Created with the expansion of parliament in 1984, Goldstein covers coastal southern Melbourne starting from Brighton, located about 10 kilometres from the city centre, and proceeding southwards through Hampton, Sandringham and Black Rock to Beamaris. The northern part of the electorate extends inland beyond the Nepean Highway to accommodate Caulfield South, Bentleigh and surrounding suburbs. The more inland areas are naturally marginal, but the affluence of the coastal suburbs has kept the seat in Liberal hands by stable margins ranging from 5.5% in 1993 to a new high of 11.0% in 2013.
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| Blue and red numbers respectively indicate size of two-party majorities for Liberal and Labor. Click for larger image. Map boundaries courtesy of Ben Raue at The Tally Room. |
The area now covered by Goldstein was accommodated by the electorate of Balaclava in the years immediately after federation, and then by the new seat of Henty when Balaclava was pushed northwards by a redistribution in 1913. Brighton was put back into Balaclava after 1937, and the new seat of Higinbotham covered the remainder after parliament was expanded in 1949. When Higinbotham was abolished in 1969, the area was divided between Balaclava, Henty and the new seats of Hotham and Isaacs. Beaumaris and Black Rock remained in Isaacs after Goldstein was created in 1984, at which time the new electorate extended northwards to St Kilda East. It assumed a more familiar form when it absorbed Beaumaris in the redistribution of 1996, which greatly reduced the Liberals’ competitiveness in Isaacs.
The various electorates which dominated the modern area of Goldstein were at all times in conservative hands, with the partial exception of Labor’s win in Isaacs at the 1974 election. Don Chipp held Higinbotham for the Liberals from 1960 to 1969, at which time he moved to the new seat of Hotham. Balaclava and then Goldstein were held from 1974 to 1990 by Ian Macphee, who emerged as the figurehead of the party’s moderates. Macphee was ultimately defeated for preselection ahead of the 1990 election by David Kemp, an intellectual leader of the party’s rising neo-liberal tendency, an event that provided a catalyst for Andrew Peacock’s successful challenge to John Howard’s leadership in May 1989. Kemp went on to serve in the Howard cabinet from October 1997 until his retirement at the 2004 election, as Education Minister until 2001 and Environment Minister thereafter.
Goldstein has since been held by Andrew Robb, a former Liberal Party federal director who had long been spoken of as a potential candidate for safe seats in New South Wales, where he had lived for two decades. However, Robb had originally hailed from Victoria, having been raised in a working-class Catholic family that supported the Democratic Labor Party. He came to the Liberal Party via student politics and a job at the newly established National Farmers Federation, which was an assertive voice for labour market deregulation during his period as executive director after 1985. As federal director of the Liberal Party, Robb oversaw the 1990, 1993 and 1996 election campaigns, after which he set up the marketing company Acxiom for Kerry Packer. His first term in parliament was the last of the Howard government, in which he was promoted to parliamentary secretary in January 2006 and thence to the outer ministry as Vocational and Further Education Minister in January 2007.
Robb nominated for the deputy leadership after the 2007 election, but was defeated by Julie Bishop. He instead became Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister, and was briefly discussed as a leadership candidate when Malcolm Turnbull was embroiled in the “Utegate” affair in the middle of 2009. Shortly afterwards he made the surprise announcement that he was moving to the back bench owing to a depressive illness. He returned to the front bench in the finance portfolio in March 2010, from which he was resassigned to trade and investment after the 2013 election victory.
The ‘broken promises’ thing also ignores the difference between perception and policy.
To use, for example, my bete noir Sophie Mirabella.
As Shadow Industry minister, she put out a stream of media releases about Labor cuts to the car industry.
Reading them, any reasonable person would infer that she intended to not only reverse Labor’s cuts but to increase funding.
Meanwhile, the Liberal stated policy was to make more cuts to the industry than Labor had.
An ordinary person, however, reading/listening to Mirabella would have a different perception.
Of course, it was the media’s job to point out these disconnects….
Centre
Watch the Tory spivs come out of the woodwork to run work for the dole programs. They will dream up meaningless work and charge a fat fee for organising the jobs.
Absolutely beautiful winter’s day here in Sydney.
It appears as if climate change is just taking a breather and ready to resume proper activity in a century or two I’m sure.
[@PierreCrom: Black smoke above the #MH17 crash site. Ukrainian and rebels tanks on the site]
What could go wrong sending in unarmed AFP personnel?
This is a war zone where the niceties of the UN and agreements with whoever are not worth a cracker.
[What could go wrong sending in unarmed AFP personnel?
This is a war zone where the niceties of the UN and agreements with whoever are not worth a cracker.]
ABC said you just need a “fixer” and it is easy as to get to the site!
Surely to goodness now the waste of time, money and effort to send all those personnel overseas to aid MH17 for nothing, and merely to support Abbott’s puff up ego, must be sheeted home to him are a total overplay of his hand.
Apart from the fact it was unlikely any “foreign” (armed or unarmed) uniformed police would be allowed to act as a quasi-guard by anyone, the risk to the lives of these personnel was something which could not be supported.
I see from BBC, the Dutch have cancelled any attempts to put their personnel on the ground as the fighting is too close.
When will Abbott “bring the troops/police home”? What is the number now 100, 150 more?
rossmcg
I believe people should be earning or learning. I’m against work for the dole in principle because if the work is legitimate – somebody is getting a freebie.
Work for the dole? Pay them the minimum wage and all sweet. If not, the job fails to exist 😯
Of course, good for the monkey to win a few votes – that is all!
Centre
We get it, you’re a climate skeptic in the fine tradition of Tony Abbott, Nick Minchin and The Tea Party. Congratulations and everything, but you don’t need to go around dropping lame little hints to this effect, we get it.
twaddle
Have a look at the weather? If we don’t get a scorcher of a spring and summer, I’m switching 😈
[@PierreCrom: Mission to #MH17 site cancelled for today. Dutch military police now in meeting in Donetsk. Heavy armed Pro Russian soldiers outside hotel]
So who does Abbott blame in his presser tomorrow?
The rebels? The Ukrainians? Putin? The Dutch?
Only a total idiot, in this day and age, would be a AGW Sceptic.
And to make matters worse, the difference between what one offered on one news site and another continues.
Earlier in the AFP categorically stated armed personnel would go into the MH17 crash zone. This was totally at odds with ABC news of unarmed personnel going in. This was maybe 3 hours ago.
Now we have BBC stating quite categorically that the Dutch have cancelled any attempt to get to the crash site due to the deteriorating war zone situation. The BBC points out that the move to get personnel in is ‘Dutch led’.
Meanwhile good old ABC, has noted that the insertion of the personnel has merely been “delayed”…
Who can believe anything these days?
[761
Yesiree Bob
Posted Sunday, July 27, 2014 at 9:17 pm | PERMALINK
Only a total idiot, in this day and age, would be a AGW Sceptic.]
Tony Abbott is an AGW sceptic QED
sprocket_
I think we can blame the Ukraine army. They chose to attack just as the investigators were about to go in. Till now the crash site had been free of fighting.
Donetsk is under heavy attack from the army at the mo so I dare say “heavily armed pro Russian soldiers ” would be thick on the ground in the city.
[When will Abbott “bring the troops/police home”? What is the number now 100, 150 more?]
Abbott could have a full parade down Pitt Street and take the salute.
sprocket_@763
Indeed, as is Andrew Blot, nuff said.
[So who does Abbott blame in his presser tomorrow?
The rebels? The Ukrainians? Putin? The Dutch?]
His own over-reach perhaps?
[Abbott could have a full parade down Pitt Street and take the salute.]
A Mardi Gras float!
You read it here first. 😀
When Newspoll comes out we can calculate the cost per percentage point change.
[In a second statement on Saturday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Washington shared responsibility for the crisis.
“The United States continues to push Kiev into the forceful repression of Ukraine’s Russian-speaking population’s discontent. There is one conclusion – the Obama administration has some responsibility both for the internal conflict in Ukraine and its severe consequences,” the ministry said.
“Judging by the relentless slander campaign against Russia, organised by the American administration, they increasingly rely on sheer lies while conducting foreign policy,” it said, citing comments by White House spokesman Josh Earnest on Friday that President Vladimir Putin was “culpable”.
The ministry also said Washington had to answer questions posed by Russia’s Defence Ministry over the crash. On Monday, the Defence Ministry challenged the United States to produce satellite images to back its assertions that the pro-Russian separatists were to blame for downing the plane.]
Tricot
The AFP boss this morning’s presser categorically said they would be unarmed.
The OSCE site I linked a little while back conformed the cancellation . Something changed quickly as 15 minutes before the bulletin about the cancellation they had another bulletin announcing that the Dutch were about to go.
[A Mardi Gras float!]
In budgie smugglers. Well on a good global warming day 😀
[763
sprocket_
761
Yesiree Bob
Posted Sunday, July 27, 2014 at 9:17 pm | PERMALINK
Only a total idiot, in this day and age, would be a AGW Sceptic.
Tony Abbott is an AGW sceptic QED]
The use of the term “sceptic” is fraudulent. They are climate change cynics, dissemblers prepared to distort theory, facts and critical reason in order to make personal gains.
There was some talk here earlier of funerals of MH17 victims, and also of Mr Abbott as, in some sense, the national chief mourner.
If I had been on that plane, the one thing of which I could be certain is that if Mr Abbott tried to invite himself to my funeral, my relatives would make damn sure that he was uninvited straight away.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENgL1sMs6hE
I’ve been taking refuge in these sonatas for violin and piano, performed by Menuhin and Kempff.
pedant
That is a good point.
[774
pedant
There was some talk here earlier of funerals of MH17 victims, and also of Mr Abbott as, in some sense, the national chief mourner.
If I had been on that plane, the one thing of which I could be certain is that if Mr Abbott tried to invite himself to my funeral, my relatives would make damn sure that he was uninvited straight away.]
Abbott, the essence of partisan baiting and rancour, is now showing he is capable of gate-crashing the bereaved. He is a disgraceful imposter, abjectly unfit for the office he holds.
[Russian research satellite Foton-M4 was launched last Saturday (19 July) with a precious cargo of five geckos, insects and plants on board.
The orbiting geckos were expected to mate, allowing scientists from Russia’s Institute of Medico-Biological Problems to determine the effects of weightlessness on reptile reproduction.
But the research stalled when scientists reported on Thursday that their gecko sex satellite had gone AWOL and was not responding to commands. ]
http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news/20142607-25927-2.html
Um.
What?
pedant
If there was to be a “national chief mourner” the person for the job should be the GG. An apolitical person whose office represents all.
[If I had been on that plane, the one thing of which I could be certain is that if Mr Abbott tried to invite himself to my funeral, my relatives would make damn sure that he was uninvited straight away.]
Exactly. The ensuing media circus would be enough to turn me off having him there, regardless of what I thought of the man and his behaviour over the years.
There’s no point worrying about who might come to your funeral — by definition, you will be dead!
Are we expecting a Newspoll tonight?
[There’s no point worrying about who might come to your funeral — by definition, you will be dead!]
A funeral isn’t for the person who’s dead – they’re dead. It’s for the people left behind.
Tricot from a ways back
[The West had a sick-making editorial on the Tuesday of last week I think it was, telling us just how good our Great Leader is, and then on Wednesday a huge page one spread of Julie Bishop hailed a “Woman of Steel”. Equally sick-making.]
That Wednesday front cover of The West was indeed truly a complete shocker
briefly @ 777: Well, it hasn’t quite got to that point yet, and I doubt that it will, since the protocol people would have a role to play, and politicians won’t even go into a shopping mall during an election campaign without ensuring that potential critics have been cleared out.
When military personnel die in the line of duty, I guess having political leaders joining in the mourning is part of the deal, and families seem generally to accept it. But in cases like this, of death by frightful misadventure, I would have thought that sympathy would best be conveyed by a letter.
[Are we expecting a Newspoll tonight?]
My understanding is that Shannahan has asked them go out in the field again to get a sample “that better reflects the electorate’s goodwill towards Mr Abbott’s management of the MH17 crisis”. First sample apparently didn’t do this enough.
As a result, I am expecting 51-49 to Labor, and improved figures for Abbott.
I must also admit, on reflection, that I have a brother who would be perfectly happy to have Mr Abbott in the congregation at my funeral, since that would give him a unique opportunity in a eulogy to skewer Mr Abbott publicly, without the latter being able to run away.
Meanwhile…
http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/referendum-news/poll-17-would-consider-leaving-scotland-after-yes-vote.1406457133
“When undecided voters are excluded, the Yes vote stands at 46% and No support is at 54%.”
[I must also admit, on reflection, that I have a brother who would be perfectly happy to have Mr Abbott in the congregation at my funeral, since that would give him a unique opportunity in a eulogy to skewer Mr Abbott publicly, without the latter being able to run away.]
Would be a plucky move on his part!
Darren Laver@786
it’s a pretty big ask to expect the electorate to show goodwill towards Abbott, isn’t it ?
Darren Laver @786: Are you serious about that – as in do you have any evidence to support that proposition – or are you just enjoying a bit of leg-pulling on a Sunday night?
Darren Laver @ 789: As a hater, my brother leaves Mr Abbott for dead.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/dutch-police-travel-site-mh17-plane-disaster
POLICE VISIT TO MH17 DISASTER SITE CANCELED
[Darren Laver @786: Are you serious about that – as in do you have any evidence to support that proposition – or are you just enjoying a bit of leg-pulling on a Sunday nigh]
Like the Age, I am not going to give over the tapes! 😉
You will have to take my word for it.
Noticed on ABC tonight that the, “apply for 40 jobs per month” thing has been mentioned.
So, does anyone know where this idiot idea actually came from?? If they want to lose the business receptionist demographic i’d say this is the way to do it.
And once businesses put up “no entry to jobseekers” signs on their doors (so that they can actually get something done rather than spending half the day signing off peoples activity diaries) then how do people who are only getting the dole 6 months of the year (so they cant afford phones) actually apply for more than 1 job per day??
And what about when businesses get the sh$ts on and simply stop responding to all the inquiries and people cant get their activity records validated? Or they start telling Centerlink to naff off when they try and check up on peoples claims??
Did they just pull the number 40 out of their arses or is their some justification??
ABC headlines that govt has kept more promises than it has broken. 2 kept and 1 broken and a dozen still unknown? Headline bias if ever I saw it.
Darren L
How do you know Shanahan has requested another poll?
I’d be forecasting 52/48 with increased approval and preferred PM for Abbott.
lizzie
That was one of the most ludicrous stories I’ve ever seen on the ABC.
How long before ABC asks Abbott:
[Mr Abbott, your campaign has the momentum of a runaway freight train. Why are you so popular?]
If all that can be said for the government is that it’s kept more promises than it’s broken, that sounds a bit like your dog winning the medal for second best bitch in the show.