Bruce covers suburbs in eastern Melbourne from Glen Waverley and Wheelers Hill south to Springvale (home to substantial Vietnamese and Chinese communities) and Dandenong. The Monash Freeway bisects the electorate from north-west to south-east, serving as a rough divider between a strongly Labor-voting south and a broadly marginal north with pockets of strong Liberal support around Wheelers Hill. The redistribution has added around 7500 voters from those parts of Glen Waverley who were previously in Chisholm, which has garnished Labor’s margin from 8.1% to 7.7%.
Bruce was created in 1955 but has been substantially altered over time by redistribution, its original boundaries extending far beyond the city limits to Cranbourne in the east and Berwick in the south. Suburban expansion soon caused it to be drawn into its long-term base of Glen Waverley, and it assumed roughly its current dimensions when it acquired Labor-voting Noble Park and Dandenong North in 1996. This proved a watershed moment electorally, as the Liberals had previously held the seat without interruption and Labor has done so since.
The inaugural member for the seat was Billy Snedden, who went on to lead the Coalition in opposition from the wake of the 1972 election defeat until he was deposed by Malcolm Fraser in March 1975, and then to serve as Speaker throughout the period of the Fraser government. Snedden retired following the 1983 election defeat and was succeeded at the ensuing by-election by Kenneth Aldred, who had held the since-abolished eastern suburbs seat of Henty for the Liberals from 1975 until his defeat in 1980. In 1990 Aldred was defeated for Liberal preselection by Julian Beale, whose seat of Deakin had been made notionally Labor by a redistribution. Aldred then ran for Deakin himself, and managed to retain the seat on the back of a statewide backlash against Labor.
The 1996 redistribution gave Bruce a notional Labor margin of 1.6%, which Beale had to overcome if he was to retain his seat. In the event he could manage only 0.8%, a rare disappointment for the Liberals in the context of that election. The winning Labor candidate was Alan Griffin, who had previously held the abolished seat of Corinella. Bruce has since swung substantially according to the prevailing political winds, but has nonetheless remained fairly secure for Labor, the narrowest margin after 1996 being 3.5% in 2004.
A noted figure of influence in the Socialist Left faction, Griffin served as Veterans Affairs Minister in the first term of the Rudd-Gillard government before standing aside after the 2010 election. Griffin cited personal reasons for this decision, but he would soon emerge as a numbers man for Kevin Rudd’s leadership aspirations. Griffin announced he would not seek re-election in August 2011, before changing his mind in July 2012. He had earlier been fortunate to survive a preselection challenge for the 2007 election by Matt Carrick of the Right, who was reportedly thwarted by a single Transport Workers Union delegate who split from his faction’s line out of animus towards Carrick’s backers in the National Union of Workers.
The Liberals have endorsed Emanuele Cicchiello, Knox councillor and deputy principal of Lighthouse Christian College.
Anybody notice how the Division of Batman only appears if the Division of Bruce has disappeared? And when the Division of Bruce returns, the Division of Batman has gone? Very suspicious…
[You just know that Lowitja O’Donohue has just gone back to her favourite blog and posted
It WAS ShowsOn! I just spoke to him for half an hour.!]
Well! She is rather anti-internet!
She had The Australian, The Advertiser and a local paper and spent her lunch reading them all.
I asked her if she stays up to date with news via the internet, but she says she hates it!
[Who was it that appointed Peris without proper consultation again?]
That has nothing to do with the public unhinging of members.
MTBW
[I don’t know of a “captain’s pick” being anywhere in the ALP Rules Book.]
Very early in my ALP career I was told that Admin exists to over rule the Rules Book.
Perfectly sensible, in my view.
Dio:
Having worked in indigenous health I’ve seen up close just how nasty and personal indigenous politics can be.
I think Peris would’ve expected the attacks and bitter personal recriminations though.
Carey
ssshhh. You’ll spoil the plot….
97
William Bowe
[That’s rising CLP Aboriginal Northern Territory politician Adam Giles …]
Beat me to it, Mr B.
Would suggest a certain irony in Giles calling another indigenous pollie a “pet Aborigine”.
He has taken the CLP style to heart.
Weather warning for northern NSW
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/wrap_fwo.pl?IDN38503.txt
Wonder if where the tornado hit is anywhere near Cape Moreton
http://wind.willyweather.com.au/qld/brisbane/cape-moreton.html
William and JustMe
That’s true but it’s pretty much what quite a few NT indigenous ALP figures have said.
105
confessions
[Having worked in indigenous health I’ve seen up close just how nasty and personal indigenous politics can be.]
Sad but true.
It is one of the main things that holds them back.
Anyone else met Lowitja O’Donohue and seen the Red Hot Chili Peppers within a 24 hour period?
Tornado watch –
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-26/flood-havoc-as-rain-lashes-qld/4485304
ShowsOn
Where did you see Lowitja?
CRAP! I DIDN”T ASK LOWITJA O’DONOHUE IF SHE SAW THE RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS LAST NIGHT!?
[ShowsOn
Where did you see Lowitja?]
At a very classy seafood restaurant.
Shows
You do realise that if she has EVER seen the Red Hot Chili Peppers than she meets the criteria for 112?
What suburb I mean.
[What suburb I mean.]
Are you going to stalk her?
She told me that she still receives police protection at her home because she has repeatedly been subjected to death threats, particularly during her time at ATSIC.
[Wonder if where the tornado hit is anywhere near Cape Moreton]
No, it was at Bargara, a seaside suburb of Bundaberg, several hundred kms north of Cape Moreton.
zoomster
[Very early in my ALP career I was told that Admin exists to over rule the Rules Book.]
And NSW is such a mess because they do it at whim all the time.
Re Diogenes at 100. And the whispering campaign against Peris. No wonder they are whispering about it. It is crap.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-25/nova-peris-rejects-malicious-rumours/4483862
“I did not misuse departmental assets during my time at the Northern Territory Department of Education,” she said.
“During the time I worked with the department – setting up three girls’ academies – I put my own furniture, including two lounge suites, a coffee table, a fridge, a microwave and a rug into two of the academies.
“After finishing work with the department in November 2011, I was asked by the department to remove my furniture, which was replaced by new furniture purchased by the department.
“No furniture owned by the department was ever taken by me from the academies.”
Ms Peris has described the rumours as “unfounded” and “malicious”, adding that it was her decision alone to quit her job with the department and she left on “good terms”.
Remember when there was controversy in this forum because when Rudd was P.M. he wrote a reference letter for Alexander Downer for a United Nations job?
Well, why isn’t anyone complaining that Julia Gillard has told the Governor General to give Downer the highest civilian honour that an Australian Government can recommend?
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/ex-minister-alexander-downer-granted-australias-greatest-civic-honour/story-e6frea83-1226562134813
Jamie DeWolf, Scientology Founder’s Great-Grandson, Accuses Church Of ‘Brainwashing’
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/25/jamie-dewolf-scientology-brainwashing_n_2550647.html
Of course not. I have known her for many years and just wondered where she is. Assuming she lives in proximity to Barnacle Bills.
It is pretty outrageous what is happening to Nova Peris. It’s a bit of a toxic mix. Plenty of disgruntled Labor NT insiders unhappy at being overridden.
Then there’s the free forum extended by News Ltd and the ABC to anyone willing to say anything negative on the matter, including a strong contingent of indigenous pollies who defected to the CLP.
If there was any substance to the complaints, it’s not helped by the spreading of malicious falsehoods against Peris, which has occurred.
The merit is simple enough. The remote communities deserted Labor in droves at the recent election, leading to the trouncing of the government. It was a direct consequence of the Intervention (thanks Howard and Brough) and Rudd/Gillard quietly complying with it.
Snowdon was probably gone if those figures held up at the next federal election. (Some have said, a little unkindly but not inaccurately, that perhaps like Crossin his time had come.) It is the House seat that matters.
Where Peris might have helped, and might still if we can get beyond the media frenzy, is that she has publicly condemned the Intervention. There is every chance, as Gillard’s chosen candidate, that her action on that might indeed lead to a retreat from Intervention.
If that occurred, Labor just might be able to regain support it has lost, especially as the current CLP government seems pretty basic, despite some good indigenous representatives.
We’d still be waiting another 40 years or so before the NT Labor Party was willing to nominate an aboriginal for the Senate. It’s too good a perk for insiders.
It’s just a pity it got tangled up in the media’s favourite “Gillard Bad” meme.
TOO MUCH EXCITEMENT IN TOO LITTLE TIME.
I NEED A NAP.
The reality is that Senator Crossin cannot run in the number one spot for Senate.
Like it or lump it. Wise or unwise. It’s done.
Happy to predict by the time parliament resumes, the ‘captain’s pick’ in the NT will rate a non-issue.
To date, it has been a storm in the media’s tea-cup along with “outraged” individuals – mainly from the right of politics or part of the dead wood the very act of bringing Nova in is meant to address.
The gem was Noel Crichton-Browne, discredited ex-Liberal Senator from WA, seeking to lecture the PM on ‘principles’ a day or two ago. Total hypocrisy.
I have not the energy or patience to go over the way every decision made by Labor/PM has been chewed to pieces by the OM to find fault in anything done by the government.
Within two weeks most are forgotten and never cut much ice with anyone except said whinging media/conservatives.
Golly, there was Carr, there was Wong, there was Slipper, there was the ‘riot’, there was the curtsy, there was the ‘being outvoted in caucus’ over some Middle East policy, there was the so-called ‘sucking up’ to the POTUS when his visited, – no, just too much crap to even stretch the memory
Paul Murray in today’s West has also had his usual anti-Labor bash on the same topic. Music to the ears of the rusted-ons; just one more bit of media hypocrisy for the rest of us.
The 24 hour news cycle is a curse at some levels, but on the other, the attention span of the media and those who read/see the stuff is that of a gnat.
[shellbell
Posted Saturday, January 26, 2013 at 4:31 pm | PERMALINK
Weather warning for northern NSW
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/wrap_fwo.pl?IDN38503.txt
That me so far just one heavy shower but it is so oppressive
think the humidity is 99% according to the computer
[Remember when there was controversy in this forum because when Rudd was P.M. he wrote a reference letter for Alexander Downer for a United Nations job?
Well, why isn’t anyone complaining that Julia Gillard has told the Governor General to give Downer the highest civilian honour that an Australian Government can recommend?]
Well, manufactured outrage against the dreaded JuLiarHITLER aside, one of those is actually a duty, whereas the other is just an award.
Also, I think you’ll find most of the partisan Labor hacks don’t agree with Downer getting anything positive.
For the record, I am not one of those people. I think his IR knowledge is an asset (even if he is aligned with the neoconservatives)
GD
[Where Peris might have helped, and might still if we can get beyond the media frenzy, is that she has publicly condemned the Intervention.]
The problem with that is that all the media has to do is ask if Peris agrees with official Labor party policy.
bemused@62
The KING is DEAD , Long Live the QUEEN ! Now STFU and stop wasting ink.
@AWUnion: AWU’s Rio Tinto win has big business running scared #ausunions #AWU2013 http://t.co/tV7c4umi
@Colvinius: NT @KieraGorden: Journalists respond to Mal Brough’s claim that none of them asked to interview him about Ashby. http://t.co/UsWogXjN
It didn’t take long for the mud to start flying at Peris Nova. Labor seems to have shot itself in the foot again, with enthusiastic amplification being provided by the CLP and the mainstream media. Any benefits Ms Nova may have brought to the ALP’s cause have probably been lost, with the media making this look like another Slipper affair. I would not be surprised if Ms Nova quietly withdrew.
This seems to have come completely out of the blue without any consultation with the NT Branch. Why wasn’t this done more competently?
Diogenes –
Not that I know anything about the letter of ALP policy, but I strongly doubt the Intervention is explicitly ALP policy.
The ALP have continued it, obviously, and presumably have to argue the merits of supporting it based upon whatever actually IS ALP policy; I would suspect ALP policy is along the lines of removing areas of indigenous disadvantage, tackling social issues yada yada yada.
In other words, it’s probably the case that one can argue against the Intervention in its Howard era form or the current ALP supported form, and not be arguing against ALP policy just the particular form it is currently being enacted…
[This seems to have come completely out of the blue without any consultation with the NT Branch. Why wasn’t this done more competently?]
I think it the PM expected that Crossin would publicly unhinge before she could announce Peris’ preselection. Certainly the hysterical whingeing from the NT members seems to indicate this.
Steve777 –
I think you are reading too much into the current palaver. It’s just the media doing its frenzy over the announcement; in 15 seconds or so they’ll be off chasing the next shiny thing and this brouhaha will be forgotten.
The real question is whether Ms Peris has the chops to make a good candidate – if she does she’ll bring the people around, if she doesn’t, then this was all have been a mistake. We will see, but the current media reporting is meaningless in that context.
From the outside it’s difficult to know how much consultation with the NT branch there was, but this wasn’t “completely out of the blue”. Chris Uhlmann confidently stated that:
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2013/s3676960.htm
The media frenzy will pass quickly enough. Whether Nova Peris is an asset to the ALP or not is entirely in her hands and capabilities.
ShowsOn saw Lowitja all right.
From the Dock.
Tricot at 129, I think and hope you are right.I have just been watching online the PM’s speech at the citizenship ceremony in Canberra. In my opinion, she gets better and better every day. That woodenness has completely gone. Her warmth and optimism now shine through. Compare that image with the frightening one we saw the other day of a dreary ageing anxious man using a visual prop in a telephone conference.
Which one seems assured, confident and in control? Which one looks like a leader? (I almost said ‘like a real leader’, but thanks to the Libs the word ‘real’ is now off-limits.)
which is worst an political party libs/lnp who stab its elected member (slipper) in the back , made him turn independent,and when slipper became the speaker the libs/lnp conspired a plot against him. To damage his reputation and tried to force an by election.
That is a bigger story then the Nova Peris will ever be
Diogenes
Posted Saturday, January 26, 2013 at 5:03 pm | Permalink
GD
Where Peris might have helped, and might still if we can get beyond the media frenzy, is that she has publicly condemned the Intervention.
The problem with that is that all the media has to do is ask if Peris agrees with official Labor party policy.
Perhaps. On the other hand she stated it at the very time Gillard announced her as the next Senate candidate. So she’s on record. In any case, of course, it’s not Labor’s policy – just a continuation of Howard-Brough.
A independent should bit the bullet and introduce the new media laws asap, the independent will get the support in both houses
news ltd had 3 or 4 strikes already trying to bring down the governemnt during labor 2 terms of government
They can not claim their freedom is being ataken it
The libs/Lnp were found by a judge , of trying to gain political advantage by setting up a former libs/lnp member slipper
Nova Peris is not a story at all
The government needs to ask the media
Why are they ignoring the libs/lnp disgusting plot of trying to force an elected member out of parliament
The government in a pre3ss conference
should exposed news ltd in the plot also
The government should put the pressure back on news ltd, if they are so worried about an member like Nova Peris running for a senate seat
why are they quite on the libs/lnp plot agaisnt slipper
what role did news ltd play in it
The 24 Hour news cycle
___________________
It seems to me BTW ..that the media runs with a major story..or one that they like..until some other”crisis” or scandal comes along and they then forget the earlier matter
as someone said…the attention cycle of as gnat..
but it keeps them in a job
Nova Perlis must hope for some big story to displace her story soon
The governemnt and labor supporters just need to ignore this attempt by news ltd / to help its man abbbott
Labor supporters need to continue to ask the media , news ltd what role did they play in the ashby scandal
Thoughtful and respected Aboriginal leaders seem to be applauding the selection of Nova Peris. The opponents are mean-spirited rivals or political opponents, egged on by the ABC and the Australian.
On the information we have she would seem to be a great candidate.
If, as some have said, Crossin was to be replaced anyway, by Marion Scrymgour, I fully understand why pre-emptive action was necessary. Marion has resigned from the Labor party before, what would stop her doing it again? That may explain the support she has had from Conservatives.
I am somewhat taken aback by the insults indigenous politicians are using against Peris; “mary” “tea maid” not a “real” aborigine. Like it or not if you are going to be pre-selected you have to be willing to take the pledge. The ex deputy chief minister and Mundine should remember that if the want to be in parliament.