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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.
C’mon Newspoll, where are you!
Bemused 1288
I went through some of those points last night. Germany has Audi, BMW, Mercedes and Porsche all concentrated within 200km of southern Germany. Their workers are highly skilled, working in a career structure that encourages them to keep training. They can swap parts, people, technology and get great economies of scale. They have great technical universities nearby churning out excellent engineers. We have two small plants 1000 km apart. Our engineering is competitive but they are not the jobs at risk.
There are other factors too. Germany is in the middle of a market of 800 million people (Europe) and we have 22 million. They have cheap shipping costs, ours are high. Even Germany is building new manufacturing plants in cheaper places like South Africa (BMW), Spain and Czech republic.
Maybe the HSV unit of Holden could survive as a niche tuning firm making hotted up sedans, which they are very good at. But mass market we have to either make much larger volumes to get costs per unit down (by 50%!) or get quality to match Audi or BMW and compete at the top end of the market. That is the only way you can make the manufacturing plant competitive at Australian wage levels. Option three is to reduce the wages to the point where they are not jobs you can live on here. I’d go for the niche and focus assistance on the rest of the workers to retrain.
[Peter van Onselen @vanOnselenP 10m
This Sunday on #AustralianAgenda former WA treasurer Christian Porter joins me on the show…unless Abbott’s office says he can’t come on…]
Watched Question Time today.
Surprised by how well the Government ministers (including Hockey) performed.
Warren Truss displayed a quiet dignity, especially in his speech about Nelson Mandela.
Maybe it was the fresh air pervading the chamber with Abbott absent.
Hope the Government guys & gals have a deep think about this.
Abbott – democracy thief.
Psephos
I don’t think anyone on any kind of low income benefit could turnover enough money to fall into problem gambling.
Problem gambling stems from higher volume greater frequency gaming machines.
As for the bookies, they give money back to little bets to get you join up. That won’t put them out of business promise you 😆
You were asking, Psephos, for whom I’d vote if the choice for PM were between Obeid and Abbott.
I passed on Rudd-Abbott (Rabbott? Ruddbott?) so plainly, Obeid would not improve the mix.
So is there a newspoll tonight?
[People who don’t smoke pay less tax than smokers, but I still think we should do all we can to prevent people from becoming smokers.]
Yes I agree with that. I do think we should try to stop people becoming problem gamblers. But if a Kerry Packer type person wants to gamble his money away, I think that’s his business and he can pay for his own therapy if he feels in need of it. Problem gambling is only a problem for people who can’t afford to lose the money. Even then, if they have no dependents and are wasting their own money, I would say that’s their business, although I would make help available to them if they want it. The real issue is when people are gambling with money which the taxpayers have given them, in the form of a pension or benefit, and particularly if they have children or other dependents for whose welfare they are being paid that money. I would make that illegal.
[Watched Question Time today.
Surprised by how well the Government ministers (including Hockey) performed.
Warren Truss displayed a quiet dignity, especially in his speech about Nelson Mandela.
Maybe it was the fresh air pervading the chamber with Abbott absent.]
Electricity Bill was also out of the parliament…
Bemused
I would fall asleep playing on the poker machines by just pressing a button and watching some reels spin.
But I think it’s winning a jackpot or jackpot links which drives people to play on them.
On the auto industry, this article describes how hard it is for other major brands in Europe to survive. They have far bigger volumes than we do. We are competing with makers in Thailand.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/european-car-industry-winners-and-losers-drift-further-apart-a-882694.html
Psephos
“Poker machines are a voluntary tax on the greedy and the stupid, which means the rest of us have to pay less tax.”
This is the cancer eating at the soul of the ALP.
[So is there a newspoll tonight?]
The nation is waiting on Ghost Who Tweets.
Grog in The Guardian
[The report last week that Holden may be planning to stop manufacturing here in 2016 coincided with the release of the national accounts and a productivity commission working paper. These showed that manufacturing continues to decline in overall importance but that also the car industry is not the productivity sloth it is often portrayed.]
http://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2013/dec/09/car-industry-is-not-the-productivity-knuckle-dragger-it-is-made-out-to-be
Good luck if Newspoll comes out. Abbott certainly deserves a drop for his oafish behaviour.
Ship Golden Wave has an interesting track leaving CI and then returning and then leaving again
I’m feeling a 53% TPP to Coalition Newspoll tonight
While a Kerry Packer-style person gambles all the time, they also earn money by having others gamble all the time.
If they are filthy rich, then I have no problem with this. OTOH, I do have a problem with people on relatively modest incomes who are compulsive gambling.
There is a serious doubt about their ability to make informed choices, and the problem is compounded if they have stolen/defrauded/are doing sexually transmitted debt to pursue their compulsion.
still with the immature schoolyard name calling. Abbott started it and that proves he is not fit to be PM or even a MP or even a ……
The Honourable Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten and Abbott went to Sth Africa today
Sean – you also ranted about the boats being stopped.
No credibility
[ I’m feeling a 53% TPP to Coalition Newspoll tonight ]
60% if you count new partners the Greens
[sexually transmitted debt]
Is that like a chancre eating at the soul of the ALP?
Only 53% to the Coal, ST? A bit conservative after the brilliant few weeks they have had!
Re Sean @1309 – Abbott leaving Parliament or anywhere else always increases the dignity of the place he vacated.
Rossmore
[This is the cancer eating at the soul of the ALP.]
Not really. Parties don’t have ‘souls’. Neither do humans.
Putting aside the religious allusion though, the position of the ALP on poker machines is more a manifestation of their cravenness in the face of rightwing populism, when sections of the boss class find RW populism useful than a cancer in itself.
You’ll all be pleased to know that the Nepalese Election Commission is back online. Also that Nepal has five different Communist Parties, although only three of them won seats this time.
[I do think we should try to stop people becoming problem gamblers. But if a Kerry Packer type person wants to gamble his money away, I think that’s his business ]
Pokies reform is not just about preventing people becoming problem gamblers, but making it more difficult for ordinary wage earners from compulsively gambling to the point of losing their homes and ending up riddled with serious debt.
Addiction cripples people’s ability to make informed decisions, whether it’s alcohol or drug addiction, or pokies addiction.
[Is that like a chancre eating at the soul of the ALP?]
No, but it is a form of STD … 😉
Baby Sean said :
Electricity Bill was also out of the parliament…
Is Bill Shorten the Prime Minister now?
Remember this contribution to Menzies House, Baby Sean?
Sean Tisme said…
It is not just about warming but the weather changing and sometimes alarmingly.You have to agree that the amount of climate records being broken recently is cause for grave concern, and not just temp but wind, storms and rainfall.
And what is this thing with Al Gore ? Honestly, you should stop singing from the Bolt hymn book and come up with your own research.
Reply October 24, 2013 at 12:08 PM
Did not know that you had gone Green – Fran Barlow will be pleased – NOT!!!
Sean
How is that budget surplus coming along? How many boats came this week?
Night all.
I don’t think the polls will change.
There all doing xmas shopping.
What’s the date, good I’ve got another two weeks to go yet 😈
WeWantPaul
You have made the classic Leftie mistake
When i wrote sort out the differences between the states to enable a more efficient form of delivery you immediately though i meant cut the public service.
Wrong, improving the function between the two main levels of government is about enabling them to focus on set areas of service delivery.
Poker machines work by offering people the dream of huge jackpots while keeping them interested / hooked while waiting with regular small wins.
Correct me if I am wrong but Oz has the highest concentration of high volume/high turnover pokies in the world. This reflects a conscious decision by our state and CW governments to take the filthy lucre pokie dollar controlled by a few capitalist robber barons.
It is an appalling failure of social democratic government.
Steve777
Posted Monday, December 9, 2013 at 10:46 pm | Permalink
Re Sean @1309 – Abbott leaving Parliament or anywhere else always increases the dignity of the place he vacated.
====================
agreed
[Putting aside the religious allusion though, the position of the ALP on poker machines is more a manifestation of their cravenness in the face of rightwing populism, when sections of the boss class find RW populism useful than a cancer in itself.]
The “boss class” – how very 70s, Fran. In fact what happened was that the great NSW working class – you know, those people we represent – told us very bluntly that they like their pokies and the amenities they pay for, and that we should listen to them for once and not to middle-class wankers like Wilkie and Costello. I know that Mike Kelly for example was told very clearly by all the football clubs in Queanbeyan that if Labor touched their pokies he could forget any chance of re-election, and I think most other NSW Labor members got the same message.
Agree, Centre – it’ll be February before there is another major change in polling.
[Remember this contribution to Menzies House, Baby Sean?
Sean Tisme said…
It is not just about warming but the weather changing and sometimes alarmingly.You have to agree that the amount of climate records being broken recently is cause for grave concern, and not just temp but wind, storms and rainfall.
And what is this thing with Al Gore ? Honestly, you should stop singing from the Bolt hymn book and come up with your own research.]
That was an impersonator moron. I wouldn’t say something so stupid.
Fran B. The souls reference was a metaphor for gawds sake … stop splitting hairs on obtuse points
Tom is actually right.
Property prices in long established areas are more stable and less prone to big falls.
This is because these places have the community infrastructure to support stable and in some cases growing populations.
There was a time when the infrastructure was put down first then the housing but in recent times we have moved away from this at risk of crating social disadvantage and big variation in property prices.
Roses more – I agree. It’s a scandal the way state governments have become addicted to poker machine revenues. We should embark on a plan to phase them out over a decade or so.
GhostWhoVotes @GhostWhoVotes 49s
#Newspoll 2 Party Preferred: L/NP 48 (-4) ALP 52 (+4) #auspol
GhostWhoVotes @GhostWhoVotes 1m
#Newspoll 2 Party Preferred: L/NP 48 (-4) ALP 52 (+4) #auspol
Interesting:
http://guardianlv.com/2013/12/icelanders-overthrow-government-and-rewrite-constitution-after-banking-fraud-no-word-from-us-media/
GhostWhoVotes @GhostWhoVotes 6s
#Newspoll Primary Votes: L/NP 40 (-3) ALP 38 (+3) #auspol
GhostWhoVotes@GhostWhoVotes1m
#Newspoll 2 Party Preferred: L/NP 48 (-4) ALP 52 (+4) #auspol
Ta-dah
#Newspoll 2 Party Preferred: L/NP 48 (-4) ALP 52 (+4)
Sit on THAT and rotate, Sean.
New thread…. 🙂
[This reflects a conscious decision by our state and CW governments to take the filthy lucre pokie dollar controlled by a few capitalist robber barons.]
An addition to pokies revenue perhaps…