Seat of the week: Indi

A review of the circumstances which caused Tony Abbott to enter the government formation process a female cabinet minister short.

Bordered to the north by the Murray River, the electorate of Indi covers an area of northern Victoria including Wangaratta, Benalla and the border town of Wodonga. It produced one of the biggest boilovers of the 2013 election with the defeat of cabinet minister-in-waiting Sophie Mirabella at the hands of conservative independent Cathy McGowan, whose win marked the first time since 1931 that the seat was not in the hands of one of the main coalition parties. Indi has existed without interruption since federation and only ever won by Labor in 1910, 1914, 1928 (when Labor’s Paul Jones was elected unopposed after Country Party incumbent Robert Cook forgot to nominate) and 1929, from which time it shifted decisively to the conservatives. It was thereafter fought over between the Country Party and the Liberal Party (together with its predecessor the United Australia Party), the member from 1937 to 1949 being Country Party titan John “Black Jack” McEwen, who moved to the new seat of Murray with the expansion of parliament in 1949. The Nationals last held the seat in 1977, when their incumbent Mac Holten was defeated by Liberal candidate Ewen Cameron on Labor preferences. The Nationals contested in 2001 when Cameron’s successor Lou Lieberman retired, but managed only 12.3%.

The new Liberal member in 2001 was Sophie Panopoulos, a barrister and Australians for Constititutional Monarchy activist. Panopoulos married in 2006 and assumed her husband’s surname of Mirabella. Mirabella became noted for her aggressive parliamentary style, and was promoted to shadow cabinet in the innovation, industry, science and research portfolio when Tony Abbott became leader in December 2009. McGowan’s challenge to Mirabella arose out of a local activist group called Voice for Indi, which initially declared itself set on “improving the political process in the electorate” rather than mounting an electoral challenge. The group says it resolved to field a candidate after Mirabella gave their concerns short shrift, informing them that the real concerns of her constituents aligned with her party leader’s oft-repeated soundbites.

The candidate nominated by Voice for Indi was Cathy McGowan, a rural affairs consultant and former regional councillor for the Victorian Farmers Federation who had once worked for Liberal member Ewen Cameron. With McGowan to rally behind, the organisation proved adept at fund-raising and use of social media, and it soon became apparent that it was succeeding in tapping into a perception that Mirabella was a Melburnian careerist with an insufficient connection to the local area. McGowan’s profile was further lifted when retiring New England independent Tony Windsor told the ABC’s Insiders program that the “nasty” Mirabella was the person he would least miss in politics, and that McGowan was an “excellent independent” whose campaign he might lend support.

Also lending McGowan support was Ken Jasper, who served Wangaratta and surrounding areas in state parliament for 34 years, retiring as member for Murray Valley at the 2010 election. McGowan appeared to benefit from friction between the coalition parties spilling over from the contest for Mallee, which the Liberals were seeking to win upon the retirement of Nationals member John Forrest. Reports indicated that local Nationals had been quietly told they would not face disciplinary action if they lent support to McGowan.

McGowan went on to prevail after polling 31.2% to Mirabella’s 44.7%, which was down from 51.8% in 2010. This left McGowan well clear of the Labor candidate on 11.6%, down from 28.2%, and she was narrowly able to close the primary vote gap after picking up 79% of Labor and minor party preferences.

NB: Hat tip to Ben Raue at The Tally Room, whose Google Earth maps I’m using for the electoral boundaries displayed in the map above. Raue does tremendous work on his blog and deserves donations. Note also that you can get a slightly bigger image of the above map by clicking on it.

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.

1,337 comments on “Seat of the week: Indi”

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  1. I must admit to schadenfreude about two things:

    (1) MSM journalists who are perplexed at have nothing to report because they have been given nothing to report by Abbott, and who don’t know how to do real journalism anymore.

    (2) Stockholders in the print bits of News Corp who have taken the mother of all baths with the latest ‘profit’ information.

  2. The Vandals did do bad things but then they settled down and… did some more bad things.

    Getting to the nub of it all, I could warm to: ‘Climate Criminals’.

  3. And if the goal is to raise money in an economically efficient way, the Henry review has plenty of suggestions for the states.

    Instead of crying poor over their inability or distaste for payroll tax and stamp duties and the like, put the burden on land taxes or usage based car levies.

    That these options are (currently) politically unpalatable doesn’t alter the fact that they are options available to the states, and they would solve state budget problems in an efficient way.

    Political cowards and whingers the lot of them.

    Or just shut up shop and let the Feds take over if you’re not prepared to do your job.

  4. v

    Burgess’ article misses two other issues, IMHO:

    (1) non rusted on voters are about to discover that messing with the heads of Indonesians does not pay

    (2) AGW will keep rolling along and sacking the Climate Commission will be seen as messing with that.

  5. [kevin macguire
    “A nation of sheep begets a government of Wolves ” Ed Murrow. Are we now experiencing the “Silence of the Lambs” under Abbott? #auspol]

  6. v
    He was found guilty of rough stuff. His carryover points expired a fortnight ago. The new points plus the carryover points would have knocked him out of the GF.

  7. What a state of affairs in the world when there is Kenyan Govt being more open and accountable over a terrorist attack than the Abbott CoF is about leaky wooden boats full of refugee men, women and children

  8. Boerwar

    Wasnt sure what you were referring to.

    Agreed.

    As i said yesterday, the commentariat are not at all concerned with the Indonesian issue. It does not even rate a mention anywhere at the moment. I find this very curious indeed.
    Remember when keating accused the Malaysian President of being recalcitrant. The uproar was relentless

  9. The blowback arising from Abbott’s, Morrison’s and Bishop’s schoolyard baiting of Indonesia has started.

    From ‘Don’t stop the boats, Jakarta told’ by Peter Alford in today’s ‘The Australian’.

    “An international law expert and sometime government policy adviser has called on Indonesia’s administration to stop co-operating in preventing boat-people leaving its territory for Australia.

    University of Indonesia’s professor of international law Iaw Hikmahanto Juwana said Indonesian authorities should not hold asylum-seekers in detention and, when found at sea, should assist them to get to Australia.

    ‘Let the Australian authorities solve it.’

  10. Boerwar

    As i said yesterday, the indonesians dont consider the asylum seeker issue their problem. After all, those seeking refuge do not want to stay in indonesia, but to their destination of Australia.
    Indonesia has a population of 245 million people, and countless millions living in abject poverty.
    I would give Australia the big two finger salute. Simple as that

  11. The Abbott government is giving a lesson to the Opposition in how to deal with the illegal boats and certainly a contrast to the amateurish management of Labor. The policies of the two parties are now fairly aligned but with “grown-ups” now in charge, the boats will stop (after Labor restarted them), partly because of actual measures and partly because of psychology since it’s clear that this government means business. What’s more I’m afraid, Labor rusted-ons, this narrative will still carry huge weight at the next Fed election mainly because it is/will be true: “if you want the boats to restart, put Labor back in government”

  12. TT

    ‘Boerwar, if the journos need to be fed information then the Labor Party should have plenty of out-of-work PR people to do it.’

    Having been infantilized by Abbott, his stunts, his three words slogans, and his strict avoidance of anything like real policy discussion, we need the MSM to grow up. Being fed like chocks by Labor PR hacks is merely more of the same.

    For the sake of our democracy, it is time for the MSM to do to Abbott in government what it completely failed to do to Abbott in opposition: hold him to account.

    You will have noticed that Abbott, having abused our democracy as LOTO shows every sign of abusing it more powerfully in government by avoiding at all costs transparency and accountability.

  13. [1125…Mick77]

    This theme of the LNP being the “grown-ups” is ridiculous. They might as well call themselves the antiques.

    They exhibit all the signs of arrested development. In particular, they have a child-like willingness to play make believe on the climate, the economy, defence, immigration, science & learning….among the many things. They are only grown up in their own imaginations.

  14. M77

    How would you know anything at all about how the Government is handling boats? It is doing everything it can to hide the truth. Here are some things you don’t know:

    (1) What the Indonesian Government has already told the Abbott government in private.

    (2) Whether or not those elements in Indonesia who want badly to stick it to the Abbott Government get their way, and what the bad consequences for Australia will be.

    (3) Whether the latest boat was ordered by an officer to turn back and REFUSED TO DO SO.

    (4) Whether any other boats were ordered to turn back and were SUNK as a consequence.

    (5) Whether any other boats were towed back.

    YOU ARE IGNORANT OF THE TRUTH and that is the way your Abbott Government likes it.

    BTW, are you surprised by how ignorant of the truth you have become?

    Are you already sick of making excuses for Abbott’s anti-democratic suppression of information?

  15. m

    ‘BW1128

    Good luck with that. What makes you think the MSM will change?’

    Well, I don’t have any great expectations.

    The Fairfax newspapers and The Australian will be gone within three years. I imagine that Media Watch will be gutted: it is the only arena which routinely skewers denialists on their routine lies.

    What I do expect is that the social media will become a tad more useful than it is already.

  16. Flannery – wRONg. The Monkey won the election, the Greens played politics and lost. Goodbye action on climate change.

    The Monkey is Murdoch’s PM. Go and watch a replay of the two part series Packer v Murdoch. The Monkey sets the rules and will not be held to account.

    Difference between Monkey and Labor on AS? Turn back the boats. Just one Monkey, just one!

  17. briefly @1131
    “grown up” in the eyes of the electorate means consistency and commitment to stated goals. Stopping the boats is one of those stated goals and in this context the Abbott govt is showing the required maturity. Labor didn’t/couldn’t.

  18. I hope labor takes note very strong support for climate science and the conclusions you have to draw from that.

    Just under half the population gets this and voted Green or Labor as a consequence.

    No cave in to Abbott denialism and claims of a mandate.

  19. the boats will stop (after Labor restarted them),
    =====================================================

    Ignoring the fact that there was bipartisan agreement with the Liberals to dismantle the Pacific Solution.

  20. “@climatecouncil: Twitter took us offline for a couple minutes because they were shocked by our rapid growth. But we’re back (again!).”

  21. M&&

    ‘Grown-up’ means being accountable and transparent.

    ‘Kiddy stuff’ is hiding what you are doing from the Australian electorate, annoying the neighbours with stupid behaviour and then lying about it.

    It is high time that Abbott, Morrison and Bishiop manned up.

  22. Centre

    Posted Tuesday, September 24, 2013 at 10:21 am | Permalink

    Flannery – wRONg. The Monkey won the election, the Greens played politics and lost. Goodbye action on climate change.
    ————————————————

    Put aside the climate change debate.

    Now explain how it is a good thing to pump billions of tonnes of pollutants into the atmosphere.

    Explain how it is a good thing to pump billions of tonnes of pollutants into the oceans.

  23. Mick77….it really remains to be seen if the juveniles can do any better than Labor did. There must be at some likelihood they will fail. Even Abbott has given himself 3 years to make something of a difference.

    What is occurring now is the juvenile delinquents now in office have made their own suppression of the facts at least as big a story as the boats themselves. They have already lost control of the issue. If Indonesia decide to rescind their past cooperation, there will soon be dozens of boats every week and we will know exactly which kiddies in the playpen to blame.

  24. The Ministry of Truth will tell you what to believe and the Ministry of Information will tell you all the news you need to know. The Ministry of Peace will require massive new funding.

  25. Centre

    You attack Flannery on this you are also attacking the guy on the Council who before he worked for the Commission was a VP in BP.

    Not exactly a Green perspective.

  26. When I checked out the Climate Council site, I got this message:

    ‘This Connection is Untrusted

    You have asked Firefox to connect
    securely to http://www.climatecouncil.org.au, but we can’t confirm that your connection is secure.
    Normally, when you try to connect securely,
    sites will present trusted identification to prove that you are
    going to the right place. However, this site’s identity can’t be verified.

    What Should I Do?

    If you usually connect to
    this site without problems, this error could mean that someone is
    trying to impersonate the site, and you shouldn’t continue.’

  27. BW
    [‘Grown-up’ means being accountable and transparent.]
    In the eyes of the electorate, stopping the boats is what counts and provided the givt is not doing anything illegal, then they couldn’t care less if nothing is said for 3 years, provided they stop coming.

    And AA never gives up:
    [Ignoring the fact that there was bipartisan agreement with the Liberals to dismantle the Pacific Solution.]
    The Libs agreed, as they did in dismantling Work Choices, to accept the mandate received by Rudd for Labor’s policies in 2007. This was in Nelson’s and/or Turnbull’s time. Not sure what Tony would have done but Labor is certainly not looking like it’ll return the favour in dismantling the carbon tax.

  28. briefly
    [ .. there will soon be dozens of boats every week and we will know exactly which kiddies in the playpen to blame.]
    But it won’t happen because Abbott is serious and capable in this area – “grown up” if you like. However what you describe is exactly what happened under Labor despite its half-dozen changes of policy.

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