Seat of the week: Bruce

The eastern Melbourne seat held by Rudd numbers man Alan Griffin is theoretically loseable for Labor, although it stayed with them throughout the Howard years.

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.

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.

2,010 thoughts on “Seat of the week: Bruce”

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  1. It would pay for the ALP to reach out to the Muslim communities in Western Sydney with some targeted campaigning, otherwise many may vote against their cultural / community interests, just as it looks as though many in Western Sydney (including Muslims, other recent migrants and their descendants and ‘old’ Australians) look set to vote against their economics interests.

  2. Good morning, Bludgers.

    Old Timer on ABC talking about river heights in Grafton; wtte “highest we’ve had since 1974, when we built the wall”. Later mentioned 1954 as well, In fact, could have nominated most years 1946-76 (though not 1964-mid66 drought). So Sydney might get its 400mm rain event, eh?

    Last week, in response to that prediction, I could post a warning not to travel north, citing the normal path of cyclones/ ex-cyclones which move down the East Coast – often swinging out from Brisbane then back into NSW’s Northern Rivers (though Oswald swung inland), because, hey! I’d live through three Superwet decades. Both of my grandmothers remembered the effects of the 1893 and 1931 cyclonic floods.

    Qld has pattern of horror cyclone seasons & major Briz river floods; eg 1893 (3 successive cyclones), 1931, 1974, 2011 … Hello? Is there a pattern there, perhaps?

    From the time our remote ancestors built the first permanent settlements, until mass availability of reticulated water systems (in many towns & cities, post WW II) settlements had to be sited close to clean water – why did Capt Phillip move the first settlement from Botany Bay to Sydney, eh?

    We have 224 years of weather records; legacy of early governors & guards, all from the navy – the Service (and in the Merchant Navy) in which meteorology & training Midshipmen in it from their first day on board (Sydney’s first observatory was built and run by the meteorologist on Beagle’s second voyage, was vital & compuksory. Even Japan was Top End meteorological reports from the time their pearl divers arrived in Oz.

    I also grew up amid constant repetition of the “Do” and “Don’ts” of choosing land, building & living in towns & cities in Cyclone Alley (Torres Strait to Grafton), Southerners laughed about Q’s “houses on stilts”, esp in Briz’s hilly suburbs (most of them; but hey! most hills are above flood level); so water flowed under the house, into deep unlined gutters beside dirt roads.

    Why have 2011 & 2013 seen so much destruction & heartbreak? Concrete curbing, sealed roads, masses of sealed carparks, building on river banks & flats, draining swamps, creeks & rivers to build on them, building Mediterranean style houses on ground-level slabs and so on.

    2012-13 was the first summer for several years that El Nino seemed to disappear from weather reports; replaced by the welcome return of The Monsoon: would it fail; would it be late? And yes, records of Monsoon seasons – whether in archives of colonial powers who invaded the Subcontinent, archipelagos between it and Oz (Portugal, Spain, Netherlands, UK), or in ancient Chinese, Hindi and Sanskrit records – go back through the centuries, even millennia; used by sailors, esp Chinese & Indian, to trade successfully and safely across the Asia-Pacific.

    But of course, why use information in those records when it’s oh so much easier (and more “environmentally correct”) to blame it on Climate Change. That way, there’s no need to strike our chests and cry Mea culpa; we forgot! A bit like You can’t. You’ll fall off the edge of the world as an excuse for not sailing too far west! (although Vikings did).

    Those who forget the lessons of history are fated to repeat it.

  4. Good Morning

    Second attempt.

    Who is JWS Research? I have never heard of them. How reliable is marginal seat polling? Is it like individual seat polling to be taken with extreme caution.

    I ask as the poll appears in the Financial Review run by that Saruman of Australian politics to use a LOTR analogy.

  6. OzPolT

    Article in science-environment about making better use of resources. Do we really need to concrete the cities? Is cheap Chinese stainless steel the answer to everything?

    There was a lot of wisdom around when we didn’t rely on technology.

    http://t.co/QZWxnuZC

  7. Scorpio (last night)

    Flooding also knocked offline a back-up cable in Harlin, northwest of Brisbane, late on Sunday, delaying the telco’s efforts to restore services to tens of thousands of customers.

    We’ve been losing landline & Internet services (as well as power) sporadically (& occasionally overlapping), so I’m guessing access has been “rationed” so that emergency and other communication services can be fed, in roundabout ways, to badly affected areas.

    I’m off to do my mail before my laptop goes on strike again 🙂 Message to self (and Bludgers all) Keep smiling!

  8. Kevin Bonham pointed out that the JWS poll was commissioned by ECG Advisory Solutions and that Peter Costello is Chairman of their Advisory Board. I note also that their Director, David Gazard, was the Liberal candidate for Eden Monaro in the 2010 election.

  10. Haydn @1808

    Thanks for pointing out Kevin B’s posts #1781 and #1783.

    It’s a pity some PBers didn’t take the time to peruse the prior pages they have not read before asking questions, the answer to which is a mere 15 to 20 comments back.

    It is helpful if PBers sometimes can both write and read.

  11. Haydn

    Does that means the polls are incorrect? We know for a long time that NSW was going to be bad for the ALP, we also knows that asian and arab community (including lots of small business owners) are not happy with the ALP (Fair Work and Carbon tax)

    In fact that poll shows Qld to be much better for the ALP then most people through (Swan’s seat likely to be lost)

  12. lol lizzie @ 1809

    I like this comment by dennis atkins at the end of his article

    The wider – and more immediate – problem for Labor is they don’t have the kind of four-line mantra Abbott is deploying. So this puts the Coalition on the front foot as the year begins.

    ————————————————

    I think he was taking the — out of abbott

  13. OzPol

    But of course, why use information in those records when it’s oh so much easier (and more “environmentally correct”) to blame it on Climate Change. That way, there’s no need to strike our chests and cry Mea culpa; we forgot! A bit like You can’t. You’ll fall off the edge of the world as an excuse for not sailing too far west! (although Vikings did).

    For starters, noone ever said to anyone ever that they’d fall off the end of the world. Because there’s no evidence at all – prior to a bit of historical fantasizing in the lat 19th century – that anyone believed the world was flat.

    Columbus was told, in fact, that he couldn’t possibly get to China in the time he stated – that he was a lot further away from it that he thought. Which was, in fact, totally true, as Columbus himself proved.

    It’s the same with climate change. No one who knows anything about it is denying the historical record. It isn’t being used as a convenient excuse. It is a scientific theory which has successfully explained what is happening to the climate and used that explanation to successfully predict what is happening and what is going to happen.

    To dismiss climate change on the basis of ‘it’s all happened before’ is as dangerous as ignoring the historical record when you chose to build your home on a floodplain just because it hasn’t flooded in sixty years.

    It has all happened before. With climate change, of course, it will not only happen again, but it will happen more frequently, be more intense when it does happen, and swing between one extreme and another far more quickly.

    You can’t cite experts in archaeology, climatology, geology, meteorology, and all the other -ologies on one hand and ignore what they’re saying on the other – that climate change is real, it’s happening right now, and it’s going to get worse (even if we act).

  14. Fin Review

    Businesses say the Gillard government’s carbon tax has driven up energy costs by 14.5 per cent in its first six months, reigniting debate about whether the impost is doing more damage to the economy than intended.

    SMH

    ABOUT half of Australian companies have either seen little impact from the introduction of the carbon tax on their energy costs or are yet to calculate the effects, according to surveys by the Australian Industry Group.

    http://www.smh.com.au/business/carbon-economy/business-counting-carbon-tax-20130128-2dgw6.html#ixzz2JJIDOQ6G

  15. Meguire Bob – I think that’s what Denis thinks.

    William – on the JWS poll, I can’t see any reference in the AFR to explain when it was taken. This month, last month? Am I missing something?

  16. dovif

    In fact that poll shows Qld to be much better for the ALP then most people through (Swan’s seat likely to be lost)

    Why? If there’s a swing to Labor in Queensland then Swan is safe.

  17. Leroy
    Posted Tuesday, January 29, 2013 at 9:03 am | Permalink

    Meguire Bob – I think that’s what Denis thinks.

    ——————————————

    Leroy if that is the case

    then a bigger lol ,

  18. Does JWS Research have any connection to Sportsbet? Note the identical number of “Labor losses” predicted by both.

    AN opinion poll of marginal seats across Australia suggests federal Labor could lose 18 seats.
    The result would cut Labor’s numbers from 54 in the lower house, handing power to the coalition with 91 seats, The Australian Financial Review reports.
    The poll of 54 marginal seats conducted by JWS Research found the best-case scenario for Labor would be a loss of seven seats in four of the biggest states, but it would still lose government.

    Read more: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/national/federal-labor-could-lose-18-seats-poll/story-e6frfku9-1226563905400#ixzz2JJITi4if

    Forget the opinion polls, it is often said that if you want to assess the true political situation ahead of an election, ask a bookmaker.

    And the odds put out by Sportsbet on the 150 seats in the house of representatives would lead to 91 seats to Tony Abbott’s Coalition and 54 to Labor – down from its current 72 – with three electorates “too close to call”.

    http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/the-smart-money-on-abbott-to-win-lodge/story-e6freuy9-1226563760009

  20. Well, I for one don’t mind if the Libs get a bit overconfident. Their true natures and future plans are more likely to shine through.

    Abbott is already finding it hard to avoid “when we’re in government”.

    OTOH Labor will have to keep smiling/confident or they’re beaten before they begin.

  21. Agree totally OZ POl Tragic 1802
    When will Governments and Planning authorities start using commonsense and modern technology more effectively.
    Why are people allowed to build on floodprone areas based upon so called 1 in 100 year flood zones. The same goes for bushfire prone property locations. We have always lived in a country of extremes and better town planning could alleviate many of the problems going forward.
    None of us know what will happen with the weather in the future except that Australia has very changeable and potentially extreme weather. In Sydney last Friday week we had a record 45.8 degree heat day just over a week later 100 mils of rain and localised flooding. Governments must plan for this and ensure that people build wisely.
    Fortunately the authorities in Queensland had much better warning and safety systems in place this time around.Unfortunately some people are still willful when it comes to personal safety.

  22. crikey whitey@1780


    William.

    The grounds for my perception were sound. I adjudged JW by his third post to be a troll. Proof is impossible, but judgement is not.

    I assume that your post William Bowe 755 previous thread, acknowledges that.

    To quote you ‘Okay, now you’re allowed to accuse John Wright of trolling’.

    You did allow JW his say. He, on the other hand, took advantage of your innate courtesy. All the while posting rubbish. Intended to mislead.

    That I could scroll past.

    However and finally, it was too much when Kevin Bonham was taking effort to respond, in good faith.

    And, you or anyone may take issue with this, Dorrie is of the same ilk.

    Oh, so you were referring to JW and Dorrie as trolls.

    I suppose they could be but there are people who have been posting for a much longer period of time that I was referring to and one does appear to be on gardening leave courtesy of William. Another was recently chastised and has behaved sensibly since.

    JW and Dorrie may be trolls, I really don’t know. But both are polite and don’t stir up trouble. And Dorrie is quite funny.

    Give me that type of troll any day!

  26. @paulwallbank: I’ll be talking #nbn on @702Sydney from 9.40 partly to address @TurnbullMalcolm comments last week. We’ll be taking calls.

  27. stanny

    part of the reason people have been allowed to build in these areas is simply that we didn’t have the knowledge about them we have now.

    So, for example, although the local farmers knew that our block had flooded twice in the last century (and were able to advise us where to place the house to minimise the risk) there were no official records of it ever flooding – to the extent that, when we were isolated by floods, we weren’t listed on the emergency contact lists (which also meant we didn’t get the warnings).

    Weather records weren’t too flash hot a century ago (and a lot more recently than that!) — I worked with a climate scientist and her team to try and map the climatic history of this area, and it was surprising how poor the records were.

    Some quite big events that we knew had happened were often only tangentally referred to (‘this flood is the biggest since the one in 1904’ tells you there was a big flood in 1904, but it doesn’t tell you where and how it impacted) – simply because people weren’t affected by them.

    That’s not necessarily a sign of careless building regulations in the meantime – simply that, when you have bigger populations, then it’s more likely that people will be living in areas which are impacted on.

  29. dovif

    Right. So we have two polls that say different things. You can’t cherry pick the way you are just to get the result you want.

    You can either believe the ReachTel poll and conclude that this one is wrong, or accept this poll and conclude ReachTel was wrong — or you can do what a reasonable human being does and decide that, although we can get glimmers about what is happening from the two of them, to make confident predictions on the basis of either is simply foolish.

    All we can conclude at present, with any safety, is that Queensland is improving for Labor and NSW isn’t.

  31. On a similar subject to flood records, we don’t keep records of fire prone areas.

    My family had burnt off bushland abutting a state forest annually for nearly 200 years. When the land was sold it was subdivided for bush blocks that now have very handsome houses nestled in the deep bushland.

    Every fire season I shudder and hope the inhabitants of those houses survive.

    From Christmas is been very obvious that it’s a bushfire year so I travelled around with a woollen blanket and 8 litres of water to douse the blanket

  32. @scootes81: @PnPBookseller @702sydney @LindaMottram Not just local libraries. State Library also has ebooks for loan to all NSW residents

  33. It is unfortunate ECG did not provide a gender split of voting intentions. They did for their “issues” table.

    On the issues, 3 had big differences between ALP and LNP voters:

    Most important issue influencing vote at the next Federal election:
    Healthcare: ALP 26% LNP 19%
    Leadership: ALP 8% LNP 13%
    Immigration and border security ALP 4% LNP 15%

    http://www.ecgadvisory.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/ECG-political-update-ECG-JWS-marginal-seats-poll.pdf

  36. Has Abbott been told he wont be the leading the liberals this election

    from google

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/libs-dont-fib-says-abbott/story-fn59niix-1226563807525

    TONY Abbott has promised “no surprises” if the Coalition wins the next election, saying governments that “fib” their way into office bring politics into disrepute.

    The Opposition Leader pledged to deliver a budget surplus if the Coalition takes office but said the pledge was “based on the published figures”.

    Mr Abbott’s comments came as Wayne Swan, after a briefing from emergency authorities in Brisbane, conceded the Queensland flood would have an impact on the federal budget.

    He said it was too early to discuss costs and the government was focusing on “the human impact” and assisting flood victims.

    Mr Abbott appeared in Brisbane, filling sand bags with emergency crews, as his mini-campaign was diverted by the flood crisis.

    ————————————————–

  38. psyclaw
    Posted Tuesday, January 29, 2013 at 8:56 am | PERMALINK

    Haydn @1808

    Thanks for pointing out Kevin B’s posts #1781 and #1783.

    It’s a pity some PBers didn’t take the time to peruse the prior pages they have not read before asking questions, the answer to which is a mere 15 to 20 comments back.

    It is helpful if PBers sometimes can both write and read.

    Reading previous posts would be made much easier if the ‘show all pages’ function was still available. This was removed when the big update happened. I found catching up quicker and easier before.

  39. Can I back MsAdventure’s request for “show all pages” to be reinstated.

    It’s a real labour of love to scan through 37 pages because you can only go back 2 pages at a time.

    This morning this page has clogged multiple times, is that due to too much traffic to site

  40. It’s pretty clear in my mind that Abbott and the Conservatives will successfully bullshit their way into office later this year thanks largely to a corrupted media gallery and assisted by a small group of ALP/Greens representatives who have no regard for the consequences of their actions/attacks.
    The NBN rollout will grind to a halt and likely be broken up and sold off – the MRRT/Super profits tax will be gone and with it funding for social programs – attacks on workers conditions will commence.

  41. Tim Mathieson has apologised for “it (joke) was in poor taste. But has Margie apologised for an even worst one that “Tony gets wimmin”

  44. spur

    Re the JWS Poll I suspect that the prediction on Banks where I live is correct and Kingsford Smith may sadly be a likely loss for the ALP as well.

    It is the seat which my grandfather held for twenty years and where I lived until I married so lots of emotional attachment to the seat. Mum still lives there.

    In the early years it was the area where people moved to from the inner city now the demographics have changed enormously and it is terribly expensive.

    One of Mum’s cousins sold her house there a couple of months back for $1.7 million.

    Hope I am wrong but we will see.

  45. Needless to say, when the council did have flood mapping done by a leading hydrologist and used it to try and restrict building activity, they got so many submissions from landowners saying ‘there’s no record of my place ever flooding’ that they’ve never been able to fully implement it…

  47. Tim Mathieson has apologised for “it (joke) was in poor taste. But has Margie apologised for an even worst one that “Tony gets wimmin”

    I hope our First Bloke added that his point was – ‘go and get checked’.

  49. Today’s Mumble:

    And now the Liberals are blundering around the area too.

    On the weekend Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey stood next to his leader and assured the natives that western Sydney is “the heartland of the modern Liberal Party.”

    “This is our bread and butter. We deliver for the people of western Sydney and what is good for western Sydney is good for NSW, is good for Australia.”

    Narrowcasting is difficult with television news cameras around. How does the rest of the country feel about that sentiment? And what do people who do live in that part of the world think about being endlessly lumped together, caricatured?

    http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/now_its_the_libs_turn/

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