Seat of the week: Jagajaga

Covering the eastern reaches of Melbourne, the electorate of Jagajaga has provided a reasonably secure electoral base for Jenny Macklin’s parliamentary career since 1996.

Jenny Macklin’s electorate of Jagajaga was created with the expansion of parliament in 1984, and covers suburbs in north-eastern Melbourne from Heidelberg and Ivanhoe out to North Warrandyte in the east. Its present area was mostly in the electorate of Bourke from federation until 1926, which accounted for northern Melbourne including Brunswick and Reservoir; Flinders and Indi from 1922 to 1937, which respectively covered its western suburban and eastern interior regions; Deakin from its recreation in 1937 until 1955, at which time Ivanhoe was absorbed by Batman; and Diamond Valley in its eastern parts from 1969 to 1984. When created in 1984, Jagajaga extended north to Bundoora and had the Yarra River as its eastern boundary, with Eltham and its surrounds accommodated by Casey and Menzies. Its present configuration was largely adopted at the redistribution which took effect at the 1996 election.

Red and blue numbers respectively indicate size of two-party booth majorities for Labor and Liberal. Click for larger image. Map boundaries courtesy of Ben Raue at The Tally Room.

Jagajaga was in part the successor to abolished Diamond Valley, although that seat’s extension into rural areas further to the north made it a marginal seat that went with the government of the day at each election during an existence that ran from 1969 to 1984. Diamond Valley was won narrowly for Labor in 1983 by Peter Staples at the expense of Liberal incumbent Neil Brown, who would return to parliament in 1984 as member for Menzies and later became deputy Liberal leader (and was more recently a contentious appointment to the panel that appoints ABC board directors). Staples secured the considerably more accommodating electoral territory of Jagajaga in 1984, which had a notional Labor margin of 8.4%, and retained the seat until his retirement in 1996, in which time his closest shave was a 2.6% winning margin amid the Victorian anti-Labor backlash of 1990.

Staples was succeeded by Jenny Macklin, a former researcher and state ministerial staffer and member of the Socialist Left. Macklin retained the seat by 2.7% on her electoral debut and secured slightly stronger margins over the the next three elections. After the 2001 election she rose to the position of deputy leader, a position she maintained until Kim Beazley was deposed by Kevin Rudd in December 2006, at which point she made way for Julia Gillard. Macklin also exchanged her education portfolio for family and community services and indigenous affairs, which retained without interruption throughout the six-year saga of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government. The only change to her workload in government was an exchange of housing for disability reform in December 2011. This continuity has been maintained in opposition, albeit that she relinquished indigenous affairs and families and community services was rebadged as families and payments. In the meantime, Macklin secured her hold on Jagajaga with strong successive swings in 2007 and 2010, respectively pushing her margin out to 9.0% and 11.5%, before a forceful 8.1% swing to the Liberals in 2013 pared it back to 3.1%.

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.

1,057 comments on “Seat of the week: Jagajaga”

Comments Page 5 of 22
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  1. What Fran is trying to say is that lying is always bad but betraying someone’s personal trust in you is good if you get a chance to make a fool out of them and you still get a good tip.

  2. zoidlord
    I wonder what the first court will do when the first burglar claims, as a defence, that he had run out of money for food, clothing and shelter.

  3. Boerwar, don’t be mean. She could just not have mentioned it and asked him questions in a neutral/friendly fashion because she was interested in the answers without a whole bunch of irrelevant stuff being brought into the conversation.

  8. [The couple who established one of Perth’s best-known Indian restaurant chains have been accused of running a visa scam where fellow Indians have allegedly been charged up to $50,000 each to jump the migration queue.

    The Immigration Department has confirmed it is investigating Maya Masala founders Bhupinder Singh Grewal and his wife Parveen Kaur Grewal over claims they have been selling access to 457 visas and jobs in their restaurants.

    Mr and Mrs Grewal, who are going through a divorce, have denied the allegations.]
    https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/24675397/couple-accused-of-457-visa-scam/

  9. [ Boerwar

    Posted Sunday, August 10, 2014 at 1:39 pm | Permalink

    DN
    I was tempted to deney ever having been mean. But that would have been a lie.
    ]

    ———————————————-

    My all time favourite was our dear troll friend Sean ( who I suspect comes here under a range of sock puppet names ) who enlightened us with this gem :

    Sean Tisme

    Posted Wednesday, November 27, 2013 at 3:41 pm

    There is a big difference between lying and not telling the complete truth

  10. [Mr Hewson said that the budget had been “visibly inequitable” and no overall strategy was put forward that helped people to understand things such as the doctor co-payment and changes to university fees.
    He also believes that the Abbott Government underestimated how flat the economy was, and that it had now used up so much of its political capital that it would struggle to get voters to trust it to deliver tough reforms in the future.]

    http://www.news.com.au/finance/business/john-hewson-says-joe-hockeys-unpopular-budget-wont-fix-soaring-unemployment-figures/story-fnda1bsz-1227018278096

  11. So apparently George Osborne in UK is going to spend the welfare budget on Science/Infrastructure/etc.

    http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/aug/05/george-osborne-15bn-investment-five-northern-cities

    “A political consensus has emerged to invest billions of pounds to create a “great” city constellation in the north of England, George Osborne has claimed, promising to support a call from five northern cities for a £15bn investment over five years in science, transport and infrastructure.”

    Instead of spending money on the welfare that he cut previously (12 billion pounds)….

    So let’s do the maths.

    He takes 12 billion pounds from welfare cuts.
    Then he’s going to spend 15 billion pounds on making more congestion in already populated areas..

    So the budget has a 3 billion dollar pound hole in it, sounds like a typical Tory/LNP budget screw up.

  12. badcat

    [There is a big difference between lying and not telling the complete truth]

    My old boss Sir Robert Armstrong in the NSW Supreme Court admitting to being ‘economical with the truth’. (‘Spycatcher’ matter and Truffles bowling. Robert snicking lots of potential catches before the ‘Caught and bowled’).

  16. [ Boerwar

    Posted Sunday, August 10, 2014 at 2:02 pm | Permalink

    Could it be that the only difference between lying and not lying is being caught at it?
    ]

    ———————————————–

    In ‘The Blues Brothers ‘

    Jake: You lied to me.
    Elwood: It wasn’t a lie, it was just bullshit.

  17. Bw

    I’m absolutely sure Baron Armstrong of Ilminster wouldn’t lie to a court.

    He was just not ‘telling’ stuff that was not ‘pertinent’ to the matter.

  23. zoid

    [Reserve Bank signals jobless rate could remain high for two years]

    I’ve got to say being ‘jobless’ is working for me personally. But then I’m mid to late 50s with 30 years worth of superannuation paying out.

    I have strong sympathy for others not so fortunate.

  24. Boerwar @ 213
    I had already qualified Fran’s declaration with “to the best of her knowledge” – i.e. she had yet to catch herself lying – so nothing has changed in any case.

  25. Henry Louis Stimson US Secretary of State

    [“Gentlemen don’t read each other’s mail.” ]

    A little later he changed his mind (Pearl Harbour may have slightly influenced his thinking on this).

    Metadata, smetadata, WTF.

  28. I missed this Piece by Jack Waterford from a couple of days ago.

    [The Abbott government is getting pretty close to the point of no return. It has two years to repair its disastrous standing with voters but, with the slide in leadership, and followership that was evident this week, it is clear that it doesn’t have a moment to lose.]

    Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/no-short-cuts-with-political-leadership-20140808-101wuq.html#ixzz39xfhS8L2

  29. Point is: there is no such thing as a person who never lies. It is fundamental to being human (i.e. it is a deeply evolved behaviour). We also lie to ourselves. Holding the belief that “I never lie” is a good example of self-deception bordering on delusion. Better to say “I try to resist lying whenever I detect the impulse to deceive.”

  30. [218
    zoidlord

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-08/reserve-bank-signals-jobless-rate-could-remain-high/5657600

    “In its quarterly update on the Australian economy, the central bank cautions that unemployment will be “elevated for some time yet” before gradually declining in 2016.”]

    The weakness in the labour market is attributable to slack per capita income growth. Real incomes have been shrinking recently, suggesting that labour demand will fade further in coming quarters. Unless productivity and investment start to improve it will not be possible for income growth to revive, reinforcing the trend weakness in the labour market that has been evident since 2011.

    The increase in unemployment may also portend more dangerous developments in the economy. While changes in the labour market are usually taken to be a lagging indicator of economic activity, rises in unemployment may also signal future general weakness in the economy – that is, unless the sequence of increases in unemployment is arrested, we should expect economic growth to flatten out or possibly turn into contraction.

    Considering the LNP are determined to reduce the effective incomes of more than half the households in the economy, the risk is their policies will induce a recession in household demand. They clearly do not understand the economy and really have no effective policies in place to support labour demand, grow household incomes or improve the fiscal position.

  31. Vic #170

    “Are Australians generally focussed on the MH17 tragedy?”

    Certainly a fading focus ….. that’s why Abbott is in Netherlands, to spark it up a bit.

    “Abbott global leader” is more advantageous than “Abbott’s shocking budget” on the nightly News; all the better if you can con the electorate to believe it, but I think fewer and fewer are believing him.

  32. Richard Nixon is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he’d lie just to keep his hand in.

    Harry S. Truman

  34. [ CTar1

    Posted Sunday, August 10, 2014 at 3:11 pm | Permalink

    badcat

    Richard Nixon is a no good, lying bastard.

    So, a typical politician.
    ]

    ——————————————–

    Monty Python :

    John: Oh, I say, have you seen page eight? Nixon’s had an asshole transplant.

    Terry: Ohhh, have you seen the stop press then?

    John: No.

    Terry: The asshole has rejected him.

  35. badcat

    😆

    The ‘no good, lying bastard’ comment, I think, came after some goings on in the ‘House Un-American Activities Committee’.

  36. PBers being “holier than though” about lying and posting on a psephological site is rather ironic.

    After all, “There are lies, damned lies and statistics!”

  38. [ CTar1

    Posted Sunday, August 10, 2014 at 3:24 pm | Permalink

    badcat

    The ‘no good, lying bastard’ comment, I think, came after some goings on in the ‘House Un-American Activities Committee’.
    ]

    ———————————————-

    I was reading an article the other day about Harry Truman …. some old papers he had written … and he was a real piece of work beyond his “folksy” image

    ( here if interested

    http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1755&dat=19820523&id=Rp4cAAAAIBAJ&sjid=MGgEAAAAIBAJ&pg=4964,3909350 )

    In fact if one delves into – say the 13 post WW 2 Presidents – Truman, Eisenhour, etc etc ……you find they were all kinda ‘flawed’ in some way ….. maybe its true for ALL politicians as you say,Ctar1 ???????

  40. Abbott’s like a spoiled brat with the attention span of a goldfish

    MH370 had his attention until he got bored and it wasn’t exciting anymore. So like a child tired of toy he gave it to someone else.

    MH17 now has him all excited and has attention. No only a plane, but one caused by rebels shooting missiles, and he can take the opportunity to threaten a country with enough military might Australia could be crushed like some annoying bug.

    With the attention span of a goldfish he has forgotten that he is meant to be governing Australia, not racing around involving himself in ’emergency’ services.

  41. Badcat

    Trueman congratulating Eisenhower on being re-elected in late 1956 (a year I know a bit about):

    [ I also hope you’ll go to Egypt and Palestine and perhaps to Hungary and Poland in order to surrender to the Kremlin as you did in Korea in 1953.]

    😆

  42. US airstrikes in Iraq are destroying equipment…

    …provided to the Iraqi army by the US and abandoned in panic attacks pursuant to ISIS terror.

  45. Boerwar

    ISIS captured a couple of new helicopters the Americans had given the Iraqi army. A cheeky ISIS fighter tweeted that they will insist “the Americans honor the warranty”.

  47. Truman and sacking MacArthur in Korea :

    On Apr. 6 a meeting was held with Truman to determine how to get rid of MacArthur. Truman insisted “I’m going to fire the son of a bitch right now”. MacArthur was ordered to turnover his command at once to Lt. General Ridgway. General Bradley warned Truman that if MacArthur heard about the orders before they reached him officially he might resign with an arrogant flair. Truman exclaimed “The son of a bitch isn’t going to resign on me, I want him fired”. MacArthur’s dismissal was announced on late night radio:

    Miller:

    Mr. President, I know why you fired MacArthur, but if you don’t mind I’d like to hear it in your own words.

    Truman:

    I fired him because he wouldn’t respect the authority of the President. That’s the answer to that. I didn’t fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that’s not against the laws for generals. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be in jail.

  48. badcat

    Harry S sacked MacArthur because Eisenhower manipulated him into doing it rather than the ‘should have been reason’. Truman really full of piss and wind.

    Eisenhower traveling well until November 1956 (sick, election campaign and the aftermath of Suez). A few days after being re-elected he woke up and realized he’d fucked up royally. But there was no turning back burgeoning US weapons manufacturing and the need for aggression and ‘use’ to make them profitable.

  49. [ CTar1

    Posted Sunday, August 10, 2014 at 4:06 pm | Permalink

    badcat

    But there was no turning back burgeoning US weapons manufacturing and the need for aggression and ‘use’ to make them profitable.
    ]

    —————————————————–

    ….. mmmmm …..and its deja vu …. gotta keep those ‘war industries’ profits ticking over ….

    Geez …. lets sell some of them F-35 Joint Strike Jet Fighters to them dumbshit Aussie hicks downunder …. they are always good for flogging off the used crap we have lying around making zero $$$$$

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