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| Red and blue numbers respectively indicate booths with two-party majorities for the Labor and Liberal. Click for larger image. Map boundaries courtesy of Ben Raue at The Tally Room. |
Calwell covers suburbs around Melbourne Airport in the city’s north-west, including Keilor, Sydenham and Taylors Lakes to the west, Tullamarine to the south, and from Broadmeadows north along Sydney Road to the southern part of Craigieburn. The seat was created with the expansion of parliament in 1984 but at that time the electorate was oriented further to the west, with only the Keilor and Sydenham area west of the Maribyrnong River carrying over to the electorate in its current form. The redistribution which took effect at the 1990 election shifted it eastwards to include Broadmeadows, which it has retained ever since. Substantial changes at the 2004 redistribution saw the electorate lose the areas west of the river to the new seat of Gorton while gaining Sunbury and Craigieburn to the north from abolished Burke, but these were reversed at the 2013 election, when Sunbury and most of Craigieburn were transferred to McEwen and Keilor and Sydenham were returned from Gorton.
Calwell has been won by Labor at each election since its creation by margins ranging from 7.1% in 1990 to 19.7% in 2010, which were respectively the worst and best elections for Labor in Victoria during the period in question. The seat’s inaugural member was Andrew Theophanous, who had been member for Burke from 1980. Theophanous quit the ALP in April 2000 after claiming factional leaders had reneged on a deal in which he was to be succeeded by his brother Theo, who served in the Victorian state upper house from 1988 to 2010 and as a minister from 2002 to 2008. Andrew Theophanous was facing criminal charges at the time of his departure from the party for receiving bribes and sexual favours from Chinese nationals seeking immigration assistance, for which he would eventually be sentenced to four years’ imprisonment, which was halved after one of the major charges was quashed on appeal.
Labor’s new candidate at the 2001 election was Maria Vamvakinou, who shared Theophanous’s Greek heritage and background in the Socialist Left faction, having spent the eight years before her entry to parliament as an electorate officer to factional powerbroker Senator Kim Carr. Vamvakinou went entirely untroubled by Theophanous’s forlorn bid to retain his seat as an independent, which scored him 9.6% of the vote. Vamvakinou had her 17.7% margin at the 2001 election pared back 1.6% by redistribution and 6.9% by a swing to the Liberals at the 2004 election, before enjoying a thumping 11.1% swing in 2007 and a further 0.4% swing in 2010. The redistribution before the September election increased her margin another 0.4%, but she went on to suffer a 6.2% swing that was slightly above the statewide 5.1%, reducing her margin to its present 13.9%. Vamvakinou has remained on the back bench throughout her time in parliament.
Bw 😀
[No one is sure what brand of football they’re trying to play.]
If Melbourne players were taking performance enhancing drugs they should be suing their dealer.
Division on in the Reps for Joe to get his unlimited kebab card from Treasury.
P
If Melbourne players were taking performance enhancing drugs they should be suing their dealer.
classic
Psephos:
[Party loyalty can justify just about anything, as we see here every day. If I had to choose between Eddie Obeid and Tony Abbott for PM, I would of course vote for Obeid.]
Your candour is refreshing.
such a bizarre sight in the HoR watching all these conservatives voting with the Greens Party to increase the debt
Indies voting with the Govt/Greens ?
Cathy for Indi, votes with The Govt on debt ceiling.
[ If I had to choose between Eddie Obeid and Tony Abbott for PM, I would of course vote for Obeid.
Your candour is refreshing.]
Who would you vote for given that choice?
So we getting more debt for what use? And yet this gov is cutting welfare?
RD
[such a bizarre sight in the HoR watching all these conservatives voting with the Greens Party to increase the debt]
Yep – particularly when the Greens have just spent six years telling everyone there is no difference between the Liberals and Labor.
Cathy from indie sitting with Bandt
@ruawake/1058
This is after Abbott in Opposition/election saying no deals with minor parties.
Psephos
BTW, you are dead right in your comments about Thailand.
Let’s hope the military keep on keeping out.
The yellow shirts are talking about replacing the Government with an enelected ‘Peoples Council’ which pretty well tells you that they know they are a minority.
[So we getting more debt for what use?]
Flying to each other’s weddings.
Albanese very consistent on the fast rail thing.
Between the BCA (read Transfield) and Albanese, BO’F must be pissed off.
Ciobo in love with the Greens Party it seems
@Psephos/1065
I hope they are locals, not imported.
Nice to see Ciobo admit they will not reduce debt over the forward estimates, the question is why?
[The yellow shirts are talking about replacing the Government with an enelected ‘Peoples Council’ which pretty well tells you that they know they are a minority.]
The problem in Thailand is that when the crunch comes the army will do what the King tells them and not what the elected government tells them. Since the King is apparently pretty much ga-ga that means what General Prem, head of the Privy Council, tells them in the King’s name. Their fear (I am told) is that Thaksin has done a deal with the Crown Prince, under which Thaksin will pay the CP’s (huge) gambling debts and the CP will recall Thaksin when the King dies. That could be any day, so they want Yingluck out of office before the CP becomes King. That’s the story, anyway.
ru
Cos the economy is going to shit?
It’s breathtaking to see the lengths the conservatives will go to in their determination to build the case for an increase/broadening of the GST next term.
At all costs, low/middle income earners rather than polluters/big corps must be made to repay the nations debt.
@Rex/1072
Yup, that is what Howard did, with the help of the GST, help pay of the Debt.
Corgi seems to have been let of the leash in the last 2 weeks.
Must have a Credlin stamp of approval.
[Ben Eltham
Clean Energy Finance Corporation will reduce emissions and pay the fed govt a profit. Coalition will abolish it http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/cefc-claims-carbon-reductions-at-net-benefit-of-2-40tonne- ]
Seems the current govt will abolish anything ‘tainted’ with Labor, even if it might bring in profit. 😛
Ru
For pretty much the same reason Swannie had no hope of reaching a surplus.
Australia’s economy over the past three years has gradually declined as the 2010 stimulus has washed out of the economy and as trading partners have continued to slow their growth rates out economy has needed to change its direction.
The Australian economy is entering a period of lower revenue growth which means spending and earnings will need to be adjusted to meet the new growth environment.
Can Australia return to surplus, yes but it will take a serious effort to ensure government is delivering its part to ensure that the economy is fully productive and functioning as well as it can.
John Howard claimed RE:GST, “The Tax System is holding us back” so what he do? Add a Giant tax!
zoidlord #1073
Of course Shortens ALP won’t support a GST increase/broadening, will they ?
Keith Pitt may be new but he is still a dumbo Nat, not the sharpest knife in the block criticising individual school halls.
@MB/1076
More Stimulus is required, I don’t mind GST lifting to 15% or 20% (same as other countries in Europe) at the same time? But that needs upto a year before it’s implemented, and then 2-5 years of trickling down the Economy.
The GST has been a positive for government, there is a strong argument to broaden it, i don’t think increasing it is needed but it can be broadened.
@Rex/1078
It depends if Abbott & Co can negotiate.
I suspect the ALP will want a few of their projects to continue (NBN for example).
[i don’t think increasing it is needed but it can be broadened.]
Broadened to a loaf of bread I guess?
Depends on what the stimulus is but when Swannie handed down i think it was the 2009/10 budget it was forecast that by now the stimulus would have washed out of the economy.
Unfortunately China has changed its policy priorities which have not been met with any real plan to diversify our economy and this is partly why the budget was not returning to surplus.
Ru
There is more outside of it than a loaf of bread.
[There is more outside of it than a loaf of bread.]
Like? Food?
Psephos
That sounds about right. The problem is that it all sort of generally fits under the ‘who really knows catergory’.
The CP is totally unfit to be king and is really only protected by very strict censorship.
People here do realise there is a substantive difference between a facility limit and actual debt? Probably not 🙂
She may not be in a party, but she’s spinning like a pro —
[Cathy McGowan@Indigocathy31m
In QT today, secured a commitment from the Govt that pre-election promises in Indi – Bright Hospital study, CCTV, roads – will go ahead.]
What happened was she asked whether the government was going to honour the $6.5 million in infrastructure funding approved by the Labor government.
Instead, Truss assured her that projects the Liberals had promised for Indi would go ahead.
So we lose $6.5 million and gain less than $2 million (it’s $150k for the Bright hospital feasibility study, about $5 k for the CCTV cameras and I’m generously assuming that there’s a bigger pot of money than that for roads…) and that’s a triumph, apparently.
As a former board member of the hospital, the real joke is that (i) the new designs for the hospital have been ready to go for years; (ii) the only real reason for it to be redeveloped is that it hasn’t been recently and (iii) being a multi purpose service, there’s no such thing as dedicated beds for High Level care (which the feasibility study is apparently looking into…) —- the whole point is that it’s a flexible service which allocates beds to need. (iv) IF a feasibility study is needed — and I know there was a whole slab of money delivered a couple of years ago, which I thought was for this very purpose — it’s a state government responsibility, given that they’re the ones who’ve promised the upgrade.
Ooo the member for Mallee is not going to throw “dispersions” across the chamber.
@MB/1084
Coalition will need to adapt.
Ru
There is more outside of it than food, you know as well as anyone that the government needs to increase revenue or to make serious spending cuts or it will remain in deficit.
The GST is an unfair tax.
Income tax rates should be increased and tax avoidance measures should be eliminated.
Zoidlord
Well of course but afterall they are the government
Rex
No, Income Tax levels are fine where they are, Tax avoidance is a natural area that needs reviewing.
“If I had to choose between Eddie Obeid and Tony Abbott for PM, I would of course vote for Obeid”.
Yeah, I agree. Abbott would be more palatable in the AM.
Health and Education services are the only major items other than basic food not covered by the GST as far as I am aware.
Given government is the major provider in both areas that really amounts to a whole lot of money churn, but I guess they would pick up 10% of shonky private health and education services.
ru
he meant nasturtiums, of course.
Well to be honest, it may be wise to review spending priorities.
The economy is sluggish at the moment and now may not be the time to incur larger deficits
Look, the NDIS?
OK for now, it has a funding source with an increase in the medicare levy, but Gonski?
It may be wise to be put on pause and the PPL?
No way!
Savva and Walsh were behaving like a couple of rabbits on Sky Agenda just then.