Seat of the week: Gorton

Labor front-bencher Brendan O’Connor is securely ensconced in what remains Labor’s sixth safest seat, despite a 7.5% swing to the Liberals at last year’s election.

Red numbers indicate size of two-party majority for Labor. Click for larger image. Map boundaries courtesy of Ben Raue at The Tally Room.

Gorton is located at Melbourne’s strongly Labor-voting western edge, covering the rapidly growing fringe suburbs of Derrimut and Deer Park in the south, Caroline Springs and Kings Park in the centre and Hillside in the north, and from there extending westwards through semi-rural areas to the satellite town of Melton. The latter area was gained with the redistribution that took effect at the 2013 election, adding 32,000 voters who had previously been in Lalor. This was counterbalanced at the city end through transfers of 33,000 voters at Sydenham, Keilor and Taylors Lakes to Calwell in the north, 9000 west of the rail line in St Albans to Maribyrnong in the centre, and 13,000 in Ardeer and Sunshine West to Gellibrand in the south. This boosted the ample Labor margin of 22.2% to 23.6%, which was then cut at the election by a 7.5% swing to the Liberals.

The electorate was created at the previous redistribution ahead of the 2004 election in place of abolished Burke, which furnished it with 12,000 voters around Sydenham and also included Melton and areas beyond the city to the north. This area was covered by Corio prior to pre-war urbanisation and the expansion of parliament in 1949, after which it was accommodated by shifting aggregations of Lalor (created in 1949), Burke (1969) and Calwell (1984). With the exception of one defeat in Lalor at the Liberals’ statewide high water mark in 1966, each of these three seats has been won by Labor at every election since their creation. Gorton’s inaugural member was Brendan O’Connor, who had entered parliament as member for Burke in 2001. His exchange of the predominantly rural outskirts seats of Burke for one anchored in outer suburban Melbourne was a welcome development, boosting his margin from 5.5% to 20.2%.

O’Connor rose through Labor ranks as an official with the Australian Services Union with factional backing from the Ferguson Left, which is now more likely to be identified under its formal name of the Independent Left. He was promoted to shadow parliamentary secretary when Kevin Rudd became leader in December 2006 and then to the junior ministry after the 2007 election victory, serving first in employment participation, then in home affairs in June 2009. Justice was added to his workload after the 2010 election, and in December 2011 he was shifted to human services. O’Connor stood by factional colleague Julia Gillard during Rudd’s leadership challenges in February 2012 and June 2013, and won promotion to cabinet as Small Business Minister on the former occasion. Further promotion to the troublesome immigration portfolio followed in February 2013, and he did well to be moved to employment after Rudd assumed the leadership the following June. Since the September 2013 election defeat he has served in shadow cabinet in the employment and workplace relations portfolios.

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.

1,728 comments on “Seat of the week: Gorton”

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  5. From this, we have the state of play evolving in the US (my emphasis):
    [The US Environmental Protection Agency plans on Monday to propose a 30 per cent cut in carbon dioxide emissions from existing US power plants by 2030… States would have flexibility under the plan to decide on how to achieve the reductions, including through cap-and-trade programs…]

  9. Dutton, Morrison, Pyne, Truss, Hockey have all performed reasonably well. The clear loser from today’s QT is Abbott, IMHO.

  10. [We have Dutton up to explain how gutting Medicare is good for Medicare.]
    Just like medieval barbers used to drain blood from people to “make them better”.

  11. Many thanks to those who responded to my question. My fears have been allayed. I must have been reading too many desperate comments from the dwindling number of supporters of the Dark Side who keep baying that we aren’t putting forward alternatives.

  16. Abbott just contradicted 100% what Pyne said yesterday on Insiders.

    About time. The reason this is important is that it clarifies that ALL CURRENTLY enrolled students will be smashed by the new interest rates on their HECs debts.

  23. [Just like medieval barbers used to drain blood from people to “make them better”.]

    Medicare must be suffering haemochromatosis

  29. “@drewsheldrick: Bolt blog tomorrow: Turnbull the Cheshire Cat of Australian politics: Happy to interject but disappears when most in need. #qt #auspol”

  30. BK

    I disagree, mon ami. She has a grammar accent and comes across as bit preppy, but she is usually well across the detail of her area of responsibility.

  33. [ BK

    Posted Monday, June 2, 2014 at 2:53 pm | Permalink

    Sussan Ley always comes across as a bit of a rabbit.
    ]

    ———————————————–

    A doe ?

    and Tony ….. a bot ….

  35. Turnbull and his attack on Bolt
    __________
    Is the Murdoch media losing it’s sting?
    Turnbull’s bitter attack on the awful Bolt suggests that it might just be so
    Oddly there is a current US example of the way the Murdoch Fox TV network has lost it’s top 30% of young listeners ,and an overall 27% …in it’s obsesive seach for a major scandal with which to “do a Watergate” om Obbama

    For more than a year Fox and it’s allies have attacked Hillary Clinton over the incident in which the US ambassador was killed in an attack on the US Consulate building in Benghazi two years ago
    Fox has pushed this as evidence of Obama/Clinton mis-judgement..and gone on endlessly,as if this of great import to ordinary Americans …troubled by unemployment and falling living standards on a big scale
    In the US last year I was amazed at the time the Fox Newwork devoted to what must be a marginal issue to most US voters…especially now that Libya has disintegrated into a failed state with coups and armed conflicts ( How they must long for the good old Gadaffi years)

    However the polls show the listerners are turning off Fox big-time… as the endless Benghazi story winds on and on

    That’s one thing aboput the Murdoch media here too…they pursue a line till it becomes boring and readers/vierwers switch off…..
    Is the Bolt line now in that category ?

  36. Billson up for a Dorothy Dixer. The Coalition Tactics Committee must have decided that the best way to use Abbott is to give nearly nearly all the Dorothy Dixers to someone other than Abbott.

  38. [ Marrickville Mauler

    Posted Monday, June 2, 2014 at 2:56 pm | Permalink

    Guytaur #1327

    has anyone else suggested yet Maleficent for Tony’s next movie night?
    ]
    —————————————–

    DE – ficient ….

  40. What reader of the Australian, no matter how cranky, could not be tired of the attacks on Clive. Totally childish and unprofessional

  43. Abbott just CANNOT shut up about Labor in government. He seems to be worried that they’re coming back.

  48. Two people I thought were dead turn out to be still going strong – Reg Grundy and Physicist and science educator Harry Messel (now 92) on the ABC Science Show. Prof. Messel was praising the proposed deregulation of Universities.

  49. [RD
    Boerwar

    Is Billson on stimulants ?

    He rambles very quickly…

    by Rex Douglas on Jun 2, 2014 at 3:04 pm]

    It was a strange sort of Dorothy Dixer question in the way it was framed but Billson had his rant ready and he ranted away satisfactorily from a Coalition POV. Let us not forget that any time any member of the Government says something without cocking something up has to be counted as a ‘win’ these days.

  50. Abbott actually had the cheek to repeat his untruths about the member for Jaga Jaga. Apparently a direct rebuttal of his “facts” after QT doesn’t count in his eyes. Tell a lie often enough…

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