This site’s slow-moving Call of the Board series, which takes a closer look at the results for every seat at the May 18 election, now makes it to regional Victoria. This area once enjoyed its fair share of marginal seats (see Ballarat, Bendigo and Monash/McMillan below), but now has only Corangamite to offer in the way of reliable election night seats-to-watch. Nonetheless, there were a few interesting things going on in the results for those who cared to look. (And while you’re here, note also the post on Brexit developments immediately below this one).
Ballarat (Labor 11.0%; 3.6% swing to Labor): Labor has been strengthening in this once highly marginal seat since Catherine King gained it at the 2001 election, at which it was the only seat in the country to shift from Coalition to Labor (with some help from the retirement of Michael Ronaldson, later a Senator). The only serious speed bump in that time was a 6.8% swing to the Liberals in 2013, reducing her margin to 4.9%, which she has now almost made good with successive swings of 2.4% and 3.6%. The Liberal primary vote on this occasion was down 4.0% despite the absence of the Nationals, who polled 4.2% in 2016, although they did face new competition on the right from the United Australia Party, which polled 4.6%.
Bendigo (Labor 9.0%; 5.2% swing to Labor): Victoria’s other regional city seat has followed a similar pattern to Ballarat over time: won by Labor from the Liberals in 1998, retained only narrowly in 2004 and 2013, and now looking secure again after successive swings of 2.5% and 5.2% in 2016 and 2019. The current member, Lisa Chesters, has now almost made up the 8.2% swing she suffered when she came to the seat on Steve Gibbons’ retirement in 2013. The Liberal primary vote was down 6.1% amid an overload of competition on the right, with One Nation, Conservative National and Rise Up Australia all in the field alongside the ubiquitous United Australia Party.
Casey (Liberal 4.6%; 0.1% swing to Liberal): Located on Melbourne’s eastern outskirts and held for the Liberals by the Speaker, Tony Smith, Casey was one of many Victorian seats that looked promising for Labor after the state election, but singularly failed to deliver on the day. Smith actually picked up a very slightly swing on two-party preferred, and none of the primary vote swings were particularly significant. Labor tended to do better in the more urbanised western end of the electorate, particularly in those parts of it newly added from La Trobe in the redistribution.
Corangamite (LABOR NOTIONAL GAIN 1.1%; 1.0% swing to Labor): Corangamite was designated as a notional Labor seat by the barest possible margin, so whoever received the swing was almost certain to win the seat. That proved to be Labor’s Libby Coker, just, in a result perfectly in line with the state average. Defeated Liberal member Sarah Henderson picked up a few swings in the booths newly added to the electorate on the Bellarine Peninsula, but the Great Ocean Road swung to Labor, reflecting its affluent and educated sea-changer demographic. The Greens were down 3.0% on the primary vote, as voters situated in the state’s south-west failed to warm to a candidate called Simon Northeast.
Corio (Labor 10.3%; 2.1% swing to Labor): Labor’s Richard Marles picked up 4.2% on the primary vote and 2.1% on two-party preferred, the former assisted by a small field of four candidates. The Liberals picked up some swings in Geelong’s down-market north, but the city centre and its surrounds went solidly to Labor.
Flinders (Liberal 5.6%; 1.4% swing to Labor): One of many disappointments for Labor was their failure to seriously threaten Greg Hunt in an area that had swung forcefully their way at the state election. Hunt was also little troubled by Julia Banks, who managed 13.8% of the primary vote, well behind Labor on 24.7%. Banks’s presence cut into the vote share for Liberal, Labor and the Greens – Hunt was down 3.8% to 46.7%, and needed preferences to win the seat for the first time since he came to it in 2001.
Gippsland (Nationals 16.7%; 1.5% swing to Labor): For reasons not immediately apparent, Labor was up 3.0% on the primary vote and cut slightly into what remains a secure margin for Nationals member Darren Chester.
Indi (Independent 1.4% versus Liberal; 4.1% swing to Liberal): As a number of highly trumpeted independents failed to live up to the hype elsewhere, Helen Haines performed a remarkable feat in retaining the independent mantle of Cathy McGowan. Haines’ primary vote of 32.4% was only slightly short of McGowan’s 34.8% on her re-election in 2016, although the Liberals put up a stronger show after gouging half of the Nationals vote. An interesting feature of the result was the 7.7% swing to the Liberals on two-party-preferred versus Labor, suggesting Haines’ preferences favoured the Liberals more strongly than did McGowan’s.
La Trobe (Liberal 4.5%; 1.3% swing to Liberal): A swing to the Liberals in Melbourne marginals was not a feature of too many pre-election predictions, but such was the outcome in La Trobe. Both major parties were up slightly on the primary vote amid a smaller field of candidates than 2016.
Mallee (Nationals 16.2%; 3.6% swing to Labor): Vacated with the demise of Andrew Broad’s two-term career, this was retained by the Nationals against a challenge from the Liberals, as it was in 2013 when Broad succeeded John Forrest. Liberal candidate Serge Petrovich actually fell out of the preference candidate before Labor, despite outpolling them 18.8% to 15.7% on the primary vote, and his preferences duly delivered a large winning margin to Nationals candidate Anne Webster. Webster would likely have won the seat even if Petrovich had survived to the final count, given her 27.9% to 18.8% advantage on the primary vote.
McEwen (Labor 5.0%; 1.0% swing to Liberal): Despite being an area of dynamic growth, particularly around Mernda and Doreen at Melbourne’s northern edge, McEwen turned in a largely static result on this occasion. This was in contrast to its form at the five elections from 2004 to 2016, when two-party swings ranged from 4.1% to 9.0%. Both major parties were down slightly on the primary vote as One Nation took to the field, scoring 5.9%, and Labor member Rob Mitchell’s two-party margin was slightly clipped after a blowout win in 2016.
Monash (Liberal 7.4%; 0.2% swing to Labor): The solid margin built up by Russell Broadbent since 2004 in the seat formerly known as McMillan was little disturbed, although the 7.6% recorded by One Nation took a 3.6% bite out of his primary vote. A noteworthy feature of the result was a heavy swing to the Liberals in the Latrobe Valley towns of Moe and Newborough, a pattern reflected in coal and electricity producing areas across the country.
Nicholls (Nationals 20.0%; 2.5% swing to Labor): After a three-cornered contest in 2016, in which Damian Drum gained the seat for the Nationals on the retirement of Liberal member Sharman Stone, the Liberals vacated the field in Nicholls (formerly Murray), and Drum retained the seat with a majority of the primary vote. One Nation polled 11.3%, easily the best result of the five seats they contested in Victoria.
Wannon (Liberal 10.4%; 1.2% swing to Liberal): Liberal member Dan Tehan picked up slight favourable swings on both the primary and two-party vote. Former Triple J presenter Alex Dyson polled 10.4% as an independent.
A politician-free Qanda on Monday.
But here’s one for PBers, Qanda is inviting people’s panelists to spruik their credentials:
ab.co/2IRGWk6
Correct link: https://www.abc.net.au/qanda/peoples-panel/
lizzie:
You should read PvO’s column. That tweet does not capture the qualified commentary expressed in the article, nor that he isn’t supportive of what has been produced by Scotty and Porter.
“I’ve long said that the loud-mouthed, muscular christians who try to assert their version of christianity upon others are not christians, but christianists.”
That’s quite a good term – “Christianism means particular doctrines of Christianity made into a political system for the pursuit of worldly power”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianism
RE Morrison et al, heard them described as Rentacostals.
Rather apt, I thought.
I found it really hard to accept that the Potato was re-elected. I believe that a large amount of money was spent (see also Clive Palmer). Can you really call this a democracy?
Fess
Then he should tidy up his Tweets. 🙂
EGT
I hadn’t heard that.
I think in general there is an increased rate of suicide in anyone who discovers they are gay. And LGBTI people certainly have a higher rate of suicide than non LGBTI. I haven’t heard anything specific to a sport but it certainly could be true.
Quasar @ #655 Saturday, August 31st, 2019 – 6:16 pm
Oooh! I am so going to use that one! 🙂
lizzie:
That tweet isn’t from PvO but from Insiders. He himself hasn’t actually tweeted about it except to retweet The Australian’s tweet of his column.
Fess
That figures. Summaries almost always miss the point.
Steve777:
I think it was Andrew Sullivan whom I first heard use the description to refer to the uber-dogmatic religious folk occupying the GWBush administration. It is very appropriate when thinking of people like Pell, Lyle Shelton, Abbott etc.
https://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2019/08/not-poll-best-state-premiers-of-last-40.html
Not-A-Poll: Best State Premier Of The Last 40-ish Years: Final Stage 2
Dunstan wins final stage 1 easily, 4 finalists eliminated.
Ben Raue – NSW to raise council election costs to make private providers “competitive”
http://www.tallyroom.com.au/38972
I love that your more conservative readers had no option but to rally around Greiner, who’s practically a communist by modern-day Liberal Party standards!
Confessions @ #653 Saturday, August 31st, 2019 – 6:16 pm
Unless you get PvO’s twitter link to his articles, they are solidly behind the paywall these days. 🙁
C@t:
In essence, he says that the proposed laws, while not being his cup of tea, are probably the best that could be expected from this mob. His ‘applause’ goes to Scotty and Porter for not caving into the extreme right in the party and offering up legislation that pandered to the religionists.
As added bonus, he delivers another serve to religious institutions who just want softer laws to allow them to keep on discriminating against Australians, the catholic church for boycotting Porter’s speech the other day, and climate change denialism among the RWNJs in the Liberal party and religious institutions.
The legislation will be debated in the parliament and through the parliamentary process. It could end up being watered down, or even strengthened. I guess we’ve got a ways to go on that front.
itsthevibe: Yes. That was a consequence of the “open primary” nature of the Coalition state winners final, which I couldn’t find any way to avoid. (In that final the order was Greiner, Carnell, Kennett, Joh, Hodgman etc).
On the basis if the 2019 Federal election, does anything really matter until about 3 weeks out from the election? Between now and the next Federal election, most of what happens in politics is meaningless until those 30% of voters walk into the booth on election day and, essentially, toss a coin on who they like best/least as PM. All else until then is interesting but irrelevant…………………..In my view, that is the take from the last election………..sad for democracy but there you go…………..
Bill: re. your thesis much earlier in this thread. I note that you’re still defending Pell, like another from to time to time but who has gone silent of late save for congratulating you on your perceived wisdom, legal knowledge. I reiterate, your man shared a dwelling with Ridsdale, a notorious, serial child fiddler. Moreover, Pell’s evidence at the RC was spectacularly exculpatory. While this per se does not go to Pell’s guilt, it nevertheless paints a dark picture of this man. Perhaps, therefore, you might give some thought to the victims of Pell, Ridsdale. Pell had the chance to come clean, but he didn’t have the moral fortitude to do so. And, as for you being ‘lapsed Catholic’, I don’t buy it. You appear to be attempting to emulate Hugo. When it comes down to another’s word against another, a trial judge must give the jury requisite directions. The second jury accepted the complainant’s evidence. You need to accept same.
It’s funny that we apparently never had a problem with “religious freedom” until Australia voted the “wrong” way in the fake referendum for Marriage Equality. The scare and disinformation campaign conducted by opponents was meant to knock it on the head. “Religious Freedom” laws seem to have been served up as a consolation prize to the losers to ensure that they don’t lose their right to discriminate.
Jim Chalmers down here in Tasmania telling us how Labor got it wrong at the federal election.
Great. Well done Jim.
Tell everyone how wrong you were.
Terrific.
Good plan.
FMD
In a parallel universe Labor sticks to it’s policy platform because it’s essentially right and attacks the lies and incompetence of their opponents.
Labor, no clue one day.
No fucking idea the next.
Steve777 @ #672 Saturday, August 31st, 2019 – 7:10 pm
Bingo.
I remember the days when thesis meant something other than a meaningless bullshit laden diatribe posted on a blog.
And don’t forget the NSW abortion law reform. PvO has chortled previously at so-called conservatives in NSW who long opposed any changes to the state’s out of touch abortion laws, only to now be faced with legislation that goes beyond what they ever conceived could be on offer.
They only have themselves to blame; by choosing to opt out, the process continued on without them. The same goes for religious institutions when it comes to SSM.
Dio
Look for the evidence of gay suicides. It is often years old and not strong
Confessions @ #668 Saturday, August 31st, 2019 – 6:45 pm
Thanks, ‘fess.
You know what really irks me? MPs like Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, who pop up in the media and assume an air of self-importance as they pronounce that religious leaders aren’t satisfied with the Religious Freedom Bill as they say it doesn’t go far enough to satisfy them!
What a freaking hide to think that we should be doing anything at all to satisfy them, let alone what we have done already not being enough! Though, to keep them up shut I guess this Bill is the best that can be hoped for for us atheists and agnostics.
I’m surprised mundo didn’t give Dr Jim Chalmers the benefit of his ‘wisdom’ today. He has all the answers, after all. 🙄
C@t http://www.asu.asn.au/sacs/ndis has coverage, but I’m sure there are others
Tricot @ #670 Saturday, August 31st, 2019 – 6:57 pm
Well, I guess it depends …
… do you think that the survival of various species – including possibly ours … you know … actually matters?
C@t:
I’m surprised Tony Abbott hasn’t been more prominent in the debate.
Apparently the Christmas Is detention centre was in mothballs after Morrison’s 3 hour $80m pre election stunt.
It has been re-opened so that one Tamil family can be dumped there.
Fess, Tony Abbott is no religious god botherer. For him, it was always a wedge tactic to pursue his personal agenda of grasping the leadership, and undermining his rivals.
sprocket:
Abbott totally is a religious god botherer. Women haven’t forgotten the time as health minister he tried to block RU486 being listed on the PBS. It was left to Howard’s intervention after women MPs across the aisle got up in arms about it that it was approved.
Adrian:
[‘I remember the days when thesis meant something other than a meaningless bullshit laden diatribe posted on a blog.’]
As GG says, make one’s posts short, bearing in mind, however, that lawyers were once paid by the word.
Confessions @ #682 Saturday, August 31st, 2019 – 7:27 pm
I imagine he has been. Just not publicly. Likely by giving counsel to Liberals.
sprocket_ @ #680 Saturday, August 31st, 2019 – 7:24 pm
Thanks, sprocket! 😀
Only poets would be interested in this. I think Shelly may’ve been into the laudanum:
Emily,
A ship is floating in the harbour now,
A wind is hovering o’er the mountain’s brow;
There is a path on the sea’s azure floor,
No keel has ever plough’d that path before;
The halcyons brood around the foamless isles;
The treacherous Ocean has forsworn its wiles;
The merry mariners are bold and free:
Say, my heart’s sister, wilt thou sail with me?
Our bark is as an albatross, whose nest
Is a far Eden of the purple East;
And we between her wings will sit, while Night,
And Day, and Storm, and Calm, pursue their flight,
Our ministers, along the boundless Sea,
Treading each other’s heels, unheededly.
It is an isle under Ionian skies,
Beautiful as a wreck of Paradise,
And, for the harbours are not safe and good,
This land would have remain’d a solitude
But for some pastoral people native there,
Who from the Elysian, clear, and golden air
Draw the last spirit of the age of gold,
Simple and spirited; innocent and bold.
The blue Aegean girds this chosen home,
With ever-changing sound and light and foam,
Kissing the sifted sands, and caverns hoar;
And all the winds wandering along the shore
Undulate with the undulating tide:
There are thick woods where sylvan forms abide;
And many a fountain, rivulet and pond,
As clear as elemental diamond,
Or serene morning air; and far beyond,
The mossy tracks made by the goats and deer
(Which the rough shepherd treads but once a year)
Pierce into glades, caverns and bowers, and halls
Built round with ivy, which the waterfalls
Illumining, with sound that never fails
Accompany the noonday nightingales;
And all the place is peopled with sweet airs;
The light clear element which the isle wears
Is heavy with the scent of lemon-flowers,
Which floats like mist laden with unseen showers,
And falls upon the eyelids like faint sleep;
And from the moss violets and jonquils peep
And dart their arrowy odour through the brain
Till you might faint with that delicious pain.
And every motion, odour, beam and tone,
With that deep music is in unison:
Which is a soul within the soul–they seem
Like echoes of an antenatal dream.
It is an isle ‘twixt Heaven, Air, Earth and Sea,
Cradled and hung in clear tranquillity;
Bright as that wandering Eden Lucifer,
Wash’d by the soft blue Oceans of young air.
It is a favour’d place. Famine or Blight,
Pestilence, War and Earthquake, never light
Upon its mountain-peaks; blind vultures, they
Sail onward far upon their fatal way:
The wingèd storms, chanting their thunder-psalm
To other lands, leave azure chasms of calm
Over this isle, or weep themselves in dew,
From which its fields and woods ever renew
Their green and golden immortality.
And from the sea there rise, and from the sky
There fall, clear exhalations, soft and bright,
Veil after veil, each hiding some delight,
Which Sun or Moon or zephyr draw aside,
Till the isle’s beauty, like a naked bride
Glowing at once with love and loveliness,
Blushes and trembles at its own excess:
Yet, like a buried lamp, a Soul no less
Burns in the heart of this delicious isle,
An atom of th’ Eternal, whose own smile
Unfolds itself, and may be felt not seen
O’er the gray rocks, blue waves and forests green,
Filling their bare and void interstices.
But the chief marvel of the wilderness
Is a lone dwelling, built by whom or how
None of the rustic island-people know:
‘Tis not a tower of strength, though with its height
It overtops the woods; but, for delight,
Some wise and tender Ocean-King, ere crime
Had been invented, in the world’s young prime,
Rear’d it, a wonder of that simple time,
An envy of the isles, a pleasure-house
Made sacred to his sister and his spouse.
It scarce seems now a wreck of human art,
But, as it were, Titanic; in the heart
Of Earth having assum’d its form, then grown
Out of the mountains, from the living stone,
Lifting itself in caverns light and high:
For all the antique and learned imagery
Has been eras’d, and in the place of it
The ivy and the wild-vine interknit
The volumes of their many-twining stems;
Parasite flowers illume with dewy gems
The lampless halls, and when they fade, the sky
Peeps through their winter-woof of tracery
With moonlight patches, or star atoms keen,
Or fragments of the day’s intense serene;
Working mosaic on their Parian floors.
And, day and night, aloof, from the high towers
And terraces, the Earth and Ocean seem
To sleep in one another’s arms, and dream
Of waves, flowers, clouds, woods, rocks, and all that we
Read in their smiles, and call reality.
This isle and house are mine, and I have vow’d
Thee to be lady of the solitude.
And I have fitted up some chambers there
Looking towards the golden Eastern air,
And level with the living winds, which flow
Like waves above the living waves below.
I have sent books and music there, and all
Those instruments with which high Spirits call
The future from its cradle, and the past
Out of its grave, and make the present last
In thoughts and joys which sleep, but cannot die,
Folded within their own eternity.
Our simple life wants little, and true taste
Hires not the pale drudge Luxury to waste
The scene it would adorn, and therefore still,
Nature with all her children haunts the hill.
The ring-dove, in the embowering ivy, yet
Keeps up her love-lament, and the owls flit
Round the evening tower, and the young stars glance
Between the quick bats in their twilight dance;
The spotted deer bask in the fresh moonlight
Before our gate, and the slow, silent night
Is measur’d by the pants of their calm sleep.
Be this our home in life, and when years heap
Their wither’d hours, like leaves, on our decay,
Let us become the overhanging day,
The living soul of this Elysian isle,
Conscious, inseparable, one. Meanwhile
We two will rise, and sit, and walk together,
Under the roof of blue Ionian weather,
And wander in the meadows, or ascend
The mossy mountains, where the blue heavens bend
With lightest winds, to touch their paramour;
Or linger, where the pebble-paven shore,
Under the quick, faint kisses of the sea,
Trembles and sparkles as with ecstasy–
Possessing and possess’d by all that is
Within that calm circumference of bliss,
And by each other, till to love and live
Be one: or, at the noontide hour, arrive
Where some old cavern hoar seems yet to keep
The moonlight of the expir’d night asleep,
Through which the awaken’d day can never peep;
A veil for our seclusion, close as night’s,
Where secure sleep may kill thine innocent lights;
Sleep, the fresh dew of languid love, the rain
Whose drops quench kisses till they burn again.
And we will talk, until thought’s melody
Become too sweet for utterance, and it die
In words, to live again in looks, which dart
With thrilling tone into the voiceless heart,
Harmonizing silence without a sound.
Our breath shall intermix, our bosoms bound,
And our veins beat together; and our lips
With other eloquence than words, eclipse
The soul that burns between them, and the wells
Which boil under our being’s inmost cells,
The fountains of our deepest life, shall be
Confus’d in Passion’s golden purity,
As mountain-springs under the morning sun.
We shall become the same, we shall be one
Spirit within two frames, oh! wherefore two?
One passion in twin-hearts, which grows and grew,
Till like two meteors of expanding flame,
Those spheres instinct with it become the same,
Touch, mingle, are transfigur’d; ever still
Burning, yet ever inconsumable:
In one another’s substance finding food,
Like flames too pure and light and unimbu’d
To nourish their bright lives with baser prey,
Which point to Heaven and cannot pass away:
One hope within two wills, one will beneath
Two overshadowing minds, one life, one death,
One Heaven, one Hell, one immortality,
And one annihilation. Woe is me!
The winged words on which my soul would pierce
Into the height of Love’s rare Universe,
Are chains of lead around its flight of fire–
I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire!
I must stop posting poetry on a psephological site – sorry WB, but sometimes, I can’t help myself. I shall cease hereafter.
The cat just decided to perch on the laptop keyboard and it caused the display to turn upside down!
I had to get the iPad to look up what to do. Alt-Cntl-Up does the trick.
BK @ #690 Saturday, August 31st, 2019 – 8:31 pm
Cripes – that doesn’t rhyme at all. Must be that Shakespeare Iambic something.
SBS TV – MONGOL.
My cat can do things with my computer that I can’t. One short trip across the keyboard can stump me for hours.
I think it might be your warmth, BK, and/or that of your keyboard. Perhaps, though, she’s looking for attention? But be warry: my cat, prior to her being taken a tick, exuded love, the next minute drawing blood. I’ve not got a staff/labrador cross – so much more predictable?
Thanks for all the feline advice folks!
guytaur says:
Saturday, August 31, 2019 at 1:19 pm
FredNK and Confessions
The so called empty gesture is still more than Labor has done. Labor cannot critique the Greens for at least bothering to make your so called empty gesture
In the case of Assange, the emptier the gestures the better.
Pegasus says:
Saturday, August 31, 2019 at 2:16 pm
Have to laugh at Confessions linking to an article about Assange from the World Socialist Web Site. It is routine for them to criticise the Greens from the left which contradicts the meme the Greens are “extreme”.
The Greens are not extreme. They are Lib-kin.
OC
There is a 2017 JAMA Paed article showing 7% reduction in suicide attempts in gay kids when SSM was brought in in the US state.
The other reports showed about a 50% increase in suicides in gay people, predominantly teens compared to non gay people. The studies were a bit dated but they point out there may be quite a few kids struggling with their sexuality in silence who commit suicide and no one knows the real reason.
briefly
Assange is about 40-1 to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Greta and Ardern are the favourites. What, if anything, should Australia do if he wins?
I don’t think we have ever won one. Then again Assange probably isn’t “us” anymore.
briefly @ #697 Saturday, August 31st, 2019 – 7:15 pm
The Greens excel at meaningless empty gestures which they’ve been indulging in now for years. The worst of their empty gesture has been addressing GHGEs. More recently I’ve posted articles exposing the Greens walking back their support for renewable energy. It started in Tas and has now leaked into Victoria.
I’d say this pattern of behaviour can be said to be extreme.
Mitch Marsh 2-5 off 5. After scoring 70-odd. Against Nigelshire.
Ink him in for 4th test.