvement in the polls.

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.

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.

830 comments on “Seat of the week: Fremantle”

Comments Page 4 of 17
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  1. victoria

    I’d like something even BIGGER. But I’m greedy for revenge. Abbott’s hateful rants against the PM have driven me nuts this year.

  3. victoria@147,
    I also recall Latham saying that there was something big on Abbott. Could this be it?

    And what will Clive Palmer tell us next week?

  4. catmomma
    Your post reminded me of something.

    I have an Apple Macbook. There is an option in security preferences to encrypt your drive with military style encryption.

    I have done this. It keeps out the hackers that have been in the news lately for hacking drives and holding the datat on them hostage.

    I advise all to do the same. I do assume Windows has alternatives available to so encrypt hard drives.

  5. lizzie

    Agreed. He has been horrid. I am starting to think that Abbott has not been looking so well lately, due to the fact that the chickens are now coming home to roost!!

  6. Eh, Queenslanders have form for voting in LNP scumbags no matter how grubby they are.

    For example the new Member for Cairns believes that women deserve to get raped if they drink in excess.

  10. Actually, I wouldn’t mind if Katter and Clive’s Party(sounds like the 21st century version of Pete ‘n’ Dud 🙂 ), replaced the LNP in Queensland if they all collapsed in a ‘CanDo’ heap. At least Katter is a true Conservative. Clive, not so much but I think he would want to maintain The Great Barrier reef and make a buck out of it.

    Speaking of Clive, did anyone see his Animatronic T Rex Dinosaurs on the Coolum Golf Course during the Australian Open? It shows the man has a sense of humour at least.

  11. Confessions

    Latham made the comment a few weeks back on the Sky program. It was at the height of the AWU stuff and Blewitt etc. perhaps others bludgers will recall his exact words

  12. fi – I’ve already cracked the Tatts thing (all 10.38 of it).

    Be careful of moving objects.

    Otherwise I’ll turn-up in Studley Park road and embarrass you.

  13. Tweet from Emmo

    [.@vanOnselenP Peter you’re getting lots of nasty Lib tweets for having @AlboMP on your program. Good I/v. Lib Shadows hard to find? #auspol]

  15. Guytaur and Zoomster,

    Thank you both – and Zoomster, if I didn’t specifically mention you on the other thread my heartfelt apologies.

    The Holbrook bypass should be open by mid 2013. The duplication of the southern NSW section of the Hume – thanks indeed to Albo – is really good from many perspectives. However, there is a downside, pointed out to me yesterday by the towies and police. If drivers don’t have to slow down for towns, many are tempted to skip necessary rest breaks (here I am referring specifically to non-professional drivers). The police and towies are already observing an increase in nasty high-speed private m/v accidents on the newly-opened bypasses of Tarcutta and Woomargama.

    Joe6pack, if you are around, do you have any thoughts on this?

  20. So, now comes the Military Grade test of chutzpah for the Opposition. Will MPs like Alex Somylay lie under oath to protect Abbott and Brough?

    Abbott, on the other hand, will just come along with a crack team of lawyers to protect him from his big mouth and his foot coming into contact spectacularly.

  21. c@tmomma

    The AFP will be able to look at all phone records, computer records etc as part of their investigations. The Libs have already demonstrated how stupid they are when it comes to technology. Let’s see what the AFP come up with

  23. Morning All

    Missed most of the excitement during the week as I was in Sydney for work for a few days. Was fiddling with the radio dial one morning and hit on Alan Jones – he was ranting on comparing costs of rolling out the NBN here with what’s being done in China and Mexico – incredible stuff. I lasted about 2 minutes and then the ads started. I don’t know how anyone can listen to him!!!

    Read the Ashby judgement yesterday, interesting that Justice Rares didn’t buy Lewis’s line that he was talking about getting the hire car driver rather than Slipper in his text. Overall though the obvious holes in Ashby’s case were picked up as many here suspected – especially the Hungary trip. Can’t see it being appealed unless and inquiry is called – the appeal would then be used to stop the inquiry. There is plenty of fodder there for an inquiry but I’m not sure it would be good politics to have one.

    Good to see some talk of letting the surplus go, now is not the time to be chasing it.

    Hoping for at least 52-48 in Nielsen tonight but expecting 54-46 which seems to be about where things are at presently

  24. I found this paragraph interesting in Maiden’s piece

    [Brough argues he acted appropriately at all times. Plenty of Liberal colleagues have lined up since Justice Rares’ sensational findings to pledge undying love and loyalty to Brough. But some of those “admirers” wouldn’t tip a bottle of designer water on Brough’s head if he were on fire. He’s talented but difficult, and prone to sometimes crash rather than crash through. One of his biggest backers is Tony Abbott, who urged another federal Queensland MP, Alex Somlyay, to stand aside for Brough in the lead-up to the 2010 election.]

  26. Do you know what I found the most fascinating snippet of information which came out after The Ashby Conspiracy began being pored over in public by some of the better journos like Jess Wright. The fact of meetings over coffee between Joe Hockey and Kevin Rudd in Hockey’s electorate. Why?

  27. “@margokingston1: … In my day # ashbygate would have filled pages in news and on Sat. features. What has happened and why?Please explain! I’m in shock.”

    retweetd by @Colvinus. I.e. Mark Colvin ABC PM host.

  28. c@tmomma

    This was canvassed on this site at the time. Some bludgers opined that Rudd and Hockey are good friends and they were just catching up. Me? I had another opinion.

  32. guytaur,
    Maybe the answer to Margo’s question is simply that the journos are treading carefully around Ashby until the decision is made to launch an Appeal or not? Much as it pains me to think so.

  34. http://www.theage.com.au/national/gillard-shares-the-shock-of-world-leaders-20121215-2bgk3.html
    December 16, 2012
    Dan Harrison
    Indigenous Affairs and Social Affairs Correspondent

    PRIME Minister Julia Gillard has expressed Australia’s shock at the worst school shooting in American history.

    ”Australia grieves with America today,” Ms Gillard said in a statement.]

    http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/pm-concerned-at-emotional-toll-on-slipper-20121215-2bgho.html
    [PM concerned at emotional toll on Slipper
    December 16, 2012
    Jessica Wright and Cosima Marriner

    IN A warning aimed at hard-hitting negative political campaigns, Prime Minister Julia Gillard has aired her concern about the emotional toll faced by Peter Slipper in the fallout from the accusations levelled against the former speaker.

    ………….

    She has no doubts as to who was to blame for the ”brutal” year in politics, which included the Craig Thomson affair, the drawn-out asylum seeker issue, the Peter Slipper-James Ashby case and the AWU slush fund saga.

    ”All of it was the decision and style of the opposition under Tony Abbott,” she said. ”They will always go for the negative and go in hard against the individuals. I think Australians are heartily sick of politics and next year will offer voters a real choice.”]

  35. victoria,
    What I’m saying is, are the AFP allowed to only access the meta data, so to spek, of who phoned who and on what day and at what time. Or are they allowed to get the recordings of the content of the phone calls themselves? Who said what to whom? Like the content of Ashby’s texts to Slipper and others was obtained.

  36. 153
    guytaur
    [I have an Apple Macbook. There is an option in security preferences to encrypt your drive with military style encryption.

    I have done this. It keeps out the hackers that have been in the news lately for hacking drives and holding the datat on them hostage.

    I advise all to do the same. I do assume Windows has alternatives available to so encrypt hard drives.]

    Sorry but Whole Drive Encryption (WDE) does not protect you against being hacked. To be hacked your computer must be on and running, but that also means that your drive is (in effect) completely decrypted to the hacker, once they have gained access to your system.

    What WDE does do is prevent access to your data if the physical computer is stolen or accessed, when the computer is switched off. If they gain access when it is still running, you have no protection from WDE.

    Online computer security revolves mainly around preventing remote access in the first place, once they are in and have admin privileges (which is what they are after), forget about, they can more-or-less do what they want.

    Your only protection at that point is to stay offline until you can get the problem fixed, assuming you know about it of course, it is not always immediately obvious.

  37. [This was canvassed on this site at the time. Some bludgers opined that Rudd and Hockey are good friends and they were just catching up. Me? I had another opinion.]

    As did I.

    I’d actually forgotten about that, but yes, it was canvassed here at the time.

  38. catmomma@184

    I do not think Telco’s are recording conversations. NSW and other states surveillance act. So only metadata will be available.

  40. Gosh my interest has been tweaked.
    ‘I also recall Latham saying that there was something big on Abbott. Could this be it?’

    So, is ‘big’ better than ‘enormous’?

    I think something on Abbott of ‘enormous proportions’ would be better wouldn’t it?
    You know something to really sink their teeth into.
    A ‘scandal’ or something.

    Pissing. In. The. Wind. Again.

  41. just me

    Ah thanks. For that people should have an admin and user account. Only use the Admin when making changes to settings.
    Activate the log in screen for both accounts rather than just have it on.

  42. http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/james-ashbys-failed-sexual-harassment-case-has-sunk-the-slipper-into-mal-brough/story-e6frezz0-1226537525647

    [One of his biggest backers is Tony Abbott, who urged another federal Queensland MP, Alex Somlyay, to stand aside for Brough in the lead-up to the 2010 election.

    Federal police have been referred allegations Abbott suggested to Somlyay that if he stood aside for Brough he might secure future consideration for an overseas job.

    Letters have now been sent by the AFP to relevant parties seeking further information and it will be interesting to see whether or not this, too, ends up one of Brough’s dry gullies.]
    Last part of Samantha’s article. Seems obvious to me that teh AFP referral not about Slipper/Ashby but about Somlyay. I recall this was talked about not long ago. I recall (no link) that it was the people in the ALP that sent the letter.

  45. rosemour

    Laugh is on you. Inquiry is coming. Just not officially announced. Albo said so on Sky.

    So this guessing work of bludgers may or may not foretell facts to come under consideration.

    However some facts will come under consideration of an inquiry.

  48. Leroy

    It is about Somlyay being asked to give up his seat for Brough, and being promised an overseas posting by Abbott. Dont know about you, but this indirectly relates to Slipper/Ashby. Brough assisted Ashby in discrediting Slipper. It is pertinent because Brough is the candidate in Slipper’s seat. No matter which way you look at it, Brough should be toast.

  49. [It never stopped them when the Thomson case was ongoing. So doubt that is the case. It may be the excuse though.]

    That is correct but George(OZs no 1 SC) Brandus has been at pains on TV slipping out the code wtte, ” yes but i can’t comment on that because of the appeal, it is still before the courts”

    That is the lead for the MSM myrmidons to STFU about it.

  50. The Abbott Brough Somerlay thing reads like that scandal that got a prominent media Tasmanian Businessman jailed.

    Headlines were xxxxx tried to bribe xxxxx to cross the floor. I do not remember the names. No doubt Tasmanians have better recollection than me.

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