The electorate of Canberra covers the southern half of the national capital together with the bulk of the Australian Capital Territory’s thinly populated remainder, with northern Canberra accommodated by the seat of Fraser. Both seats were created when the territory was first divided into two electorates in 1974. The Australian Capital Territory had been a single electorate since the expansion of parliament in 1949, but its member only obtained full voting rights in 1968. A third electorate of Namadgi was created for the 1996 election, accommodating Tuggeranong and its surrounds in Canberra’s far south and pushing the Canberra electorate north of the lake to include the city’s centre and inner north. However, the previous order was reinstated when the seat entitlement to slipped back to two at the 1998 election, in large part due to Howard government cutbacks to the federal public service. The two ACT electorates presently have enrolment of around 130,000 voters each, compared with a national average of around 96,000.
The Australian Capital Territory electorate was won by an independent at its first election in 1949, but was held by Labor after 1951. Kep Enderby came to the seat at a 1970 by-election and carried over to Canberra in 1974, serving as Lionel Murphy’s successor as Attorney-General in 1975. He was then dumped by a 10.4% swing to the Liberals at the December 1975 election, and for the next two terms the seat was held for the Liberals by John Haslem. The seat’s natural Labor inclination finally reasserted itself in 1980 with the election of Ros Kelly, who served in the Hawke-Keating ministries from 1987 until she fell victim to the still notorious “sports rorts” affair in 1994. Kelly’s indulgent departure from parliament a year later was followed by a disastrous by-election result for Labor, with Liberal candidate Brendan Smyth gaining the seat off a 16.2% swing.
Smyth unsuccessfully contested the new seat of Namadgi at the 1996 election, and Canberra was won easily for Labor by Bob McMullan, who had served the ACT as a Senator since 1988. The reassertion of the old boundaries in 1998 caused McMullan to move to Fraser, the Labor margin in the redrawn Canberra being 5.1% lower than the one he secured in 1996. Canberra went to Annette Ellis, who had entered parliament as the member for Namadgi in 1996, while Fraser MP Steve Darvagel agreed to go quietly after a brief parliamentary career which began when he succeeded John Langmore at a by-election in February 1997. Ellis added 7.2% to an existing 2.3% margin at the 1998 election, and held the seat safely thereafter.
In February 2010, both Ellis and McMullan announced they would not contest the election due later that year. Large fields of preselection contestants emerged for both seats, with the front-runner in Canberra initially thought to be Michael Cooney, chief-of-staff to ACT Education Minister Andrew Barr and a former adviser to opposition leaders Mark Latham and Kim Beazley. However, Cooney shortly withdrew amid suggestions Kevin Rudd was ready to use national executive intervention to block him. The eventual winner was Gai Brodtmann, a former DFAT public servant who had established a local communications consultancy with her husband, senior ABC reporter Chris Uhlmann. Together with Andrew Leigh’s win in Fraser, Brodtmann’s win was seen as a rebuff to local factional powerbrokers who had pursued a deal in which the Left would support Mary Wood, adviser to Housing Minister Tanya Plibersek and member of the Centre Coalition (Right), and the Right would back the Nick Martin, the party’s assistant national secretary and a member of the Left, in Fraser. However, Brodtmann was able to build a cross-factional support base of sufficient breadth to prevail over Wood by 123 votes to 109.
The Liberal candidate for the coming election is Tom Sefton, a Commonwealth public servant who has served in Afghanistan as a commando officer. Sefton polled a respectable 4.2% as a candidate for Molonglo at the October 2012 Australian Capital Territory election.
Jackol @ 1414
Agree. As few assumptions as possible and just work with the content of a person’s comments.
Come to think of it, that’s my strategy for handling trolls. Not that I mean to imply that I start with the assumption that I’m talking to trolls ;).
Confessions..
I am rather technologically challenged. If I take a pic on digital camera and save it to a file on my laptop, how do I make it appear on Poll Bludger. Not sure I’ve ever seen pix on here.
I’m not a participant in anything like Instagram or similar (I only know the name because my kids trot it out).
confessions
Posted Sunday, June 23, 2013 at 5:31 pm | Permalink
Actually the blue tie comment was a joke.
It was more an ironic observation.
————————————————–
The irony was well missed by the children in the Liberal Part.
The only “iron” they know is the one women should be using to keep their blue ties looking smart
Supermoon here obscured by superrain
alias:
Upload them to here:
http://imageshack.us/
Then post the link in the comments box at PB!
confessions
Posted Sunday, June 23, 2013 at 6:07 pm | Permalink
I thought Sandfire was blown down in a cyclone recently?
Must be thinking of some other roadhouse.
—————————————————
Last two cyclone seasons has seen both Pardoo and Sanfire cop a flogging. Pardoo was worst his 2012 season very lucky no one was killed..
alias
[It’s an old cliche but spending some time gazing at the heavens does rather offer some perspective on more temporal matters]
It does indeed. When I was 10 and rooly into astronomy there was a big to do about a comet and despite plans I fell asleep but woke up at about 4:00 a.m. . Going outside the clouds briefly parted to reveal a magnificent comma. The comet was not due back for 3 million years. My mind was truly boggled at the time span and that I had woken up in time to get a couple of minutes view of the spectacle before the weather closed in again for several days.
Oh, hello!…Bluepill’s just come on shift..makes a botch of his first post…quality control will be working overtime tonight!
confessions
[
I thought Sandfire was blown down in a cyclone recently?
Must be thinking of some other roadhouse
]
Not Pardoo. That was Poroti built 😆
Evening All
Super moon is very impressive, shame I don’t have a decent camera to get a picture 🙁
My guess is Newspoll will be tonight – might as well give us a whole week of enjoyment
Saw this pic on Insiders this morning and thought to myself imagine if the Liberal party were made up of more like these 3 – such a shame it isn’t
Great photo imo
Smith is the only viable third candidate, if there is one, both Shorten and Combet are too heavily linked to the unions to be successful in the present climate imo
poroti
Posted Sunday, June 23, 2013 at 6:03 pm | Permalink
AussieAchmed
Sandfire not the same since it burnt down
Crikey ! I missed that news. How did that happen ?
——————————————————–
that was about 5 years ago. It took several years to put the demountable in place. For ages they operated out of a seatainer. The Ambo guy is no longer there so there is nothing/no medical/no ambulance for the 600+ kms between Hedland and Broome. I do the trip a lot and I’m hoping they fix up the road in several places so the Flying Doctor can land
my say@1204
You dope!
I use the ‘quick quote’ function of cccp so that people will not have to scroll back to see what I am referring to.
It is very handy, particularly when commenting on something from pages back. If the moderator wants to prohibit it I will stop using it.
Bluepill/ ick
back from the sin bin
“@MichaelByrnes: There are reports Edward Snowden is flying to Moscow on Aeroflot. In the 1980s flying on Aeroflot would have been riskier than extradition.”
Welcome to armageddon ALP types..
You deserve opposition.
Enjoy it for a considerable season.
Tony Abbott on making himself open and accountable – something that more politicians should do…just not like this!!!!
I’d put money on more of the same crap! http://fb.me/2uzHIhjZL
KinyJo..
er, no.
BZZT.
try again.
poroti:
I didn’t know you were a builder. I always assumed you were an electrician. 🙂
Greens heading for a flogging too. The Bludger track shows about the most linear regression I have seen in polling..
May hit 6-7% by September 14 at this rate..
Not good news for Greens nor the ALP.. TPP perhaps 43% to 57% on ED??
Still 2-3 dozen seats gonski (adjective not noun) for the ALP.
bluepill
You been sucked in by leadership. You think that is going to win the LNP the election
Think again the MSM will run out of crap to make up.
Already blowback costing Cassidy and the Age
Bar Bar@1407 and several others who seem to be inordinately interested in my identity and views (although I must confess that it is nice to get all this attention).
Sorry I have disappointed you. I don’t think I have ever claimed to be anything that I wasn’t. For reasons of my own (which I consider to be valid), I like to be a bit vague about who I am, what I do, and where I live (but, my say, I have genuinely lived in different parts of Tasmania on and off for significant periods of time). I appreciate that there is a growing view that bloggers and people on forums shouldn’t be allowed to hide behind a veil of anonymity. When that view becomes a prevailing one, I am likely to disappear from the online universe. Not because I have any dim dark secrets, but because I actually enjoy the concept of online anonymity: with the possible exception of the esteemed Psephos, I doubt that anyone of any great significance posts on PB. It would be most disillusioning for me to discover that my fellow posters have prosaic names like Cheryl Bumstead and Tyson McGillicuddy. Not that I don’t suspect that they have names like this (my real name is, of course, even more exotic and interesting than Meher Baba, but then I’m lucky :)) but I like the pseudonymous world of online discourse.
I have been posting on PB in intermittent bursts for over six years as Meher Baba (and before that very occasionally under another name as I struggled to get my identity which I use on a range of other blogs recognised on here).
Over that period, I have not infrequently described myself as being “right of centre”. In some ways, it is a dubious claim: I haven’t voted Liberal at Federal or State level since the early 2000s. I hate everything that has happened to the Liberal Party since John Howard – who between 1996 and 2001 was a reformer like Hawke and Keating – took advantage of the Tampa incident to push them in the direction of maximising the spin on any issue to try to attract the stupid, Tea Party-type vote. And now we have Abbott chasing after the people who would rather believe Andrew Bolt about climate change than the world’s most eminent scientists.
Anyway, I want to make it clear that I have never claimed to be anything to do with the Labor Party. Of course I have strong views about what the Labor Party is doing and might be doing: the Labor Party is in power in both the Federal Parliament and the State where I have mostly lived in recent years (Tasmania). So what they do matters a lot to me and I think I am therefore allowed to comment about it on an online forum.
Perhaps people think I might be a right-wing Labor apparatchik because Psephos (who is a genuine right-wing Labor apparatchik) have broadly similar views on a wide range of issues. I must say that I admire Psephos’s views greatly, but I was somewhat relieved to find today that he and I differ on at least one issue: public education. Because I don’t think I’d really like to become a right-wing Labor apparatchick: certainly not in Tasmania, where I’d have to start thinking that the forestry industry was absolutely marvellous. (I’m not a lumberjack and I’m ok.)
aa
[there so there is nothing/no medical/no ambulance for the 600+ kms between Hedland and Broome]
That was the logic the guy who built Pardoo used . Feck all between Hedland and Sandfire.
[bluepill
You been sucked in by leadership. You think that is going to win the LNP the election
Think again the MSM will run out of crap to make up.
Already blowback costing Cassidy and the Age]
Yeah right mate. The last 2.5 years of federal opinion polls are ALL wrong!
Clearly you need to go outside and actually talk to some people.
Not hugely confident about this, and it’s a cheapie camera but here goes:
Shows
Nice line in projection there.
[Sky News Australia @SkyNewsAust 3m
via @chriskkenny: On #Viewpoint tonight I will also include an exclusive sneak preview of the crucial #Newspoll in tomorrow’s @australian]
someone like to do the honours and report?
Thanks for the assistance Confessions
http://andrewelder.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/civility-and-its-absence.html
Journos should read this and feel ve-e-ery guilty at what they’ve done to the discourse.
jaundiced view’s 1278 post is indeed amazing. In case you missed it, it’s:
[Amazing this – absolute must read by recent Lib candidate for pre-selection and priest (now former) Father Kevin Lee in McMahon . It has everything, Abbott, Heffernan, Marise Payne, Ray King (lib candidate), Opus Dei, paedophilia, betrayal, you name it. Talk about laying it all out there. Link re-tweeted by Peter Fox:
http://francesjones.wordpress.com/2013/06/22/the-faceless-men-of-the-liberal-party/?blogsub=confirming#blog_subscription-3%5D
Almost as amazing is the grip that the Catholic Church has on both major parties. Among the Lib leadership are Abbott, Hockey, Turnbull, Robb, Pyne, Andrews et al. Labor has puppets such as Gillard and Swan at the helm but the strings are pulled by Shorten, Conroy, Feeney, De Bruyn, Farrell and so on.
ShowsOn
I never thought I’d say this but I mean it: Thanks.
.. BTW I agree with you (possibly also a first:))
“@LeslieHammondQC: So Fairfax has been hammering “Get Gillard” all week to help Newspoll so last week’s Nielson can look credible.”
confessions
Electrician ? Hell no. I am a chemist by trade but spent time building and demolishing. The pay was much better 🙂 Electricity type stuff scares me , you can nae see it and it can kill you before you know it. Explosives on the other hand 😆
8pm for the rorted MurdochPoll
PvO has also been tweeting it up big, which is what you get for a Murdoch owned poll, only polling old white men with landlines, after orchestrating a week of #leadershit.
poroti
Posted Sunday, June 23, 2013 at 6:31 pm | Permalink
aa
there so there is nothing/no medical/no ambulance for the 600+ kms between Hedland and Broome
That was the logic the guy who built Pardoo used . Feck all between Hedland and Sandfire
——————————————————-
Pardoo still has the caravan park, restaurant, bar and the Cape is a good day out.
Sandfire has lost its appeal no the Tavern is gone.
Still got 80 mile Beach….that got smashed by a cyclone a couple years ago…the trees are slowly recovering and there now more cabins. Cyclone changed the beach and the fishing has changed with the trench just off the beach gone. Last time I was there they had stopped making the fresh bread
alias:
It worked! Is that the photo you took?
[“@LeslieHammondQC: So Fairfax has been hammering “Get Gillard” all week to help Newspoll so last week’s Nielson can look credible.”]
THE POLLS ARE THE MEDIA’S FAULT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just keep repeating it to yourself!
and that is what made the whole carlton article such a wonderful read jv.
alias@1474
Actually, that looks pretty good!
There hasn’t been a single cloud in the sky over Melbourne for 5 or 6 days, but the nights have been around zero where I am. If the moon is there I’ll probably be able to see it.
Guyturd
What are smokin’ man.
Greens are cooked.
ALP is flambeed.
Coalition is lukewarm but that’s all they need in this Lame-O political scene.
There is even an outside chance of a Coalition Senate if the Greens weaken further than 6% on the Senate ticket.
KAP/PUP will disrupt in Qld but could take a fourth at ALP expense. Tasmania could also swing enough to cough up another Blue. The ALP is getting pistol-whipped there.
Psephos
I thought you’d say that. But everything about your view is consistent with the pragmatic all-spin approach of the ruling oligarchy around you. They don’t have personal opinions for all intents and purposes – just the Lindsay test. Their ‘opinion’ is the agglomeration of the opinions of various demographic opinions they think will get them elected. What a coincidence your personal opinion fits with the racist demographic they are after with the refugee policy.
poroti:
😆
I don’t like electricity much either.
Yes Confessions..
That’s the outlook from outer Melbourne looking across to the Yarra Valley.
Thanks again for the help.
Raining in Jersey again, just finished breakfast and hope to go to the Zoo today as the rain was too heavy yesterday. We thought about going out to Elizabeth Castle yesterday afternoon when it fined up, but the wind was so strong that the causeway was closed, you can only walk out at low tide. Not optimistic about seeing the super moon over here tonight either,
[an exclusive sneak preview of the crucial #Newspoll in tomorrow’s @australian]
When someone calls a poll “crucial” you have to wonder about his faculties. the agenda is no mystery.
Thanks Player One.
I wish I had better photographic gear to do it
justice, but that gives a flavour.
meher
I don’t think anyone on here would be interested in your political allegiances if you had stated them.
For mine this site should be able to debate all sorts of things and amiably agree to disagree.
My concern was that you portrayed yourself as an insider within the ALP. That may be an incorrect assumption on my part though others drew the same conclusion.
Now that we know what you stand for keep posting as you are entitled to but we all now know what your perspective is and will be able to engage with you.
Edward Snowden now on his way to Russia.
I’m not surprised.
JV
that tale of Western Sydney, Catholics and the Liberal Party bastardy is a real openener. Recommend everyone reads this with an open mind
http://francesjones.wordpress.com/2013/06/22/the-faceless-men-of-the-liberal-party/
and for more insight into George Pell’s involvement
http://francesjones.wordpress.com/2013/06/13/father-kevin-lees-meetings-with-cardinal-george-pell/
bluepill
I am not “on” anything. I just refuse to believe these polls can be truly accurate given the reality of the way things are
The only negative that can be used against the ALP is the leadershit means chaos and disunity. We know MSM has made this last leadership round stuff up. Number the same or stronger to PMJG not the reverse.
As soon as the MSM runs out of things to make up on leadershit things like the state of copper wire and how the NBN is superior really will sink in. That is just one policy area.
Polls are not oracles just blurry snapshots of the past.