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| Blue numbers indicate size of two-party majority for the Liberal Party. Click for larger image. Map boundaries courtesy of Ben Raue at The Tally Room. |
Murray covers central northern Victoria including a 200 kilometre stretch of the river that bears its name, from Gunbower east through Echuca to Yarrawonga and Bundalong. From there it extends southwards into the Goulburn Valley region as far as Inglewood in the west and Nagambie and Euroa in the east. Its largest population centre by a considerable margin is Shepparton, home to about a third of its population, followed by Echuca, which accounts for about 10%. The electorate was created with the expansion of parliament in 1949, but its boundaries resembled those of Echuca which existed from federation until its abolition in 1937, when its territory was divided between Bendigo in the west and Indi in the east. Its dimensions have not substantially changed at any time since 1949, apart from a slight reorientation westwards when the electorate of Wimmera was abolished in 1984.
The area in question was the domain of the Country Party from its formation in 1920 until 1996, when Sharman Stone won Murray for the Liberals upon the retirement of Nationals member Bruce Lloyd. John McEwen began his federal parliamentary career as the member for Echuca in 1934 before moving to Indi when it was abolished the following term, then transferred to Murray in 1949 and remained there until his retirement in 1971. McEwen served as leader of the Country Party after 1958 and, for three weeks following Harold Holt’s disappearance at the end of 1967, Prime Minister. McEwen was succeeded on his retirement in 1971 by Bruce Lloyd, who held the seat until 1996. In a sadly typical outcome for the Nationals, the seat fell to the Liberals when Lloyd retired in 1996, Sharman Stone outpolling the Nationals candidate 43.2% to 29.7% and prevailing by 3.7% after the distribution of preferences. The Liberals had intermittently fielded candidates against Lloyd throughout his career, but always finished third behind Labor.
Sharman Stone served as a parliamentary secretary from after the 1998 election until January 2006, when she was promoted to the junior ministry as Workforce Participation Minister. After the 2007 election defeat she assumed environment, heritage, the arts and indigenous affairs, the first named being shared with shadow cabinet member Greg Hunt, before being promoted to shadow cabinet in the immigration and citizenship portfolio when Malcolm Turnbull became leader in September 2008. However, she was demoted to the outer shadow ministry position of early childhood education and childcare when Turnbull was replaced by Tony Abbott in December 2009, having supported Turnbull during Abbott’s leadership challenge, and relegated to the back bench after the 2010 election. In February 2014, Stone accused Abbott of Joe Hockey of lying about union conditions for workers at the SPC Ardmona cannery in Shepparton after the government’s rejection of a bid for $25 million in assistance put the future of its 2700 jobs in doubt. When asked at the time if she intended to remain in the Liberal Party, Stone said only that it was “to be seen how things pan out”.
@MOd Lib/448
Yawn, by stopping/cancelling essential services you will always go back to surplus.
Psephos, sure the figure may be misleading, but it was a crappy deal. I wonder why they didn’t want to have a Jewish homeland, perhaps they had read the story about Solomon and the baby…
[ Psephos
Posted Monday, June 16, 2014 at 8:58 pm | Permalink
…
Sigh. The Old Testament is not history. The “conquest of Canaan” as recounted in Exodus is fiction. The Israelites were indigenous to the area.
]
You trying to tell me the sky fairies are backed up by fairy tales and the displays that travelled the country when I was a child were fake. Socked I am, shocked.
Impressed you know to what I was referring.
Whatever the version it was a long time ago and I think it would be a game man that made an assertion that any telling of the tales was accurate.
I find it difficult to see why ancient history, no matter what version, gives anyone the right (except might is right) to displace the current population.
The funny thing with NSW Surplus “sooner” is that the DailyTerror said that “just two months in the job, he gets the job done”.
sprocket:
I wondered who he was, having never heard of him before.
Presumably they’re importing these northern hemisphere blowhards because we’ve reached the bottom of the vat on our own lot?
Gee, it seems that, if you are Frances Abbott, you generally don’t need to pay for stuff.
Does she buy her own ciggies?
This is the same Mike Baird as Treasurer who had 37 errors in Budget:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-31/nsw-27s-surprise-surplus-after-241bn-budget-error/4343752
What is the anti-war left’s proposed solution for what’s happening in Iraq?
Let the chips fall where they may?
zoidlord:
The NSW Government has been there longer than 2 months!
LNP delivering surplus budgets sooner than predicted
ALP delivering deficits when they boasted they would deliver surpluses
@Mod Lib/459
This is why you don’t read people’s posts, I was talking about the treasurer.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/breaking-news/nsw-budget-surplus-earlier-than-expected/story-fni0xqi3-1226955684152
[Not only were the Israelites native to the area but so were many other groups whose history was ignored then and since.]
The area was inhabited by Semitic peoples from at least the Bronze Age – that is, as far back as the usable archaeological record goes. The Semites were polytheists. At some point around 1500 BC a group of Semites invented a new god called Yahweh. After a while they decided that Yahweh was the only god – they became monotheists. This group became the Israelites – Isra-el means “he who contends with God.” The distinction between the Israelites and the other Semitic peoples of the region was thus religious, not ethnic. They then invented a “back story” for themselves, to explain their unique relationship with God and their possession of the land – Abraham, Moses, the Ten Commandments, the walls of Jericho, etc etc. The other peoples were dubbed Canaanites, and were gradually absorbed by the Israelites. When their hold on the land was threatened by the Philistines (maritime arrivals from the Aegean), around 1000 BC, they formed a state, the Kingdom of Israel, to defend themselves. Hence David, Solomon etc, who are historical figures.
441
confessions
Posted Monday, June 16, 2014 at 8:53 pm | Permalink
I’m glad to learn you wrote to him, confessions. He would hardly know where to start. All his instincts will be to defer to “tradition” and to hope he can substitute blather for effective action.
[Boerwar
Posted Monday, June 16, 2014 at 7:29 pm | PERMALINK
‘Yikes’?
PvO is Everything is Mod Lib?
Ah… please doG, Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
Y all this fascination with me?
:devil:]
Yeah everything is a very thinly disguised cheerleader and apologist for everything liberal while trying to appear rational and even handed, but he isn’t as silly and transparent as PvO about it. She is much smarter than PvO.
And they lost and were defeated… Doesn’t that mean they lose rights to the land?
Psephos, I generally agree with you on most things, including Middle Eastern politics.
But I vehemently don’t agree that the West should have intervened in Syria to topple Assad. Like Saddam and Mubarak, he was despotic but also relatively secular. Before the civil war, he was doing a good job at modernizing the economy and society of Syria, including raising the status of women.
Nothing in the modern world is more abhorrent than Islamic extremism. And, in many countries, democratic processes alone can’t counter it: not in Egypt, not in Algeria, not in Iraq, not in Pakistan and probably not In Afghanistan (although I really hope I’m wrong about there). So I’d be buggered if I can see how it would have worked in Syria.
I reckon you’re dreaming.
_”an egregious violation of human decency”____________________
”
That’s how William described one particular comment directed at me by Psephos…so the current mood of sweet reason won’t wash with me …on another occasion I was described as ” a misguided wretch”… so much for informed debate(not that I really care for his opinions)
but I mnake my point
442
Psephos
I reckon you’re right (again)…. 🙂
[WeWantPaul
….She is much smarter than PvO.]
Right again WWP….
[
Psephos
Posted Monday, June 16, 2014 at 9:15 pm | Permalink
..
Hence David, Solomon etc, who are historical figures.
]
But what has tis to do with the displacment of people that occured 70 odd years ago. It comes down to might is right.
[They then invented a “back story” for themselves]
Fascinating theory, would you like to explain how in your cute little theory a whole culture creates and believes a fictitious back story?
Such an achievement would rival their current achievement of being evil oppressive murderers and fooling a large group of people to believe that they are somehow the victims and need to murder to protect themselves. i know i know impossible to believe any intelligent sane person would fall for such obviously stupid rhetoric, but still fooling the weak minded and vulnerable today would be a small trick compared to the act of fiction and self deception you paint.
[But I vehemently don’t agree that the West should have intervened in Syria to topple Assad. Like Saddam and Mubarak, he was despotic but also relatively secular. Before the civil war, he was doing a good job at modernizing the economy and society of Syria, including raising the status of women.]
Then you have to accept responsibility for every crime of his odious regime, and presumably Saddam’s and Mubarak’s as well. That’s a lot of crimes.
“Human Rights groups, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have detailed how Assads’s government and secret police routinely tortured, imprisoned, and killed political opponents, and those who speak out against the government.[44][45] ” (Wikipedia)
[But what has tis to do with the displacment of people that occured 70 odd years ago. It comes down to might is right.]
It most certainly does.
[But what has tis to do with the displacment of people that occured 70 odd years ago. It comes down to might is right.]
I was responding to the point made earlier about the Canaanites. I was not attempting a complete history of the Israel-Palestine question in one post.
[Fascinating theory, would you like to explain how in your cute little theory a whole culture creates and believes a fictitious back story?]
It happens all the time. See Christianity, Islam etc etc.
Psephos, you seem to be saying that military intervention in these places makes it better. This may be true for a few years, but not in the long term. Can you give an example where this sort of intervention has succeeded?
Do you think the current police action by Israel is fair? Seems like ludicrous overkill to me.
[Can you give an example where this sort of intervention has succeeded?]
World War II.
[
I was responding to the point made earlier about the Canaanites.
]
It is a little bit of a problem i’d say, having to dismiss religious texts to wash genocide out of the past history of Israel. At least you know it needed to be done.
Astrobleme
“Psephos, you seem to be saying that military intervention in these places makes it better. This may be true for a few years, but not in the long term. Can you give an example where this sort of intervention has succeeded?”
Japan. Germany.
The Gas goes off in the Ukraine
_____________________
Now that the Russian Gazprom Co has cut off the gas to the Ukraine, a major crisis will surely follow in days
How does the Ukraine get out of the hole that it has dug with the non-payment of the gas bills
and from now on…such bills must be paid in advance each month……..
…. who will now pay to get it turned back on
The EU…The USA…perhaps Tony Abbott world statesman(about $4billion dollars right away please !)
psephos@471: no, because I don’t agree that the US and other western countries are obliged to use military force to instigate regime change in every country with an oppressive regime.
As a policy, it hasn’t worked very well anywhere it has been tried.
Anyway, obnoxious though Syria is, I would rank it below a number of other countries: North Korea, Sudan and Zimbabwe immediately spring to mind. I guess your failure to propose military intervention in these countries means I should suggest that you take responsibility for their human rights abuses.
Mate, you are pushing the proverbial substance uphill with this Libs of argument.
[Nelson and Smith are the only ministers in recent times the Department has had any respect for.]
What was their problem with Faulkner?
[Do you think the current police action by Israel is fair? ]
Hamas claims to be at war with Israel. In support of that claim, they attack Israeli cities with missiles, intended to kill civilians at random. Israel pays them the respect due to military opponents by bombing them whenever their launch sites can be identified.
[Astrobleme
“Psephos, you seem to be saying that military intervention in these places makes it better. This may be true for a few years, but not in the long term. Can you give an example where this sort of intervention has succeeded?”
Japan. Germany.]
Care to explain the comparison and why it was effective and would be effective?
[
Psephos
Posted Monday, June 16, 2014 at 9:31 pm | Permalink
Can you give an example where this sort of intervention has succeeded?
World War II.
]
Followed by a effort to rebuild the countries destroyed. Heard a nice quote on that subject the other day. “That is why they lost the war and won the argument”
Germany and a Japan don’t really count, do they? Both these nations attacked and invaded western countries (and/or their colonies). Saddam did do this in Kuwait, but we then let him carry on for a decade before suddenly invading Iraq on a bogus pretext.
The people now attacking Iraq are the sworn enemies of President Assad, but Psephos would have us believe that deposing Assad would somehow have made them go away.
WeWantPaul
“Care to explain the comparison and why it was effective and would be effective?”
I have to do a cost/benefit analysis on removing Hitler?
[
Psephos
Posted Monday, June 16, 2014 at 9:33 pm | Permalink
..
Israel pays them the respect due to military opponents by bombing them whenever their launch sites can be identified.
]
So might is right, why have sympathy for either side?
[Anyway, obnoxious though Syria is, I would rank it below a number of other countries: North Korea, Sudan and Zimbabwe immediately spring to mind. I guess your failure to propose military intervention in these countries means I should suggest that you take responsibility for their human rights abuses.]
But I do propose military intervention in these countries. Unfortunately, I don’t have the ability to get governments to do what I want.
[I have to do a cost/benefit analysis on removing Hitler?]
Lets keep it simple for a while, who is the new hitler we should be removing?
frednk
“So might is right, why have sympathy for either side?”
How much sympathy does Hamas have for anyone that isn’t kissing Allah’s ass five times a day?
What a lovely start to QandA, a question about friendships across the political divide!
Pity it aint possible here, eh?
WeWantPaul
“Lets keep it simple for a while, who is the new hitler we should be removing?”
If we’re looking for murderous, totalitarian, imperialistic ideologies to target, ISIS’ version of Islamism is a good place to start.
[How much sympathy does Hamas have for anyone that isn’t kissing Allah’s ass five times a day?]
I don’t know but perhaps if Israel stopped murdering them at will more moderate views might emerge.
Prof Juan Cole on Iraq
——————-Prof Cole looks at 7 myths re Iraq that the popular media speaks off..and which in his”Informed Opinion” column he sees a wrong and misleading in the current crisis there
http://www.juancole.com/2014/06/myths-radical-advance.html
WeWantPaul
“I don’t know but perhaps if Israel stopped murdering them at will more moderate views might emerge.”
You strike me as someone who hasn’t read Hamas’ founding constitution.
[I don’t know but perhaps if Israel stopped murdering them at will more moderate views might emerge.]
That’s just an outright lie.
@Mod Lib/491
Sure, when someone’s job is more secure than others on a higher wage, right?
The IPA type starts off in true form. Whay have him on?
zoidlord:
I really struggle to follow your logic……it sometimes makes me wonder whether it is there to find at all.
[BK
Posted Monday, June 16, 2014 at 9:46 pm | PERMALINK
The IPA type starts off in true form. Whay have him on?]
To hear different views, perhaps?
Not everyone wants a never ending echo chamber…