Another double header in our ongoing scramble to cover potential Coalition-held seats of interest.
Dunkley (Liberal 1.1%)
Dunkley covers an area of bayside Melbourne about 40 kilometres from the city centre which has been effectively unchanged by the redistribution. It consists of two distinct electoral parts, with Labor-leaning Frankston and its northern coastal neighbour Seaford slightly outweighed by blue-ribbon Mount Eliza immediately to the south. The electorate further extends south to Liberal-leaning Mornington along the coast, and inland to marginal Langwarrin. The north-south electoral cleavage reflects a straightforward divide in incomes, the area being notably Anglo at both ends.
Dunkley was created with the enlargement of parliament in 1984 and won for Labor on its inauguration by Robert Chynoweth, who had cut short Peter Reith’s brief first stint in parliament by winning Flinders for Labor at the 1983 election. Chynoweth was re-elected with a small swing in 1987 and then gained a 3.9% boost with a redistribution that shifted the electorate further north, exchanging Mornington for Chelsea. However, even this was not sufficient to hold back a tide that costs Labor nine Victorian seats at the 1990 election, with Liberal candidate Frank Ford gaining the seat off a 6.8% swing. Chynoweth ran again in 1993 and emerged a surprise winner, securing a slender 0.6% margin after a 1.9% swing. Hope for another term was effectively dashed when a new redistribution effectively undid the last, leaving Chynoweth defending a negative margin at a losing election.
The seat has since been held for the Liberals by Bruce Billson, who by the 2004 election had built enough of a buffer to survive the reverse that has played out with 5.3% and 3.0% swings over successive elections. Billson rose to the outer ministry portfolio of veterans affairs in the last two years of the Howard government and then to the front bench in opposition, but he was demoted to the outer ministry by Malcolm Turnbull after backing other horses in leadership ballots. He would return in the small business portfolio when Tony Abbott became leader in December 2009, holding it and related portfolios ever since. His Labor opponent is Sonya Kilkenny, a commercial lawyer from Seaford.
Macquarie (Liberal 1.3%)
Located on the western fringes of Sydney, Macquarie combines the solidly Liberal-voting Hawkesbury River area around Richmond and Windsor and Labor-voting communities on the Great Western Highway through the Blue Mountains. The seat has existed in name since federation but has changed substantially voer its history, having originally been concentrated on Bathurst and Lithgow. Those areas came to be accommodated by Calare after the 1977 and 1984 redistributions, the latter effecting further change by transferring Penrith and St Marys to the new seat of Lindsay. Macquarie briefly resumed its former dimensions between 2007 and 2010, when Calare moved deep into the state’s interior to cover the abolition of Gwydir and Macquarie lost the Hawkesbury area to Greenway. This resulted in a brief interruption to a Liberal hold on the seat going back to 1996, which was resumed in 2010 when Louise Markus succeeding in transferring to the seat from unfavourably redistributed Greenway.
Macquarie’s most famous former member is Ben Chifley, who was born and raised in Bathurst and first elected to the seat in 1928. Chifley was voted out in the 1931 landslide, twice failing to recover the seat before finally breaking through in 1940. Labor thereafter held the seat without interruption until the dark days of 1975 and 1977, with Ross Free recovering the seat with Labor’s improved performance in 1980. Free jumped to the new seat of Lindsay when parliament was enlarged in 1984, which took in the strong Labor areas of Penrith and St Marys. The slender margin left to Labor in Macquarie was erased by a slight swing at the 1984 election, and the seat held for the Liberals for the next three terms by Alasdair Webster. Maggie Deahm won the seat for Labor in 1993 by 164 votes, a margin that was easily accounted for by a 6.5% swing to Liberal candidate Kerry Bartlett when the Keating government was dumped in 1996. Bartlett’s margin progressed from 4.1% at the 1998 election to 8.9% at the 2004 election, at which point the aforementioned redistribution pulled the rug from under his feet.
Macquarie now had a notional Labor margin of 0.5%, to which the locally familiar Bob Debus added another 6.6% as Kevin Rudd led Labor to office. The Hawkesbury area meanwhile came to be represented Louise Markus, a former Hillsong Church community worker who in 2004 won the seat of Greenway for the Liberals for the first time since it was created in 1984. The redistribution then inflated her margin in Greenway from 0.6% to 11.0%, of which 4.5% remained after the 2007 election. The effect of the 2010 redistribution was even more pronounced, producing a 10.2% shift to Labor in Greenway while all but eliminating Labor’s margin in Macquarie. Upon jumping ship for Macquarie, where her task was aided by Debus’s retirement, Markus picked up a relatively mild swing of 1.5% that was nonetheless sufficient to secure her a margin of 1.2%. Markus meanwhile was promoted to the outer shadow ministry portfolio of veterans affairs in September 2008, but dropped after the 2010 election.
Labor’s election for the second successive elections is Susan Templeman, principal of Templeman Consulting, who promotes herself as “one of the country’s leading media trainers and coaches”.
[Sean Tisme
Posted Saturday, July 27, 2013 at 1:36 pm | Permalink
…
Because it was deemed illegal by the High Court because the government was going to send boatpeople off to be caned in Malaysia.]
New slogans for the Liberals
Smoke more dope.
Eat the mushrooms.
They make no sense now, they must be as high as a kite.
frednk,
asylum seekers are caned in Malaysia. Don’t deny reality now, I know it makes it hard to sleep at night knowing this is what Labor supported.
Sir David Attenborough getting really excited about several large rock slabs (of fossilised Devonian fish)on display at Canowindra’s Age of Fishes Museum. Sir David on mission to breathe life into neglected fish fossils
Fossils, inc Australia’s spectacular fossil beds, are a Very Big Deal. HUGELY popular & very BIG with international as well as with national tourists, they draw hordes of palaentological, scientific, archaeological, fossil phreaks & tragics, schoolkids & the just plain curious.
Canowindra’s museum sounds like a damned good reason for Federal, NSW & local governments to get together, con Newman into adding the town to the Australian Dinosaur Trail (which, as you can see from the map is entirely in QLD – and in Bob Katter’s well-funded electorate) & build a museum like Winton’s (Qld) booming AUSTRALIAN AGE OF DINOSAURS
MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY; Hughenden’s fascinating Muttaburrasaurus lives in Hughenden Qld Richmond’s Kronosaurus Korner fossil collection and Australian Fossil Mammal Sites World Heritage Area: Riversleigh/ Lorne Hill’s “natural museum”
One of western NSW’s biggest problems is that both major parties are very urban-minded/ urban-centric, lacking the heavy pressure Qld’s (for instance) Nationals (inLNP) & Bob Katter are able to exert on Federal & State governments. Yet the likelihood of western NSW, in paleo-geological areas (ie, GAB Country) similar to western Qld’s, having equally spectacular fossil beds – exerting the same tourism pull if museums & other facilities are improved & added to the Australian Dinosaur Trail – is very high indeed.
frednk
Splendour in the Grass is on. Maybe Sean is posting from laptop while there.
@greencate: Hello #splendour. We’ve arrived. #sitg http://t.co/O4NsriAtjP
[the spectator
Posted Saturday, July 27, 2013 at 1:40 pm | Permalink
fact aust does not have enough debt and needs more. much more.]
If we start to suffer deflation yes, the only restriction is it must be written in AUS dollars, It is debt written in other currencies that get’s you into trouble.
The Liberals are so high they haven’t worked out a government must balance an economy not a budget.
Liberals new slogans:
Smoke that dope
Eat those mushrooms.
Fran
About this time last week, I posted some ideas about how Australia could play a part in dealing with the global challenge of resettling those 15 million or so regarded by the UNHCR as refugees, while making a start on some of the broader work on realising the Millennium Development Goals. It was intended seriously, but of course, in this country, the only thing that is serious about refugee policy at official level is a serious wish that those who can get to Australia and claim refugee status should FOAD. Talking with a normally slightly left-of-centre colleague recently, I was reminded how intellectually deforming tribalism can be as he conceded that everything I said on dealing with refugees was true and then went on to nevertheless defend FOAD policy.’
There are 43,000,000 displaced so I imagine that the difference between 43,000,000 and 15,000,000 are mostly those who have yet to be bureacratised by the UN.
‘So we’re a very long way from getting an equitable and sustainable policy for responding to the challenge of doing right by those whose options for avoiding persecution approach are modest.’
Indeed. If we add the population of the DRC to that list, as we reasonably could, considering that it has been the deadliest country in the world in which to live for the last fifty years, and considering that gender-based violence is more-or-less endemic, then the figure blows out by another 75,000,000. The DRC citizens are also, on average, at or near being the poorest in the world.
We should, of course, add the round 1,000,000,000 who go to bed hungry every night, say as a consequence of peak soil, peak fresh water, peak biodiversity/ecosystem services, peak forests and peak ocean fisheries and put them on the tally sheet under the Greens general heading of environmental refugees. This is a no brainer because the last thing that hungry populations do is trash their local environments. This is not blameworthy. If you are hungry you eat grass, for example. If you are hungry you are definitely not going to be worried about eating the last Dodo.
With this by way of background I would agree with your statement that we are a long way from developing appropriate policies for anything much, let alone for the 1,000,000+ identified above.
In fact, with that by way of background, I suggest that most of the ‘debate’, such as it is, is at a completely inappropriate scale, involves completely irrelevant time frames, is framed in more-or-less irrelevant ways and is not even remotely capable of solving anything much at all.
‘With that in mind, I thought I’d focus on what, in the more immediate sense, could be done to amereliorate the current ostensible policy concern — “stopping drownings” — that doesn’t entail direct or implicit coercion or forcible acceptance of misery or radically diminished life chances.
Firstly, and most obviously, one must look at that part of the causation over which Australian regimes can exercise some influence.’
Well, that would not be governance in the DRC or the various global and national systems that generate 1,000,000 environmental refugees.
‘IMO this is the ‘urgency’ question. Clearly, if people in camps in Indonesia or Malaysia feel as if their lives are not maintainable — they and their children have to live in squalor in a kind of interminable waiting room to begin the rest of their lives — then they are going to see a high risk-high return risk trade as more appealing. The low risk-low return gets them death in the end, and misery in the meantime. Going into debt to pay people for the right to ride on an unseaworthy vessel crewed by children so as to have a shot at a life with purpose and fulfilment seems rational. Almost anyone would do this.’
‘So the first thing we need to do is to create an actual queue. People should believe that if they present for protection in Indonesia or Malaysia or any other significant aggregation point then their applications will be considered in a timely way. Once determined to be a bona fide claimant, they will be settled within a reasonable time, if not in Australia, then, by negotiation, in a satisfactory place negotiated between them, Australia, the host country (if not Australia) and relevant NGOs.’
If you believe that (a) major political party in Australia is going to accept uncapped and open-ended arrangements and (b) that that is what you are proposing this policy prescription will not fly. It does not address the size of the potential pool. It does not address how you would persuade refugees in Malaysia and Indonesia that Australia’s view about ‘reasonable’ is acceptable to them.
‘In the interim, Australia ensures that their ‘waiting room’ is not a squalid camp but something that resembles a well established settlement, with robust housing, paved streets, addresses at which they can receive physical mail, water and sewerage, garbage collection, power, data, health, education for children, adolescents and adults, television and recreation facilities and so forth.’
Let’s say that there are 200,000 people in or near Malaysia and Indonesia who would like to put their hands up for refugees settlement. Full provision of an Australian average standard of all social services and civic services would be in the region of what it costs to keep someone in jail: $40,000 per annum. The cost of what you are proposing would, therefore, be in the order of $8 billion per annum, uncapped. In an uncapped situation the number of 200,000 out of 1,000,000+ is conservative, once the latter realize that they are going to get free western levels of everything for as long as they wait.
‘The government thus ensures that irrespective of the determination of their applications, that if they stay put, they can get the education and health and the dignity that their own states denied them, and help them qualify over time as skilled or business migrants in other countries if not Australia.’
There are some unfounded assumptions here about willingness and capacity to absorb more refugees than are currently being accepted. What numbers were you thinking of? What countries?
‘Australia becomes their agent, assisting them to move on with their lives. An office is set up in the camp staffed during business hours. Indonesians and Malaysians get access to the health and education facilities. We pay for this under aid budgets.’
This is actually a variation of a suggestion that someone made the other day: the Greens should buy ships and carry refugees direct to Australia.
‘Now in the long run, people who have decided that there is nothing for them in their home country are not going to be deterred indefinitely, but in this approach, in the short to medium term, the urgency diminishes, and as time passes, they have a growing sunk cost asset to protect (their place in the actual queue). They also have an interest in staying put, since their life chances are improving and they can believe that the day when they can start a new and better life is approaching. Australia can present itself as a place honouring its obligations under the convention and would probably spend less per protected person under this plan than it is now.’
Some numbers, please: of refugees, of times, of costs, of refugees intakes.
@RachelPupazzoni: We’re standing by on @abcnews24 to take you live to #Sydney for a media conference with @Tony_Burke #AusPol
So East Timor didn’t happen because they didn’t want it.
Instead of following the Abbott empire line of telling other nations what they should or shouldn’t do, Labor respected East Timors sovereign rights.
And Malaysia didn’t happen because of a High Court decision.
Labor adhered to the High Court decision, even though they believed it would work. Law abiding Labor.
In both Labor were willing to proceed and others determined they couldn’t.
OPT
I have visited the Canowindra museum and recommend it to travellers in the area. It is moder, the fossils are remarkable and the interpretation is excellent.
But, unlike the Queensland fossil beds, the Canowindra fossils were found in a single, bounded area, and there are few more, if any, to be found. There is still paleontological research to be done, but the resource is finite.
The other problem is, of course, that no one other than Canowindrans can pronounce ‘Canowindra’.
[So East Timor didn’t happen because they didn’t want it.]
Gillard is a moron.
She announced a East Timor processing centre before calling them to ask if they wanted it.
Truly one of the dumbest things done in Australian politics. I mean how f’ing stupid do you have to be to announce something based in another country before picking up the phone and seeing if they wanted?
Knuckle dragging.. DUMB!
Credlin and Abbott couldn’t get no higher but that’s what they were aimin’ at
Unlike Field Marshall Abbott who with Operation Use the Military to Kick the Sh*t Out of Unarmed Men Women and Children in Leaky Wooden Boats that are Barely Seaworthy.
And trash the separation of the Military and Government under the Constitution.
While managing to insult two leaders of foreign governments
ST
Your point about Malaysia maintaining corporate punishment somewhat similar to, but more benign than, that practised in the Royal Navy until the first third of the last century is an interesting one.
I do believe that one of the reasons the UNHCR was interested in supporting the Malaysian Solution was that it would, through reforms in Malaysia, lead to a net improvement of the situation of all refugees in Malaysia.
I don’t recall whether that meant having a de facto caning-free subset of people living in Malaysia.
Anyway, one of the benefits of the LOTO’s chronic and rather destructive opposition is that refugees in Malaysia are are badly off now as they were before the Malaysian Solution was being negotiated.
Trash the separation of the Military and Government under the Constitution.
Credlin and Abbott couldn’t get no higher but that’s what they were aimin’ at.
Sean
Making Abbott leader is amongst the dumbest things in politics. Not only did he lose the campaign he lost the negotiation
If that had been Turnbull or Hockey for example the decisions of Windsor, Oakshott and Wilkie would have been different
“@ABCNews24: Deputy PM @AlboMP talked #NBN a short while ago. We bring him to you now: http://t.co/TtTI3ZYXOH”
I would like Tanya Plibersek to start working on Dutton.
Thus far, he has been kept well hidden.
The exception being last night primarily to talk about ‘boats’ and ‘treasury’.
Health is a major portfolio and Dutton is weak on detail and a weak media performer.
Could there have been a miscalculation by the government of the level of reaction among young progressive voters to the “F*ck off, we’re full!” absolute exclusion policy? http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-24/holman-has-kevin-rudd-burned-young-voters/4840330
Dutton – Shadow Minster for health.
He accepted to increased salary as a Shadow Minister under false pretences.
He never asked a question about the Health portfolio for over 1,000 days.
Albo talking about date parliament is due to go back. Closest (tea leaf reading) I have seen for a later date for election
jaundiced view
Posted Saturday, July 27, 2013 at 2:06 pm | Permalink
Could there have been a miscalculation by the government of the level of reaction among young progressive voters to the “F*ck off, we’re full!” absolute exclusion policy? http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-24/holman-has-kevin-rudd-burned-young-voters/4840330
—————————————————-
F**K Off we’re full.
A misrepresentation of the PNG Plan. Australia will continue to accept refugees, 20,000 a year.
People need to start being honest in their representation of the PNG Plan. The Plan is an attempt to stop boats and the deaths by drowning that happen when people jump onto these almost seaworthy boats.
It is not about not taking refugees, its not about F**K Off we’re full.
Refugees will still be arriving, but instead of by leaky boats they will be from a UN camp.
There is also the possibility that the umber will be increased to 27,000
PYNE – Shadow Minster for Education.
He accepted to increased salary as a Shadow Minister under false pretences.
He asked only 3 questions about the Education portfolio in 3 years
Albo stirring the liberal leadership pot 🙂
@jv/218
Well – lol. Young public attacking Labor but not Coalition Policy?
WTF.
guytaur
Posted Saturday, July 27, 2013 at 2:13 pm | Permalink
Albo talking about date parliament is due to go back. Closest (tea leaf reading) I have seen for a later date for election
———————————————————
According to the Parliamentary calendar Parliament is due to sit again August 20
Exactly!
Rabbott is on his preferred battleground, ‘boats’.
Thus, the Coalition slide under the radar.
Labor are more than a one policy band.
I’d be sending all the ministers out, launching a full frontal attack on their counterparts and hit Rabbott where it hurts, right in the Coalition’s policy deficit. 😀
AA
Yes. The point is DPM Albanese was telling the media that. Not done that before as far as I am aware
“@InsidersABC: Join #insiders tomorrow for @ScottMorrisonMP and analysis of the week in #auspol with panel @farrm51 @dwabriz @PhillipCoorey”
@Dave and others
I’m not sure why you’d be wasting your time asking Sean about other issues. Apparently in Sean’s mind, there is only one issue facing this country at the moment, and that is the arrival of asylum seekers. Nothing else matters apparently! I guess it is a “national emergency” requiring military intervention after all. Pathetic!
But, of course, this issue can be resolved by pretending it’s 2001 again. Some questions the Liberals have failed to answer on their asylum seeker policy include:
1. What happens if the Indonesians refuse to allow the boats back in to their waters?
2. What happens if those on board a boat disable their boat so they are unable to be returned to Indonesia?
I suspect the answer to both 1 and 2 is that those on the boat will end up resettled in Australia, just as they were under Howard. Think people smugglers will fall for that again? Good luck with that.
Exactly!
Rabbott is on his preferred battleground, ‘boats’.
Thus, the Coalition slide under the radar.
I’d be sending all the ministers out, launching a full frontal attack on their counterparts and hit Rabbott where it hurts, right in the Coalition’s policy deficit. 😀
Dee
You mean like the DPM just did in Bennelong?
zoidlord
The point is that many progressives feel they have nowhere to go, with this ludicrous competition to impress racists now entering the Twilight Zone, and so enthusiastically engaged in by Labor.
Ignoring politics for a moment, the story of the PED and Essendon is getting serious.
[Police may be called in to investigate allegations that Essendon players were deceived into taking part in a secret drug trial.
Edited extracts from Metabolic Pharmaceuticals’ patent application, December 2012.
Fairfax Media can reveal the Melbourne company behind the drug AOD-9604 has used the test results of four ”professional footballers” in legal documents to justify claims that its product adds ”muscle mass”, aids recovery and increases ”exercise tolerance”.
Advertisement
The drug has not been approved for human use anywhere and, as such, is banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency.]
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/essendon-fears-drug-deceit-20130726-2qq3f.html#ixzz2aDQuqk2z
Surely the use of anyone, athlete or not, in a drug trial without their informed consent is against the criminal law, not just a few ASADA codes? It must breach the Federal Privacy Act for starters. I worry that the AFL is getting out of their depth here, and need to hand this over to real cops. If they imagine they can sweep it under the carpet, I’d say it is already far too late.
[matt31
Posted Saturday, July 27, 2013 at 2:20 pm | Permalink
..
1. What happens if the Indonesians refuse to allow the boats back in to their waters?
2. What happens if those on board a boat disable their boat so they are unable to be returned to Indonesia?
]
Your trying to be rational, big mistake, I tell you the Liberal party is as high as a kite, proof, they make no dam sense.
Liberal policy
Smoke more dope
Eat more mushrooms.
Socrates
Wasn’t Jason Care there at the presser because Federal Police are involved or did I get that wrong?
@jv/231
And the problem is the Labor will loose the election if they did not deal at least in the short term the issue of AS.
The reason why Coalition Party/Liberals can win on two issues.
* Waste/Debt.
* Asylum Seekers.
Dee,
Is that a full frontal assault with a 4 star general?
Sean Tisme
Posted Saturday, July 27, 2013 at 1:56 pm | Permalink
So East Timor didn’t happen because they didn’t want it.
Gillard is a moron.
She announced a East Timor processing centre before calling them to ask if they wanted it.
Truly one of the dumbest things done in Australian politics. I mean how f’ing stupid do you have to be to announce something based in another country before picking up the phone and seeing if they wanted?
Knuckle dragging.. DUMB!
———————————————————–
As dumb as making an announcement about deploying the military to fight leaky wooden boats without consulting with the military
BW
[ ‘Canowindra’.]
No problems here – it’s just like Weethalle.
[As dumb as making an announcement about deploying the military to fight leaky wooden boats without consulting with the military]
The military takes orders from the government, not the other way round.
Try to engage your brain occasionally.
Waste and Debt – pity MSM will continue to perpetuate the lies of Abbott
15 lies, brought to you by Tony Abbott http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/tony-abbotts-latest-15-lies/ …
Socrates
I can’t envisage either the coach or the chairperson surviving – based on the Switowski Report alone. The general rubric would be bringing the game into disrepute.
It is also hard for me to see that all of the players will remain unscathed because AWADA does not allow sportspersons to outsource accountability for what they ingest or inject.
Demetriou and the AFL will do what they need to do to protect the brand. They will do so ruthlessly because the brand is what makes the AFL a billion dollar business.
At this stage, the AFL would be completely within its rights to say that, if ASADA want to call the police in on the basis of information that ASADA, and not the AFL, have, they should do so.
Apparently both Hird and Evans were briefed by a biotech company in relation to a peptide with a view to gaining their investment support for the relevant company.
Neither did. But the issue here is, provided all the facts fit – and we don’t know what all the facts, or any of the facts, are, then it might be arguable that both Evans and Hird knew technical stuff about the relevant peptide and how that technical stuff might, or might not, have fit with AWADA rules.
“@ABCNews24: Now live: @TonyAbbottMHR speaks in Longreach, Qld. Interested in what he has to say? Watch http://t.co/TtTI3ZYXOH #auspol”
I bet the first question of Abbott’s Three Star Poobah is, ‘Did you polish all the handles carefully?’
Sean Tisme
Posted Saturday, July 27, 2013 at 1:48 pm | Permalink
frednk,
asylum seekers are caned in Malaysia. Don’t deny reality now, I know it makes it hard to sleep at night knowing this is what Labor supported.
———————————————————-
better the cane than the 11 who were executed when sent back to their country under the Howard Govt
Abbott desperate for election. Calling for one now.
[The military takes orders from the government, not the other way round.
Try to engage your brain occasionally.]
Well, if one were to exercise their brain (or whatever it is you have) you’d know that military decisions are made after consulting the military for feasibility.
Molan, incidentally, was the cluck who persuaded Abbott to go public with a call for our tanks to be sent to Afghanistan – something to do with winning the hearts and minds in the counter-insurgency.
Of course Abbott went for it until everyone from Houston down told Abbott not to be supid. So Abbott resiled from his tanks call.
Instead of learning the really important lesson here, which is that Molan is a dickhead, Abbott has doubled up: he has backed Molan’s advice on the Three Star Three Trick Pony Circus.
Spending Spree has replaced drunken sailors.
Now Abbott on about boats again
so the military boat thingo re abbott is that a policy.
so if so, will he be part of his election speech?
or was it just one of those things, that’s not there any more