Seat of the week: Calwell

A journey around another safe Labor seat in Melbourne that tends not to get too much attention on election night.

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.

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.

1,367 comments on “Seat of the week: Calwell”

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  3. @Jackol/1149

    Considering even the reluctance of releasing 60 Day review (which btw, was suppose to be today, and last week).

    ZERO.

  4. http://www.independentaustralia.net/life/life-display/fukushima-cancer-spike-and-nuclear-industry-denial,5960

    [The mainstream media has been relatively quiescent about the continuing Fukushima disaster. This is about to change.

    Massive amounts of toxic radionuclides and water continue leaking from the reactors and the Spent Fuel Storage Pools (SFSP) into the Pacific Ocean. Scientific studies prove that radiation-induced insect mutations, high radiation levels in fish and alarmingly, rates of human cancers are increasing.

    In the aftermath of the Fukushima NPP explosions, the extent of the massive damage is almost beyond belief.]

  6. How about infrastructure spending to accelerate the release of more land for residential development 😎

    Could put a break on over priced property prices 😯

  7. paaptsef
    Posted Monday, December 9, 2013 at 6:31 pm | PERMALINK
    Lets just hope its the right sort of infrastructure.

    A second railway line between Alice Springs and Darwin!

    We need a rail line from Perth to Darwin. That do?

  8. Ooo Tism where are yoooo…

    [The Australian Government has suspended processing operations at the Ranger Uranium Mine (Ranger) in the Northern Territory following an incident involving the failure of a leach tank on Saturday 7 December 2013. The Hon Ian Macfarlane, Minister for Industry, received a full briefing from Ms Andrea Sutton, CEO of Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) shortly after notification of the incident, including on the strategy for clean-up. The Minister highlighted the seriousness with which this matter would be dealt with.
    “I have
    told ERA today that they cannot resume processing at Ranger until the company demonstrates the integrity of the processing plant to the satisfaction of the regulatory authorities.
    “ERA must also demonstrate that Kakadu National Park and human safety remain protected.
    I understand the concerns of traditional owners and local residents and can assure them that Governments will continue to ensure the mine operates to the highest standards]

    http://www.scribd.com/doc/190369804/Macfarlane-Minister-for-Industry-Ranger-Uranium-Mine-Incident

  10. Keelty makes the point that the late change of the election date, and the late decision on whether to have a referendum or not, wrought havoc with the AEC’s planning and logistics, and were to a large extent responsible for the loss of the WA ballot papers. In other words, it was Rudd’s fault.

  11. Centre,

    Whats your view on the Carbon Tax and Abbotts mandate??

    Are you going to support a 2016 ALP Carbon Tax reintroduction policy?

  13. [ We need a rail line from Perth to Darwin. That do? ]
    Why not Perth to Alice Springs and a third line from Alice to Darwin

  15. Psephos

    The most damning finding by Keelty is that the AEC did not follow the courier companies advice in tracking individual packages on pallets. Simple logistics.

    Although I reckon everything was, as you say, Rudd’s fault. 😉

  16. Psephos@1160

    Keelty makes the point that the late change of the election date, and the late decision on whether to have a referendum or not, wrought havoc with the AEC’s planning and logistics, and were to a large extent responsible for the loss of the WA ballot papers. In other words, it was Rudd’s fault.

    Which begs the question: “How would the poor petals cope with a snap DD?”

    Rubbish from Keelty the change of date was 1 week and the AEC had as much notice as usual, or more.

  17. [Keelty makes the point that the late change of the election date, and the late decision on whether to have a referendum or not, wrought havoc with the AEC’s planning and logistics, and were to a large extent responsible for the loss of the WA ballot papers. In other words, it was Rudd’s fault.]

    Keelty’s argument might make sense if something similar happened in the other states. Or perhaps these things are not noticed unless the result is very close.

  18. [The most damning finding by Keelty is that the AEC did not follow the courier companies advice in tracking individual packages on pallets. Simple logistics.]

    Yes, but he also points out that everything had to be rebooked and reorganised at the last minute because of Rudd’s vacillation and procrastination, so of course mistakes were made. People make mistakes, but they make more mistakes when they are under pressure, and the pressure on the AEC in this case was caused by Rudd’s seizure of power and his inability to make decisions.

  19. 1156

    The property price growth is strongest in established areas. Sprawl at the fringes would not help this. Infrastructure spending to reduce that strength would mainly be providing better PT to established areas and/or removing land wasting infrastructure like freeways from established areas. The real way to reduce property price growth is to reduce tax concessions for investors, owner occupiers or both.

  21. Tisme

    Abbott does not have a mandate to repeal carbon pricing. Get real, that’s not the way our democracy works, you can’t be fair dinkum 😆

    I want Australia to make a fair contribution (not more like the Greens insist) to global warming relative to other developed nations.

    I’m in favour of Australia forming part of the European ETS asap.

    We made a huge mistake by implementing a fixed price for such a long period and the carbon price was set to high.

    Like I’ve always said, keep away they’re bad news 😀

  22. My bet for the Libs next big infrastructure project is a train line from Broome to Hobart via the Simpson Desert. Failing that, a new driveway for Tony Abbott’s house or a new bookcase for Senator Brandis.

  23. Evening all. Great news on the economic front – Eugene Fama says there will be a recession.
    [One of the three Americans who won this year’s Nobel prize for economics said bloated public deficits on both sides of the Atlantic meant that recession remained a real risk for 2014.]
    http://www.smh.com.au/business/world-business/nobel-prize-winner-eugene-fama-fears-worldwide-recession-in-2014-20131209-2yzy8.html#ixzz2mxjHPOxD

    Eugene Fama is one of the guys who said before the GFC that markets got their pricing right, so the GFC would not happen thanks to less regulation. Soooo… We should avoid a recession now 🙂

  26. Labor caving in to the money.
    [The story is that the new government, in typically sneaky fashion, slid the repeal of the gambling reforms into an omnibus bill on social services.

    When they noticed, the minor party players who had pushed so hard for the reforms were initially not so concerned. They assumed Labor would stand with them to oppose the Government measures in the Senate.

    But no. Labor cravenly, quietly determined it would vote down the reform legislation it had so recently passed.

    Now, the word is that many in the ALP are deeply unhappy about this. Tim Costello who, after a couple of years lobbying on the subject is in a position to know, named a couple of Labor people – families and disabilities spokesperson Jenny Macklin and deputy leader Tanya Plibersek – who were “devastated” by the backflip.
    And he asserted that Labor’s change was driven by the NSW right of the party, and also some Queensland right-wing members.]

    http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/democray/770/

  27. This is getting funny —

    [Labor elders and parliamentary hopefuls have called on the ALP to return Victorian preselections to members after the party’s returning officer rejected a national executive’s choice of candidates because of a lack of women]

    [In an embarrassing ruling for party leaders Bill Shorten and Daniel Andrews, returning officer Tony Lang declared the factional carve-up of Victorian upper house seats at odds with the party’s affirmative action rules.

    The vote resulted in preselection of a handful of women for the upper house seats and fewer than the quota required under party rules.

    Fairfax Media understands Mr Lang’s ruling has left party chiefs uncertain about how the preselections would now be decided.

    Advertisement

    Sources said the party was considering a number of options including sacking Mr Lang…]

    Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/labor-preselections-rejected-over-lack-of-women-20131209-2z0sb.html#ixzz2mxlW04YE

  29. lizzie

    [But no. Labor cravenly, quietly determined it would vote down the reform legislation it had so recently passed.

    Now, the word is that many in the ALP are deeply unhappy about this.]

    I wrote to Don Farrell about this. He didn’t reply.

    I wasn’t surprised to see Labor side with Abbott.

  30. The notion that changes to election dates, referendums etc, were responsible for the loss of ballot papers in WA is rubbish. Any election administration needs to have contingency plans for such things: that’s why you have a full-time body tasked with doing the job. It is not that hard to move ballot papers from point A to point B without losing any, provided that you are focussing on the task, which certain AEC staff clearly weren’t.

  32. [Government does not need more money, the two main levels of government need to better manage services and better divide responsibilities.
    ]

    I think generally if ever it was true this ceased to be true about 20 years ago.

    The government is there to deliver the services that people want. Community expectations across a number of areas (public education, public health, public transport, roads, welfare, military) far exceed what the government is providing.

    Both sides indulge in a false presence that they can keep cutting the public service and still meet community expectations. They cannot. Both side and the greens should inform us about the choices we have between paying more tax and receiving the expected services or paying the same tax and accepting that we need to lower our expectations.

    The failure to do this erodes trust I’m government which in turn weakens democracy. There are very few of us that benefit from eroding democracy.

  37. [Labor has watched the gambling lobby funnel million of dollars to its political opponents.]

    Plus watched million spent in anti-ALP advertising and targeting local ALP members by Clubs NSW. If you try to introduce the first ever Federal curbs on pokies and get attacked from all sides for doing too little or too much, what do people expect?

    Its your gig Xenophon, you have failed as usual.

  43. If people have issues about pokies take them up with the Liberal Party, the ALP tried harder than any party in office ever has and it got them nothing but abuse from all sides.

    So nick off guys and gals, you blew it.

  45. frednk@1117


    Within a decade or so there will no longer be a valid reason to use copper inside the building. The costs of optics is falling fast.

    It would seem that according to sean technoloy as well as reality has a left bias.

    Copper isn’t used at the moment anyway aside from the “last 50m” (between switch and NIC) – everything behind that is fibre in my experience. The big limitation for fibre in that role is that it’s a lot harder to terminate at an appropriate length – it’s only cheap when it’s all done at the factory and then pre-terminated cables get pulled through the ducts. Maybe there’ll be some new tech to change that, but until that comes along structured cabling will probably stay copper (though probably higher and higher speced copper UTP).

    Or maybe that magical day will come when something like UWB based wireless tech becomes viable as an alternative . . .

    himi

  47. More evidence for get the bad news out before Xmas.

    [A report in The Wall Street Journal has added to speculation that General Motors has already decided to end production of Holden cars in Australia.
    Citing sources “familiar with the auto maker’s plans”, the newspaper reported on Monday that General Motors intended to “close its two Australian plants and separately slash production in South Korea by as much as 20 per cent by 2016”.

    A Holden spokesman said he would not comment on speculation, but industry sources believe the Abbott government is pushing Holden to announce its plans before Christmas to “get the bad news out of the way” and allow the government to begin 2014 with a clean slate.]

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/gm-to-close-holden-plants-says-us-report-20131209-2z0wy.html#ixzz2mxvTwNhG

  48. “get the bad news out of the way” and allow the government to begin 2014 with a clean slate.

    If this is LNP strategy on display, they’re clearly in cloud cuckoo land.

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