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 comments on “Seat of the week: Bruce”

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  1. Just Me
    Posted Tuesday, January 29, 2013 at 11:49 am | Permalink

    Don’t know about Wyatt Roy, but the utterly beige Natasha Griggs winning pre-selection must surely be a good argument against such a process.

    ———————————-

    Just me

    I know this is not pre selection but

    Wyatt roy got elected on a lie , labor need to remind people of his electorate of this

    http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/federal-election/father-lied-over-disabled-son-and-helped-sink-labor-mp-20100903-14sic.html

    A Queensland father who sparked pre-election outrage when he questioned a Labor MP over the treatment of his disabled son has now admitted he lied.

    Labor’s Jon Sullivan lost the seat of Longman, north of Brisbane, to 20-year-old Wyatt Roy after holding it by a 1.9 per cent margin.

    Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/federal-election/father-lied-over-disabled-son-and-helped-sink-labor-mp-20100903-14sic.html#ixzz2JK25W2qO

  4. MB @ 1901

    The sad bit is that he and his son will not get any better a deal under the cons, probably a lot worse, in fact. (Which, I suspect, he now realises.)

    Hope he is paying attention this time around, especially to the NDIS.

  6. [confessions
    Posted Tuesday, January 29, 2013 at 11:09 am | PERMALINK
    mari:

    Did you get any damage at your place?]
    Fortunatal for me , the house is double brick place and for the second time only in 18 years it has been built a little bit of water came in and wet the carpet a bit. The other time was when a cyclone struck, has to be coming from the NE direction and very strong, to get in, but that was all. The weak sun is now shining on where the carpet is damp. The humidity is now going mad again, very strange around here even though sun is shining there is a funny mist around.
    Thank you for asking

  7. “@BushfireBill: Sad that Tim’s message would have been lost except for a pathetic MSM attempt 2 gotcha him. Good result though: lives WILL be saved. #auspol”

  8. Psychamuse ‏@psychamuse
    Adding my voodoo too. @nancycato1 @jot_au @randlight @giddeygirl pic.twitter.com/bY0RFWVC
    Hide photo Reply Retweet Favorite More

    Another voodoo they are running hot this morning

  9. [It’s all counterproductive in my view. My advice would be to get out there… speak loud and strong and to hell with the carping. ]

    Spot on, Gecko. Get out there loud and proud. So what if Tim make a funny which went flat. A few blokes might rethink their prostate today.

  11. [O’Sullivan’s problem wasn’t that the father spun the question but how O’Sullivan responded to it.
    ]

    Yeah we couldn’t expect lnp / liberal types not to lie, because if the lnp and conservatives and their followers had to tell the truth democracy in Australia would be stifled by their sudden silence. Oh wait that would be good for democracy

  12. Abbott’s new advisor is none other than Howard appointed ABC CEO for 5 years and prominent climate-change denier Maurice Newman (also responsible along with the board for the re-appointment of Mark Scott for a second 5-year term).
    This pretty much confirms most of what we’ve been saying about the ABC

    CLIMATE SPECTATOR: Abbott’s adviser doubts the winds of climate change

    [Maurice Newman has an impressive business pedigree. He was Chairman of the Australian Securities Exchange and also rose through the management of what is now Deutsche Bank’s Australian subsidiary (acquired by Deutsche Bank in the 1990s) before becoming its executive chairman. This comes on top of a range of other senior business and government positions including chair of the Australian Broadcasting Commission.]

  14. “@watermelon_man: Essentially we have News Ltd and ABC playing tag team to destroy the government, with contributions from Fairfax, commercial tv and radio.”

  16. Stephen Koukoulas ‏@TheKouk

    A very nice lift in business confidence & conditions in NAB survey…. RBA cutting cycle is over as per this article http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/RBA-Reserve-Bank-interest-rates-AUD-Australian-dol-pd20130122-46QQR?OpenDocument&emcontent_spectators …

    Stephen Koukoulas ‏@TheKouk

    After the good business confidence data, ASX now up 0.9%; bond yields ticking higher and AUD 1.0440.

    Stephen Koukoulas ‏@TheKouk

    Some scope to start thinking RBA rate hiking cycle will start before year end… The economy will be doing so well

  17. Stephen Koukoulas ‏@TheKouk

    $14 billion “wiped on” the value of Australian stocks so far today with the 1.0% rise… such good news.

  22. It is relevant in that I find it disgusting and abhorrent that when someone was confronted during a campaign with a lie that anyone with a shred of decency would ignore the lie and look at the response to the situation of political setup.

    I find it amazing and disappointing – disgusting.

  23. Essential unchanged: On primary votes, Labor lost a point (35%), the Greens gained a point (10%) and the Coalition was steady on 48%, leaving the two-party preferred vote at 54-46% in the Coalition’s favour.

  24. The more I look at that JWS the more I think it’s bulldust and should be disregarded. I’ll have something up on my site about it later. Of course if the government polls anything like the current polling trend (of c. 47.5) at the next election it will lose a fair to middling pile of seats and be defeated but we knew that already. As evidence that things are worse than that picture this poll is pretty useless.

  25. Goodness me this place gives me the giggles sometimes: some of you lot are so unremittingly biased!!

    Tim Mathieson’s comment was an embarassing gaffe which got the sort of media coverage that one would expect given that he is the PM’s partner. It isn’t an instance of the media conspiring against the Gillard Government by beating up a joke that fell flat.

    If Margie Abbott had made this comment we would by now have had 300 posts on here condemning it (or, more likely, crowing in celebration about the damage it would have done to the Liberal cause).

    I don’t want to see an Abbott government any more than the majority of other posters on here do, but when something negative happens to the Government we should call it for what it is. Mathieson’s “joke” was unbelievably crass and will certainly be played upon by the Ruddistas and others. If he stays quiet for a while, the issue will probably go away, but he better not repeat the mistake.

  28. Meher baba
    Posted Tuesday, January 29, 2013 at 12:59 pm | Permalink

    If Margie Abbott had made this comment we would by now have had 300 posts on here condemning it (or, more likely, crowing in celebration about the damage it would have done to the Liberal cause).

    —————————

    This comment is what is laughable

    News ltd has kept Abbotts , and lammings comment out of the public

  30. MB

    You are over-stating the case re Tim.

    A quick look a tame on-line poll has 30-odd percent noting the media inspired “naughty-naughty” is described as PC gone mad while another 30-odd percent think this will actually raise awareness. So, in this straw poll, just over 30% thought it was “tasteless”

    If anything, this whole issue underlines, if it needs any more underlining, the shallowness of the MSM.

    On breakfast radio this morning ABC Perth, the comment was mulled over, but importantly the two men speaking about it indicated they knew exactly where Matheson was coming from. Eon Cameron joked that the doctor who did it for him was an Asian male who has retired. He was speculating who might be next for him and he was getting nervous. The joke was that he did not want someone with fat fingers to be his next doctor.

    By the way, I think the PM will marry before the elections.

  31. Am at a loss to understand the rubbish being published regarding the comments of the first bloke, in respect of prostate examination.

    Are we just getting a trifle oversensitive about how we describe each other?

    I have been saying similar things for years about my dentist for similar reasons and I have no intentions of changing.

    I found going to a male dentist to be very uncomfortable and it was an effort to maintain a healthy dentil plan.

    Some years ago I tried a female dentist and because of her smaller hands found the experience much more acceptable. However, she developed other interests and hired a number of locums who were entirely small Asian ladies. To a woman I have found them to be amazing. They are well skilled and their small fingers are a real bonus. So now I tell anyone who will listen that if you are looking for a good dentist try a female Asian one and you will not be disappointed.

    Or maybe I am mistaken and what people are upset about is that they think talking about a Doctor doing a rectal examination of the prostate is not acceptable.

    I thought that the press was made up of adults but apparently I was mistaken

  36. The resources available to a child diagnosed with a disability which impacts on their education can be an attractive motive to go doctor shopping if a parent gets it in their head there is something wrong with their child, when the reality is that that child will always be limited to some extent by the his/her intelligence.

    Within their parameters, the child can be taken to the heights of their abilities or have their attributes damaged.

    At some stage scarce resources have to be prioritised, and I know for parents of children with a disability they are their child’s strongest advocate, as they should be.

    I am concerned when a child who may just be one of the average or a liitle below that, gets a self-picture of disabled because parents want to access the extra help that label brings.

    Of course if we stopped funding rich private schools, there would be enough resources for every child and a diagnosis would be primarily a planning tool, not a screening process.

  37. Funny tweet from the geek

    Surely the real news to come out from #prostategate is how Tory men and MSM men prefer doctors with large hands. #ROFL

  38. Trying to be fair, yes it was crass and Tim has apologised for it. It does not help Labor or the Prime Minister. He will no doubt learn from this.

    But a lot more guys might go out to find an Asian female doctor to have their first ever prosrate exam. So Tim might not be as stupid as everyone is saying.

  39. Crass, but funny though. Being a gentleman of a certain age, I know what he’s talking about. It’s one of those things – as in the doing, so in the talking: the less the better.

    Seriously, why do the spouses of politicians think they should take it on themselves to be Good? Surely this is the province of the Wise or at least the Qualified?

  40. Ratsars – that’s an interesting comment re the dentist but awfully realistic.

    You do realise that you have now made a racist, mysognist comment according to the Asian woman who wrote a piece for Crikey today.

    Be suitably chastised you norty fella.

    Hang on, you redeemed yourself. Yes you were mistaken about the press being adult, mature, wise, factual 🙂

  43. Another beauty from geek

    On behalf of poor petite-digited, Asian female doctors I take umbrage at suggestion only large handed doctors do prostate checks. #auspol

  44. meher baba@1925


    Goodness me this place gives me the giggles sometimes: some of you lot are so unremittingly biased!!

    It all hangs on one word, ‘Asian’, a needless reference to ethnicity. ‘Female’ was probably ill-advised too.

    When my female GP proposed giving me the dreaded test, she was very quick to assure me she had very slender fingers, so Tim was making a valid point.

    It was one of those comments people let slip out and then wish the floor would open and swallow them as they suddenly realise what they have said.

    I would condemn it but don’t want to cop the torrent of ‘Rudstoration’ rubbish that such a condemnation would provoke.

  45. Reading the link from the spectator- thank you for that! It’s clear that Abbott will be removing any regulation from business and that the country will become a mini USA- low wages, no protections, complete casualisation of the workforce…a nightmare for the ordinary person.

    I really hope the PM has a better PR team for this election, although the stuff today with Tim, indicates that it hasn’t improved.

    I haven’t seen anybody mention that people will be paying more tax if Abbott gets in..isn’t he going to abolish the recent increase to the tax free threshold?..To my mind this is the sort of thing that the ALP should be publicising..simple, hip pocket stuff..

  46. The direction of the nation is at stake and people are obsessing over a joke told at a function by the spouse of the PM.

    BTW, what was offensive about the joke? That it hurts to have a finger up your bum? That Asian female doctors may have smaller fingers than white anglo male doctors?

    Was anyone on this site offended? If so, I am genuinely interested to know why.

  47. I would condemn it but don’t want to cop the torrent of ‘Rudstoration’ rubbish that such a condemnation would provoke.

    Why? Does Kevin have smaller hands than Julia?

  48. Bushfire ‏@BushfireBill
    “When in Queensland…” Macho Man Tony proves he’s no misogynist. Takes the pineapple prostate test. #auspol #wheninqld

    pic.twitter.com/47slWUEg

  49. [Seriously, why do the spouses of politicians think they should take it on themselves to be Good? Surely this is the province of the Wise or at least the Qualified?]

    Do you remember the hoohaa over Susan Peacock and the ad for bed linen. I couldn’t see anything wrong with it but everyone was up in arms.

    I saw more wrong in what Hyacinth Howard used to do. Sit and monitor the media 24/7 and ring old John up to 10 times a day with info on what was being said everywhere. I call that a waste of taxpayer’s money for political campaigning.

    Sinodinos said, after he left Howard, that 2/3rds of Howard’s day was taken up in monitoring the media.

    Doesn’t that say a lot about the Howard years.

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