Seat of the week: Menzies

The 2013 election delivered the Liberal Party its biggest margin yet in the eastern Melbourne seat of Menzies, which it had held comfortably since its creation in 1984.

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.

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.

1,188 comments on “Seat of the week: Menzies”

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  3. [
    It never seems to happen to celebs who are at the top, just those suffering from publicity deprivation.
    ]

    Jennifer Lawrence is a victim and I doubt anyone would claim she is suffering from publicity deprivation.

  4. diogenes

    [Do they still have Jacobites? ]

    I’ve heard there are still a few Scots who, when toasting the Queen, pass their raised wine glass over a glass of water.

  7. BK Thanks for the Hugh White link. I was surprised that he was urging caution and praised Obama for it. Abbott is too keen to go with the uniforms.

    Seems as tho Joe is having a bad start to this week. Sick yesterday and today a stouch in the Party Room over GST.

    http://t.co/7tyONDthfn

  11. Dan

    Just because you haven’t heard of her doesn’t mean she isn’t a major celebrity who is “on the way up” so to speak.

    [
    At age 22, Lawrence’s performance as Tiffany Maxwell in the David O. Russell-directed romantic comedy Silver Linings Playbook (2012) earned her several awards, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress (Musical or Comedy) and the Academy Award for Best Actress, making her the second-youngest Best Actress winner at the Oscars.(2) For her supporting role in Russell’s comedy-drama American Hustle (2013), she was awarded the Golden Globe Award, the BAFTA Award and received a third Academy Award nomination, all for Best Supporting Actress.(3)(4)(5)(6)

    Lawrence is also known for playing Raven Darkhölme / Mystique in the superhero film X-Men: First Class (2011) and its sequel X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014). Beginning in 2012, she gained international fame for playing the leading heroine, Katniss Everdeen, in the popular The Hunger Games film series, which established her as the highest-grossing action heroine of all time.(7)(8) In 2014, Lawrence topped the list of Forbes’s Most Powerful Actresses and was ranked No. 12 in the list of Celebrity 100.(9)
    ]

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Lawrence

  12. WeWantPaul

    [ Except there has been no theft of property. The only property in question is the copyright in the picture – where that copyright owner has suffered an infringement on their statutory rights to exploit the image. Which of course they weren’t going to use anyway so they’ve suffered no damage. ]

    Not so. Intellectual property – including copyright – is strongly protected by law in nearly all countries.

    Theft is theft, even if you don’t think you are stealing anything physical.

  14. B.C.

    An excellent article. How soon we forget history. But where is the Opposition defence – or is it too complicated for the media to understand…

    [The reality is that Labor had already run its CBA in the form of its FttN tender — in which a panel of experts weighed the various proposed paths forward and found that none would effectively deliver a value-for-money outcome. It is true that the possibility of a fully FttP network was not formally weighed against these objectives, but it is also equally true that then-Communications Minister Stephen Conroy had absolutely no other option.

    At that point, it was FttP or nothing, since Telstra had shown with its December 2008 submission that it had absolutely no interest in playing ball according to the government’s rules. To suggest that Labor failed to consider alternative architectures is simply incorrect; since any rationally thinking person would at that point have dismissed suggestions of buying Telstra’s ageing copper network out of hand, the only other option was to build the network from the ground up.]

    http://www.zdnet.com/time-for-a-reality-check-on-labors-cba-less-nbn-strategy-7000033117/

  15. Theft or not, it is undoubtedly unauthorised access to data stored on a computer, which is a crime both where the data in question was stored and here as well.

  16. The family are threatening to sue the Federal government . What a crock. Looks pretty open and shut case of a worker ignoring safety instructions.

    [Bosses in court over Qld insulation death of Mitchell Sweeney

    …….”The use of sharp metal staples in the ceiling of the house had been the subject of a specific ministerial direction that such a thing should not occur,” Mr Herbert said.

    He added that the mains power in the house was not switched off before Mr Sweeney and his two colleagues started work.

    “There was a very real and present danger,” Mr Herbert said.

    The court heard Titan gave a verbal directive to workers in late 2009 about using plastic staples.

    However, the court heard another worker would give evidence that he and Mr Sweeney ignored those instructions because it was faster to work with metal ones.

    “Titan supplies us with the plastic staples and we go and buy our own metal staples]
    http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/bosses-in-court-over-qld-insulation-death-of-mitchell-sweeney/story-e6frfku9-1226124644917

  22. Retweeted by ACOSS
    National Congress ‏@congressmob 5m

    Leaders Respond to Federal Budget cuts to frontline services. @SNAICC @NATSILS_ @ACOSS @FVPLSVictoria #Budget #AusPol

  25. Abbott on 2GB – the man is off his rocker. He now wants “dire and dreadful measures” and “extreme force” taken against ISIS. It seems he definitely wants to send Australia into a full scale war in Iraq and probably Syria.

    [Tony Abbott has compared the gruesome actions of Islamic State (Isis) to atrocities of the 20th century, saying the Nazis were ashamed of their crimes whereas “this mob” was proudly promoting its ghastly behaviour on the internet…

    “These are dire and dreadful things that we are discussing, but sadly, sometimes dire and dreadful measures are necessary in response to the pure evil that we are now seeing across a large swath of the Middle East thanks to this hideous movement,” the prime minister told 2GB on Tuesday.

    “The difficulty here is that these people do exalt in death; they absolutely revel in killing.

    “We’ve seen in the century just gone, the most unspeakable things happen, but the atrocities that were committed by the Nazis, by the communists and others, they were ashamed of them, they tried to cover them up.

    “This mob, by contrast, as soon as they’ve done something gruesome and ghastly and unspeakable, they’re advertising it on the internet for all to see which makes them, in my mind, nothing but a death cult and that’s why I think it’s quite proper to respond with extreme force against people like this.”]

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/02/tony-abbott-says-extreme-force-needed-to-counter-isis-death-cult

  27. [ Abbott on 2GB – the man is off his rocker. ]

    He’s not mad. He’s just a sociopath. He knows he’s going to need a war to get re-elected. If this one fizzles out he’ll find another.

  29. A real bummer for ‘Dave’ over in Ingurland. He was doing Tarzan calls over Iraq and Ukraine even louder than our Tones. Nothing to do with the election next year of course. Sadly for him the plebs at home aren’t so gung ho.

    [Majority of Britons opposed to bombing Isis but David Cameron leaves the door to action open

    Only one in three people supports Britain launching air strikes against Isis in Iraq and Syria…….Only 35 per cent of people agree that Britain should take part in air strikes, while 50 per cent disagree and 15 per cent are “don’t knows”. Men (42 per cent) are much more likely to support air strikes than women (28 per cent).]
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/majority-of-britons-opposed-to-bombing-isis-but-david-cameron-leaves-the-door-to-action-open-9704980.html

  32. [White is a very measured thinker.]

    CTar1 I seem to remember White being very gungho over the past few years against Labor on defence – abuse issues, funding, etc. Guess I shouldn’t have judged him on that.

    I can’t remember much of what he said about the Gulf War or 2003. Was he as cautious then?

  33. BH

    I should admit I’m an acquaintance.

    Against.

    He’s very unpopular with all sides of US politics because he says the US should give China a little space.

  34. [Hockey still a punching bag.

    Abbott slaps down hockey in party room –

    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-slaps-down-joe-hockey-after-stoush-over-wa-gst-anger-20140902-10bblr.html%5D

    shades of howard and costello already.

    hockey is showing himself to be a none-too-bright, spoilt and petulant child. I think he and rudd are cut from similar cloth (although rudd was very intelligent) – everything is everybody elses’ fault, and it’s Ok to sulk and throw tantrums. I hope he’s as vindicative and as good at white-anting as his old sunrise buddy.

  37. Agree BH. But is Palmer’s obvious conflict of interest any different to (say) a wealthy MP who intends to have children voting for the PPL?

  38. Scott Ludlam ‏@SenatorLudlam 2m

    how is this palmer mining tax deal not the biggest conflict of interest scandal in modern political history #auspol #shame

  41. [The family are threatening to sue the Federal government . What a crock. Looks pretty open and shut case of a worker ignoring safety instructions.]

    The only way we can avoid this happening again is to learn the lessons, which means facing some painful truths. The dead and their families are not exempt from this.

    Sorry the guy died, I really am, for all the right reasons. But all the evidence also strongly indicates that it was his own damn fault.

    You can’t stop people behaving recklessly, against all advice and rules, if they choose to do so.

    From a purely hard political perspective, trying to create this sort of atmosphere and precedent is likely to come back and haunt the right big time, courtesy of Mr Abbott’s gutting the OH&S, and other, protections for his Green Army. No way that can end well.

    Not to mention every other government program.

  42. Poroti #1116

    Yes, the HIP RC report is full of info on a par with the Sweeney case and workers buying their own metal staples and defying their work instructions.

    They can spin it however they want, but the fact is that the sine non qua in all 4 deaths were factors within the direct control and responsibility of the employer and the employee.

    And in essence the report spells that out over and over.

  44. CTar1
    I forgive you the acquaintance 🙂 Must say I agree about China. Crowding them will shut the country down again and that’s no good for any of us.

    kakura A little different. Palmer’s conflict reaps benefits for him on both the carbon tax and mining tax repeals for years to come. The PPL is transitory.

  45. [ but you are engaging in classic victim-blaming. ]

    caf, when this happens to someone who makes a damn good living from their “body image” then i’m not sure you can define them as “victims” in this context. At best they were naive in expecting cloud storage to be secure and had a lack of knowledge about the tech they are using.

    Will be interesting to see the fallout for Apple.

  46. BH@1144

    CTar1
    I forgive you the acquaintance Must say I agree about China. Crowding them will shut the country down again and that’s no good for any of us.

    kakura A little different. Palmer’s conflict reaps benefits for him on both the carbon tax and mining tax repeals for years to come. The PPL is transitory.

    I would actually go further and suggest positive engagement with China could yield some beneficial results to all in the region. e.g. sorting out North Korea.

  49. Bizarre watching HOR as one after another Labor back benches rise to speak on the governments changes to higher education and one after another LNP back benches rise to talk about any old bullshite that comes into their head.

    Here’s one now talking about the blessing of a local Catholic church with a wonderful gingerbread replica made by the local kiddies of something or other that the parish priest has.

  50. this is a bad move for PUP

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/crossbench-deal-secures-mining-tax-repeal/story-fn59niix-1227044980509

    1. Clive will be seen as having removed the risk of tax on himself at the cost to super
    2. the government will scrap/cut school support in future years, so he got nothing from it.
    3. pensions are effectively being cut in real terms, so this proposed cut to super is serious for anybody over 45 years of age.

    the greens and labor need to tell it how it is about how much carbon pricing, mining tax and super increase scrapping have saved Clive Palmer, Gina and Twiggy (and ask how much personal tax they pay). the refrain ‘this is government ruling for the interests of their rich mates and donors against the interests ordinary australians” should be getting louder.

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