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| Blue numbers indicate size of two-party Liberal polling booth majorities. Click for larger image. Map boundaries courtesy of Ben Raue at The Tally Room. |
Menzies covers eastern Melbourne suburbs from Bulleen at the western end through Templestowe, Doncaster, Donvale and Warrandyte to Wonga Park and Croydon North at the eastern end. It was created with the expansion of parliament in 1984, prior to which the area had been divided between Diamond Valley in the west and Casey in the east. At the time of its creation it extended northwards to Eltham, but this area was exchanged for the Warrandyte end of the electorate in 1996. The entire area is solid or better for the Liberals, who have held the seat at all times by margins of no less than 5.4%. The present margin of 14.5% is the highest in the electorate’s history, following consecutive swings of 2.7% against the statewide trend in 2010 and 5.8% in 2013.
The inaugural member for Menzies was Neil Brown, who had held Diamond Valley from 1969 to 1972 and again from 1975 to 1983, having lost the seat with the defeats of Coalition governments on both occasions. Established in the safe new seat of Menzies from 1985, he served as the party’s deputy leader under John Howard from 1985 to 1987. Brown retired in February 1991 and was succeeded by Kevin Andrews, who won the by-election held the following May without opposition from the Labor Party.
Noted for his religious convictions and social conservatism, Andrews came to prominence when he spearheaded a successful push to overturn Northern Territory euthanasia laws in federal parliament. He was promoted to the outer ministry as Ageing Minister after the 2001 election and then to cabinet in October 2003, serving first as Workplace Relations Minister during the introduction of WorkChoices and then as Immigration Minister from January 2007 until the government’s defeat the following November, in which time he was dogged by the Muhamed Haneef affair.
Andrews was dropped from the Coalition front bench after the November 2007 election defeat, but returned as Shadow Families, Housing and Human Services Minister when Tony Abbott became leader in December 2009. He had played a key role in Abbott’s rise to the leadership, having made a tokenistic challenge to Turnbull’s leadership a week earlier in protest against his support for the Rudd government’s emissions trading scheme. Andrews was back in cabinet following the election of Abbott’s government in September 2013 in the role of Social Services Minister, a newly packaged portfolio encompassing aged care, multicultural affairs and settlement services.
Boerwar:
Gosford’s report of the first term NT CLP govt illustrates the very definition of dysfunction. It makes the Burke years look mature and competent.
So just logged onto MyGov to check out this new MyTax feature which seems easier to do than the old eTax. Horrors of horrors, my name is wrong for some weird reason and I have a different medicare card number on it.. Plus claims for medical treatments I don’t recall having.. WTF?
Welcome back Master from one apprentice and I am sure the other will agree. Glad you had a good time BK
Martin @ 886
[“Ed Milliband is farked if the Scots break away from England. Labor would be permanently in opposition without the 40 seat advantage they get over the Tories from Scotland.”]
From the Wee Blue Book:
[Questions
Q: “But won’t we be abandoning the people of the rest
of the UK to permanent Conservative rule?”
A: No. Scottish votes almost never make any difference to the outcome of UK elections, and when they do it’s a very small and short-lived one. Scottish independence will NOT condemn the rest of the UK to permanent Conservative governments – almost every Labour government since WW2 would still have had a comfortable majority without any Scottish votes.
(For example, in 1997 Labour would still have had a huge majority of 139 seats if all Scottish votes had been removed. Even in 2005 it would have had a comfortable majority of 43 seats without Scottish votes, rather than the 66 seat majority it actually got.)]

[@Dan_Bourchier: BREAKING NT Chief Adam Giles put his position on the line in a government meeting – declaring all leadership roles open @SkyNewsAust]
BW
It’s not the VFL, it’s the AFL.
They need to join the rest of the world of professional sport rather than pandering to spoilt Victorian clubs.
If Barcelona, Real Madrid and the New York Giants can have alternate strips, AFL teams from Victoria can do the same.
Jackol / confessions:
[Without paying too much attention I was under the impression that this MRRT repeal bill is different to the last one, and thus couldn’t be a trigger bill yet.
Could be wrong.]
This one is different, but the original MRRT bill is still before the Senate and a potential trigger, having been originally knocked back in March and subsequently re-introduced in June.
Some weird things happening in Darwin tonight
[Former NT deputy chief minister Dave Tollner will ask for his old job back at a Country Liberals Party meeting on Monday, a week after he resigned over homophobic slurs uttered to a staffer.
He told Darwin radio station Mix 104.9 that he had considered leaving the party if his colleagues did not vote for him to return as deputy and treasurer.
Mr Tollner said he felt he had no choice but to resign last Friday after members of his own party leaked a private conversation during which he called a staffer a “shirt lifter” and a “pillow biter”.
“Look I wasn’t getting any support from my colleagues and under those circumstances I thought there was no other option,” he said.
“And I have to say it was my option, it was my call. Members of my own team were out there attacking me publicly.
“I could not believe it, particularly when those members of the team knew the inside story.”
]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-01/clp-names-new-deputy-peter-chandler/5707856
Martin
A 40 seat head start would be a big advantage, even in a parliament of about 600 members.
Apologies, the extract above is from last week, today in Dawrin however
[Updated 9 minutes agoMon 1 Sep 2014, 9:12pm
The NT Government has named its new deputy to replace Dave Tollner, who resigned amid a gay slur controversy.
Peter Chandler, the current Minister for Education and Lands, Planning and the Environment, was voted in at tonight’s CLP Parliamentary Wing meeting at Parliament House.
Mr Tollner reportedly did not show at the meeting.
]
907
I hope Abbott goes mad and pulls the DD trigger(s).
Dio
You might say that but the AFL is not some sort of neocon libertarian outfit.
Raaraa@902
I think the problem may be that you have logged onto the wrong PB account :-/
I’ve just spent nearly 2 hours browsing through the HIP RC Report.
I suspect we’ll hear very little about the report from the MSM and less, probably zero, from the Abbotteers.
This has been a huge waste of public money and Abbott will be very disappointed. Probably the major findings are that the deceased workers had either no or drastically insufficient training even as measured against the meagre training required by the program.
In the case of two, the Commish endorses the Coroners’ findings that the employers breached various workplace safety laws.
In the third case, the lad who died of heat exhaustion was not even an employee of the contractor ….. he’d just turned up to fill in for a mate …… a private arrangement between the two. So slack was this employer that anyone could turn up and do the job.
In the fourth case the death was caused by an electrical wiring fault perpetrated years prior by a lecko when the house was being built. A metal ceiling batten to which the gyprock was attached had been for years electrified, and was waiting to capture a victim ever since the house was built.
Clearly the use of metal house frames in combination with foil insulation, both aspects being quite independent of the HIP, were practices also lying in wait for victims.
So as any person with half a brain has observed years ago, the major issue was clearly one of employers breaching various workplace safety laws, breaching their common law duty of care to their staff, and breaching training requirements of the HIP, rough and ready as those requirements were prior to the death.
The only substantial training requirement was related to electricity management in roof spaces and the important need to switch it off, and even this paltry step was ignored by the bosses.
The Report simply does not contain what Abbott wanted …… there is no catalogue of criticisms of Labor politicians.
So one down, one to go. With an ounce of luck Abbott’s TURC will similarly turn out to be nothing like what he intends. And more than the HIP RC, it might actually and seriously shoot Abbott in his own foot.
Boerwar
Stop being silly!
Of the course the Victorian teams should wear an away costume when they do their entertainment away.
Sheez…
Sure, but your comment of “permanent opposition” was clearly overblown, considering that on past results it would have made a difference only once in living memory.
Tollner’s political career does rather seem to be headed towards a nadir.
Truth to tell, Dave is not the brightest star in the heavens.
Still, he could go and sit on his own in the NT parliament where he would effectively exercise a BOP.
It would be fun while it lasts.
BW
[You might say that but the AFL is not some sort of neocon libertarian outfit.]
The AFL should have the same rules for all teams. That’s just a basic principle of fairness.
centre
That is exactly the trouble with the footie colonies. They get rude and uppity.
Dio
[The AFL should have the same rules for all teams. That’s just a basic principle of fairness.]
Fairness? Que?
caf:
Thank you.
Btw do I need to also thank you for helping me resolve my recent malware issues? If so, then thanks so much for your links. Not only did I resolve the recent malware infection, but that program got rid of myriad other malware infections unbeknown to me, and as a result my laptop works a heckuva lot faster now. 🙂
caf
It was a rhetorical flourish.
Oh the precious Victorian teams don’t want to wear a different costume on an away stage…
Pathetic!
caf
Like the comments on the jumpers imbroglio.
BW
One day the AFL might even stop rigging the draw to maximise attendance and actually pretend to make it fair (I should add that Adelaide had a very favourable draw this year and we were still too pathetic to make the finals).
[Tollner’s political career does rather seem to be headed towards a nadir.]
*Bursts out laughing*
God I love your sense of humour. Don’t ever change!
😆
Hawthorn would look good in a nice brown and yellow blouse with a pink away strip…would suit them well 😀
In breaking news, Abbott declares war on Absurdistan.
Shorten supports him 100%, all the way with TA, while Milne declares that the Greens will monotonise if Abbott goes ahead with his stunt du jour.
Too true Dr Diogs, too true!
Player One 913
[I think the problem may be that you have logged onto the wrong PB account]
Oh silly me! I thought this was the MyGov support desk!
Rigged up with the softest run in the calendar and the Crows supporters still find something to whinge about.
Let’s face it, if the fixture wasn’t rigged, the Crows would have first draft pick this year.
[818
shellbell
The World Congress of Families should convene next in Harare.]
And stay there.
Taking Scotland out of the election results:
The current parliament would be majority Tory rather than hung (but Cameron still PM)
The Oct 1974 election would have been hung, rather than Labour majority (but Wilson still PM)
The 1964 election would have narrowly re-elected Douglas-Home rather than narrowly electing Wilson.
No other changes to control of Parliament since at least 1929.
centre
Hawthorn may be big girls’ blouses but, by Crikey, they know how to kick a footie; which is more than you can say for the turf-toed villeins from South Oz.
BW
Aren’t they still giving the priority picks to the “expansion teams”?
The Mooners are out in force again I see?
This is NOT another Iraq war. The least the US, UK and Aust can do is to provide some assistance to the mess that they themselves created.
The Monkey is to blame for milking it all he can for political purposes – that is all!
I fully support Obama and his actions.
Greens? Read L-OO-NS.
I hear that ISIS is planning to run a team in the AFL next year. The team motto will be ‘Death and Glory’.
The umpies had better clean up their act.
From a state that allows the buffon Eddie to dominate their media….
Eddie complained to the AFL about the amount of travel the Pies have to do over season. He asked that they change the rule about changing ends each quarter
Boer
Swans v Cats GF
Dio
I don’t think so.
It was kind of cruel that Victorian teams that were in the team-building phase of their cycles were gutted by the priority picks given to the expansion teams; not to mention the COL bonus given to Sinny; and not to mention all the moolah that went into interstate grounds etc, etc, etc.
It is a wonder that the Victorian AFL teams did not whinge about that.
C
Any two of the top four, methinks, depending on injuries and reports, with Norf as the dark horse.
At Moscow airport duty free, the Lying Friar has made it big time
@Quiet__Please: LOL Abbott Banned from buying Duty Free by Putin
#NoDutyFreeForAbbott
#auspol http://t.co/x098PJIIwk http://t.co/fNvu9X9j9D
Supplying the Kurds with munitions and weapons.
I thought Abbott was cutting foreign aid
Martin
That argument is a bit moot. Scotland used to be split a lot more evenly between Labour and Tory but now the disparity is huge.
The effect on future elections would be a lot more than on past elections.
Vladivostok actually
More Jakarta, Less Geneva was another lie
It is a wonder that the Victorian AFL teams did not whinge about that.
deaf ear to Eddie and his fellow team leaders??
So it’s OK for Christine Milne to see thousands of Northern Iraqis exterminated from the mess the West created without providing any assistance?
WOW, talk about out of sight, out of mind!
sprocket
I had an Abbottian supporter whinge to me about how there were huge mobs of kangaroos eating honest Queensland pastoralists out of house and home because of that bastard Putin.
‘Yairrssse,’ I reckoned, ‘You would have to wonder why Abbott thought it was worthwhile to wreck the kangaroo shooting industry by throwing sand in Putin’s face.’
‘Abbott must have a reason,’ I reckoned.
It turns out that my interlocutor had not quite twigged that there was a connection between who Abbott has been bad-mouthing and the Great Queensland Kangaroo Plague.
BW
You could argue that the draft pick system is basically communist and completely unfair as it rewards mediocrity and penalises success.
[Centre
Posted Monday, September 1, 2014 at 9:45 pm | Permalink
So it’s OK for Christine Milne to see thousands of Northern Iraqis exterminated from the mess the West created without providing any assistance?
WOW, talk about out of sight, out of mind!]
That is exactly what Bolt spent a whole column fulminating about. I have to hand it to you war mongering idiots.
Pontius Pilate hand washing, and the old unicorn techniques get worked over time and time again.