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| Red and green numbers respectively indicate booths with two-party majorities for Labor and the Greens. Click for larger image. Map boundaries courtesy of Ben Raue at The Tally Room. |
Wills covers an area of Melbourne’s middle north, from long-established Brunswick in the south and Coburg in the centre to post-war suburbs further north. Like its eastern neighbour Batman, it straddles the divide between the Greens stronghold of the inner city and the expansive Labor heartland of Melbourne’s northern suburbs. However, the former area carries lesser weight in Wills than in Batman, being confined to the area around Brunswick, which makes the seat substantially more secure for Labor. The electorate was created with the expansion of parliament in 1949, though at that time its southern end was covered by the since-abolished electorate of Burke (an unrelated electorate of the same name covered Melbourne’s outer north from 1969 to 2004). Prior to 1949, an electorate called Bourke had boundaries similar to those Wills has had since Burke was abolished in 1955. Labor’s strength in the area was established early, with Bourke being held by either Labor or socialist independents from 1910 until it was abolished.
The inaugural member for Wills was Bill Bryson, who had won Bourke for Labor in 1943 before losing to an independent in 1946. Bryson was among seven Victorian “groupers” who were expelled from the party during the split of 1955, and he contested that year’s election as the candidate of the Australian Labor Party (Anti-Communist), which would shortly evolve into the Democratic Labor Party. However, Bryson was defeated by Labor candidate Gordon Bryant, who went on to serve as Aboriginal Affairs Minister in the Whitlam government. When Bryant retired in 1980, the seat was used to accommodate Bob Hawke’s long-anticipated entry to parliament, enabling him to assume the prime ministership three years later.
Hawke resigned from parliament immediately after losing the leadership in December 1991, providing Paul Keating with an early electoral test in the form of a by-election for a seat the party had never lost before. The test was failed disastrously: in a record field of 22 candidates, local football identity Phil Cleary outpolled the Labor candidate 33.5% to 29.4%, prevailing by 15.7% after preferences. The result was declared void the following November when the High Court ruled Cleary had not been qualified to nominate as his job as a teacher constituted “an office of profit under the Crown”. The imminence of the 1993 election meant no new by-election was held, but Cleary won the seat at the ensuing election by a margin of 2.4%. Cleary’s position was subsequently weakened when redistribution pushed the seat westwards, and Labor candidate Kelvin Thomson provided his party with a rare highlight at the 1996 election when he polled 50.0% of the primary vote to prevail over Cleary by 5.8% after preferences.
A member of the Labor Unity (Right) faction, Thomson entered politics as the state member for Pascoe Vale in 1988, and served in the shadow ministry following the Kirner government’s defeat in 1992. He was elevated to the federal shadow ministry in 1997, serving in portfolios including environment and regional development. However, he resigned from the front bench in March 2007 when it emerged he had given a reference to colourful Melbourne identity Tony Mokbel. From February 2013 until the government’s defeat he served as a parliamentary secretary, first in the trade portfolio and then in schools after Kevin Rudd resumed the leadership in June, after which he returned to the back bench. Thomson supported Julia Gillard in the February 2012 leadership ballot, but was among those who defected to the Rudd camp in June 2013. Together with the rest of his faction, he supported Bill Shorten in the post-election leadership contest. While Thomson’s electoral position has at all times remained secure, the Greens achieved a minor milestone at the 2013 election when they finished ahead of the Liberals to secure second place, ending up 15.2% arrears after the distribution of preferences.
Who was Meguire Bob and what was his true role?
Where is he now?
[ Who was Meguire Bob and what was his true role?]
As far as I know he is still very much alive.
Mod Lib #3190 previous thread
Posted Saturday, October 26, 2013 at 9:36 pm | Permalink
Hockey now has us paying $100 million a day in interest
What has he spent in the last few weeks?
We are still operating under the ALP budget until legislation is passed so any interest payments are for ALP mismanagement.
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$8.8 billion to the RBA is a start
If there was a real budget ‘emergency’ there is nothing stopping Hockey doing a mini budget.
With no mini budget the debt now belongs the Liberals.
Is Kelvin Thomson still in parliament? I honestly thought he’d retired at the last election.
Wikipedia says he’s “emerged” as a “political theorist” since resigning from the front bench, but I honestly have no recollection of anything he’s theorised on in recent years.
15 Abbott lies, sorry the latest 15 Abbott lies.
http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/tony-abbotts-latest-15-lies/
[
AussieAchmed
Posted Saturday, October 26, 2013 at 10:12 pm | Permalink
….
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$8.8 billion to the RBA is a start
]
That little stunt is costing taxpayers a million dollars a day, makes wedding claims look like chicken feed.
So if $8.8 billion from Australia to Australia is bad what is $300 billion to China?
[
Mike Carlton @MikeCarlton01 21m
“Oi,” says the PM. “I’ll get the Statesman and we’ll go and chuck donuts on Malcom Turnbull’s front lawn !” #abbottdinner #clubtony
]
Repent ye heathens @geeksrulz 29m
Update: Miranda maintains Top Toadie position. Bolt now in 2nd spot, then Piers, Reith & Janet http://bit.ly/HmPFZv #auspol
https://twitter.com/SpudBenBean/status/394050874902708224/photo/1
The Coalition is not responsible for any spending or debt until July 1st 2014 when their new budget is handed down.
We are currently still on the Swan Song Spendathon
Redgum on Bob Hawke –
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUy3beI2Ic0
Redgum much under rated. Pretty Sad.
Sean under yet another name
Sean Tisme
Swan took treasury advise and didn’t hand over a lazy 8 billion dollars to the RBA, cost to the tax payer, one million dollars a day.
The Liberal parties are making a royal mess of it.
Why oh why?
if there was such a budget ’emergency’ and Swannies budget was so bad why hasn’t Hockey done a mini-budget to fix the ’emergency’?
Because the budget emergency was a lie
The debt belongs to all of us and that $8.8 billion now held by the Reserve Bank also belongs to us all. All this hype over a Reserve top-up is as valid as the GST scare during the election campaign.
Sean Tisme@12
Are the coalition running the country or not running the country? If they are not, WHAT ARE THEY DOING?
Sean Tisme
Posted Saturday, October 26, 2013 at 10:22 pm | Permalink
The Coalition is not responsible
=======================================
agreed.
they are irresponsible
All the Rupert-Rooters are getting the Prime Ministerial reward for services rendered. Murdoch wannabe Paul Sheehan was the only token “outsider”
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbotts-private-function-an-affair-for-the-conservative-media-faithful-20131026-2w8wz.html
I agree david, the Liberals are certainly working hard on their hype with the whole “Labor didn’t top it up, the world might have ended at any moment because of that” scare.
So has the blog decided that debt is now bad?
Is that it?
Mod, the Liberals have decided debt is now good.
davidwh – so why was Hockey trying to blame Swan for the need to borrow $8.8 billion to give to the RBA?
In fact has he explained why the RBA needs the money at all? I heard hand-wavey stuff about needing a buffer in case of emergency etc, but what specifically does the reserve ward off, in Joe’s eyes? I don’t think he explained it.
It’s clear Swan was acting on advice – what advice is Hockey acting on, and why is he playing politics with it?
Jackol
Ooh, there’s that phrase. The question is: Are adjectives like “sneaky” and “cheap” in the back of your mind when you say that? 🙂
Mad Lib@22
You know that is a stupid question as it all depends on the circumstances.
When economic activity slows, it is the role of government to take up the slack by borrowing and spending to maintain the level of aggregate demand in the economy.
That is orthodox Keynesian economics.
[So has the blog decided that debt is now bad?]
Hockey and Abbott have determined that debt is now good, despite their hysteria of the last 5 years.
Mod Lib
Posted Saturday, October 26, 2013 at 10:31 pm | Permalink
So has the blog decided that debt is now bad?
Is that it?
—————————————————-
After all the years of listening to the rabid rants of Abbott, Hockey and all the other Liberal telling us that debt is bad the expectation is that they would actually do something about it.
Instead they have continued to borrow and then increase the debt ceiling something they condemned as driving Australia towards being a Greece etc.
So now they are borrowing being a “Greece” is not a bad thing…apparently
ModLib
Do you know if Tony Abbott will be putting on a knees up for right wing bloggers at Kirribilli House?
The #NewsCorpse Thank You Night is going down fabulously, and there should be an appreciation evening for the fellow travellers.
Tax reform starts with abolishing the carbon tax and the mining tax, which have done so much to spook investors, threaten jobs and hurt every family’s cost of living.”
Three fibs from Abbott in one sentence.
Investment in Australia has not been impacted by the carbon tax. Total numbers of people employed have risen every quarter since the tax was introduced. And inflation is currently 2.4%. This is below the rate for most of the Labor period prior to the carbon tax, and below the rate for most of the last five Howard years.
bemused, Mod Lib thinks he has caught people out as hypocrites because they are asking why the Liberals aren’t holding to their (the Liberal’s) own standard. We’ve made it tricky for Mod to recognise by posing that question as a bit of throw-it-back-in-their-face type melodrama.
Abbott – “GDP growth per head has been just one third of the Howard era.”
Abbott – “Each year’s deficit adds to Commonwealth debt, now rocketing past $300 billion with state debt on top.”
Untrue. Borrowings to build an economy are not the same as debilitating debt, as economist Stephen Koukoulas compellingly explains. Borrowings as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) are currently just 20.7%. Ten OECD countries are now above 90%, including the UK, the USA and France. Japan is above 210%.
Debt is not skyrocketing. It’s declining. Only ten wealthy nations reduced debt to GDP last year. Australia’s 2.2% reduction was only bettered by Iceland and Norway.
davidwh@17
The attempted dissimulation on this by the tories is philatelic.
Finance said do not do this
Yet again more lies from the tories –
[ Treasury advised against it –
Wayne Swan considered bolstering the Reserve Bank’s reserve fund this year but was formally counselled by the Treasury that shoring up its capital holdings could be counterproductive, Fairfax Media has discovered.
In an official minute to the then treasurer, dated April 10, 2013, and marked ”Sensitive”, Mr Swan was counselled against transferring money from the government to the bank.
The minute also advised that doing so could compromise the bank’s independence from the government.
The advice contradicts any suggestion by the current government that Mr Swan had been negligent in allowing the bank’s capital buffer to run down and had acted against the advice of the RBA.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/minute-reveals-treasury-told-swan-not-to-boost-rbas-reserve-fund-20131025-2w748.html#ixzz2inhw3Jj1
Plus it was the tories who ripped money out of the RBA –
page 77 of the RBA Annual Report included a table that summarised the dividends paid by the Bank to the government since 1997-98.
That table shows that under the Howard Coalition government, the RBA paid a total of $20.2 billion in dividends. This was $1.83 billion a year. In today’s dollar terms, the total amount paid by the RBA was in excess of $30 billion or almost $3 billion per annum.
Under Labor, the RBA paid a total of $7.9 billion in dividends or around $1.3 billion a year, on average. In today’s dollar terms, this total approximately $9 billion or an average of around $1.5 billion per annum. In the last three Labor budgets, the average dividend was a tiny $410 million a year.
In other words, Treasurer Peter Costello ‘raided’ the RBA, using Hockey’s language, to the tune of $3 billion a year in today’s dollar terms for every year in 11 years, while Treasurer Swan (and then briefly Chis Bowen) ‘raided’ $1.5 billion per year for six years.
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/10/25/reserve-bank-australia/trouble-bolstering-rbas-reserves ]
There were seven Grouper members expelled, not six: Andrews, Bryson, Bourke, Cremean, Joshua, Keon and Mullens. And Kelvin Thomson did get off the backbench eventually – he was made a Parl Sec by Gillard. The general view is that this will be his last term, and that there will be a major shitfight to secure the Labor nomination next time.
AA
got a link for that information re debt reduction (other than the graph!)?
AA
don’t worry, found it – google is wonderful!
sprocket_@20
Sheehan – an outsider – you are either joking or deluded.
He is in with the tories, just not as rabid.
An occasional mealy non anti labor article means nothing.
DisplayName@31
I used to think Mad Lib was a relatively intelligent specimen for a Lib, but of late she has become increasingly shrill and Tismeesque in her rantings.
[DisplayName
Posted Saturday, October 26, 2013 at 10:41 pm | PERMALINK
bemused, Mod Lib thinks he has caught people out as hypocrites because they are asking why the Liberals aren’t holding to their (the Liberal’s) own standard. We’ve made it tricky for Mod to recognise by posing that question as a bit of throw-it-back-in-their-face type melodrama.]
“the Liberals” could not control the spiralling debt of the last 6 years, that was the ALP and Greens legacy.
“the Liberals” are going to rectify the situation, as “the Liberals” always have, but it will take more than 4 weeks.
Lets have this discussion again in 4 years and see where we are in the debt cycle then, eh?
Sean Tisme@12
They took those responsibilities when they were sworn in as the government and as ministers.
Why is truthie/ Sean Tisme lying.
bemused, the usual stirrers (or part stirrers) are a bit dispirited because being on the winning side takes all the fun out of things.
Mod
Sure, I don’t mind discussing your deficiencies in recogising play acting in another 4 years :devil:.
@43 Subtract “another”
Debt reduction
Was a long hard day, but got better at the end when I found this from the inimitable @davpope http://bit.ly/1bi51er
Sean
Wrong the Liberal Party is now the government.
If the Liberals are not responsible for the budget then they are not responsible for any decline in boat arrivals.
The fact remains the Government could have frozen spending beyond a certain amount but instead choose quite rightly to increasethe debt celling as it recongised that debt is a normal part of a functioning business.
Thanks Psephos, corrected.
Thunder lightening, please let here also be rain…Karratha
Spending more than you make is OK in fits and bouts…..its the fact that the ALP has done nothing but that for the last quarter century or so that is the issue.
Just one surplus….one…..is that so much to ask? :devil: