Electorate: Chisholm
Margin: Labor 5.8%
Location: Eastern Melbourne, Victoria
In a nutshell: Once a finely poised marginal seat, Chisholm’s drift to Labor over recent decades has been symptomatic of Victoria’s emergence as a party stronghold.
The candidates (ballot paper order)
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JOSH FERGEUS ANNA ELIZABETH BURKE LUZIO GROSSI MELANIE VASSILIOU JOHN NGUYEN BRIAN CLIFFORD WOODS MARTIN MYSZKA VIDURA NALIN JAYARATNE PAT SHEA |
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Chisholm covers a band of suburbs in Melbourne’s electorally sensitive east, from Box Hill and Mont Albert in the north through Burwood and Mount Waverley in the centre to Chadstone, Oakleigh and Clayton in the south. Labor is strongest at the southern end, with most of the remainder being naturally marginal and the Mont Albert area leaning Liberal. Reflecting the area’s static population, the redistribution to take effect at the coming election has added around 18,000 voters at Blackburn South, Burwood East and Forest Hill in the east (previously in Deakin), balanced only by the transfer of about 8000 voters around Glen Waverley to Bruce and 1500 in Mont Albert North to Kooyong. The changes have shaved 0.3% from the Labor margin, which is now at 5.8%.
Chisholm was created with the enlargement of parliament in 1949, but was then based on Camberwell and Glen Iris further to the west. It no longer contains any of its original territory, which now bolsters the Liberals in Higgins and Kooyong. The progressive drift to the east accordingly made a Labor-leaning seat of what had traditionally been a safe one for the Liberals, whose members included Wilfrid Kent Hughes until 1970, Tony Staley until 1980 and Graham Harris until 1983. The Liberal grip was loosened by successive swings in 1977 and 1980, the Labor candidate on both occasions being Helen Mayer, who succeeded on her third attempt in 1983. Early Howard government Health Minister Michael Wooldridge recovered the seat for the Liberals in 1987, and held it precariously until he jumped ship to the more secure Casey in 1998. The current Labor member, Anna Burke, prevailed at the 1998 election with a 2.1% margin that was little changed in 2001 and 2004. She finally achieved a secure margin with a 4.7% swing in 2007, before the seat went slightly against the statewide trend in recording a 1.3% swing to the Liberals in 2010.
Anna Burke had been an industrial officer with the Finance Sector Union before entering parliament, and is aligned with the Right sub-faction associated with the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association. Her national profile received a considerable boost when she replaced Peter Slipper in the Speaker’s chair after allegations of sexual harassment and misuse of taxi dockets compelled him to stand aside in April 2012, initially on an acting basis and then officially when Slipper resigned the following November. Burke previously had two spells as Deputy Speaker after Labor came to power in 2007, the interruption coming after the 2010 election when the government partially bolstered its fragile parliamentary position by persuading Peter Slipper to take her place. She was restored to the position when the government appeared to go one better in having Slipper replace Harry Jenkins as Speaker in November 2011.
The Liberals have again preselected their candidate from 2010, Vietnamese-born John Nguyen, a partner at Ernst & Young who was five years old when his family fled their native country in 1979. VexNews reports that Nguyen won the preselection ballot ahead of Nicholas Tragas, Telstra executive and Boroondara councillor, and that the two were respectively backed by “the sometimes united Kroger/Costello group” and its traditional rivals associated with former Premier Ted Baillieu.
A Galaxy automated phone poll of about 575 respondents on August 20 had Labor leading 52-48.
Analysis written by William Bowe. Read William’s blog, The Poll Bludger.