NOTE: Poll Bludger will be closed for comments for two weeks from December 25 to January 7 inclusive.
Melbourne Ports covers Bayside inner Melbourne from the mouth of the Yarra through Port Melbourne and Albert Park to St Kilda, further jutting inland in the south to take in Elsternwick. The redistribution to take effect at the next election will transfer 9000 voters in Elsternick and Caulfield South south of Glen Huntly Road to Goldstein, increasing the Labor margin from 7.6% to 7.9%. Melbourne Ports has the largest Jewish community of any electorate in Australia, accounting for 12.8% of the local population, and ranks at or near the top for numbers of Poles, Russians and Hungarians. It also has the second lowest proportion of Christians after its northern neighbour, Melbourne.
Labor’s greatest source of strength in the electorate is around St Kilda, where booths results in 2010 typically had Labor in the high thirties, the Greens on or around 30%, and the Liberals in third place in the mid-twenties. At the city end of the electorate, encompassing Port Melbourne, South Melbourne and Albert Park, green-left inner-city tendencies are counterbalanced by wealthy Liberal-voting elements. The strongest areas for the Liberals are in the east of the electorate, both around South Yarra in the north and Caulfield in the south, where the suburbs begin to take on the character of the electorate’s safe Liberal neighbour, Higgins.
Melbourne Ports was once noted for its preponderance of waterfront workers and generally working class voter base, and was accordingly very safe for Labor for most of its history. It has since transformed into the tenth wealthiest electorate in the country, a process which has considerably worn down Labor’s margin. The seat has nonetheless been extremely stable over the past two decades, recording essentially no swing at all at the consecutive elections of 1996, 1998 and 2001, a 2.0% swing to the Liberals in 2004, and swings to Labor of 3.4% in 2007 and 0.4% in 2010. The 2004 election proved Labor’s low water mark to date, the margin falling to 3.7%.
Labor has held the seat without interruption since 1906, with only five members serving over that time: James Matthews until 1931; Ted Holloway, a Curtin-Chifley government minister who moved to Melbourne Ports after unseating Prime Minister Stanley Bruce in Flinders two years earlier, until 1951; Frank Crean, Whitlam government Treasurer and father of Simon, until 1977; Clyde Holding, who came to the seat after a long and unproductive spell as state Opposition Leader, until 1998; and the incumbent, Michael Danby.
A member of the Right sub-faction associated with Stephen Conroy and Bill Shorten, Michael Danby’s pre-parliamentary career included stints as editor of the Australia-Israel Review, staffer to Hawke government minister Barry Cohen and industrial officer for the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association. He is frequently in the news as a supportive voice for Israel, most recently after the Prime Minister was prevailed upon to have Australia support observer status for the Palestinian territories at the United Nations. Although occasionally mentioned as a candidate for promotion, he is yet to achieve a position more senior than Opposition Whip, which he held between 2001 and 2007.
The preselected Liberal candidate for the second electorate running is Kevin Ekendahl, a manager at non-profit social enterprises organisation Try Australia.
Fiona 2946 moi?
Does one say “Some female PB posters are a bit tetchy tonight”
OR
“Some PB posters are a bit tetchy tonight”?
We don’t have a single decoration.
A midnight snack of Xams cake and yoghurt, and cream.
[OR
“Some PB posters are a bit tetchy tonight”?]
OR just plain bitches tonight?
i ave a forlorn little tree on a little table.
[this is not a good look..]
Why? bemused offered his unemployment as a reason why he has time to comment so frequently here. I made no judgement.
Except bemused’s ‘pot, kettle, black’ retort is just ridiculous, given that there is no analogy with our circumstances.
OK Bludgeroonies….thats enough mischief for one year.
See you in January!
Be good over the the satellite blog without my dulcet tones won’t you?
😀
i boyught my mum king crab legs for xmas.
merry xmas mod lib
dib – you haven’t contributed for half an hour so no loss at all.
Rack off.
Fess. Quit while you are ahead…
Happy Festivus Puff!
The Lions’ Xmas cake is good.
[CTar1
Posted Tuesday, December 25, 2012 at 1:07 am | PERMALINK
dib – you haven’t contributed for half an hour so no loss at all.
Rack off.]
I havent contributed anything for half a year.
Hehe.
Happy Festivus to you too by the way.
Rossmore,
[Toughen up, you’ll survive …]
Of course I will, and thank you for the sympathy.
This one is actually sultana cake with glace cherries. yum.
Triple get stuffed/Walrussed or whatever you do.
i am eating it in bed.
Puff – Who or what?
I made cherry souffle the other day.
Delish 🙂
I am not telling you te color of my jammies.
[Fess. Quit while you are ahead…]
Ahead of what?
ctar1
😀 norty!
Puff: Just tell us that you have jammies….thats all we ask 🙂
mod – “cherry, you?”. Really trying me out now.
Puff:
Is this your first xmas without your partner, or was that last year?
Sorry if that’s something I should’ve known.
arrrrrgggghhhhhhh I left the u out of colour!
fess
That was last year.
fess
It is okay, it is easy to lose track of yime.
Fiona 2966 Seriously. My comment was uncalled for. I hope you are feeling better. And go straight to the docs if you ain’t.
Puff:
Tks.
Puff:
The older I get the faster time flies by.
I hate it.
Sorry about your partner (george, wasn’t it?). I’m sure he’d have loved us all. 😀
Anyways, night all.
Catch youse at Joe’s.
Rossmore,
Not comfortabl but it will pass.
Joe’s, Fucken Joe’s, same as Franks but with better trailers …
Fiona sleep good. Night