Altona
Margin: Labor 12.4%
Region: Western Metropolitan
Federal: Lalor (64%)/Gellibrand (36%)
Candidates in ballot paper order
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BRIJENDER NAIN JEMAL HIABU CHRIS DE BONO ANTHONY O’NEILL NIHAL SAMARA JILL HENNESSY |
2010 BOOTH RESULTS MAP |
PAST RESULTS |
DEMOGRAPHICS |
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RESULTS MAP: Two-party preferred booth results from 2010 state election showing Liberal majority in blue and Labor in red. New boundaries in thicker blue lines, old ones in thinner red lines. Boundary data courtesy of Ben Raue of The Tally Room.
PAST RESULTS: Break at 1999 represents effect of the subsequent redistribution.
DEMOGRAPHICS: Based on 2012 census. School Leavers is percentage of high school graduates divided by persons over 18. LOTE is number identified as speaking language other than English at home, divided by total population.
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The electorate of Altona lies in Labor’s electoral heartland in Melbourne’s west, covering the bayside from Altona through Altona Meadows to the new residential areas of Point Cook, where the population exploded from below 2000 to over 32,000 between the 2001 and 2011 censuses. This growth has required that the electorate shed territory in the redistribution, which has been accomplished by transferring 13,500 voters north of Princes Freeway to Tarneit, including those in eastern Hoppers Crossing, the developing urban fringe suburb of Truganina and industrial Laverton North. At the eastern bayside end of the electorate, Seaholme and its 1500 voters have been gained from Williamstown. The changes have only a slight impact on the Labor margin, which is up from 12.0% to 12.4%.
Altona was created at the 1992 election and held for Labor in its first term by Carole Marple, who went on to lose preselection after her hard left Pledge faction was marginalised by a deal between Labor Unity and the Socialist Left. Marple instead contested the upper house province of Geelong at the 1996 election, without success. The new member for Altona was Lynne Kosky of the Socialist Left, who won immediate promotion to the front bench after the election. Kosky served in cabinet in the Bracks-Brumby government until resigning from parliament in January 2010, citing “significant” health problems in her family.
Under the terms of Labor’s factional “stability pact”, the seat remained reserved to the Socialist Left. Support quickly consolidated behind Jill Hennessy, a solicitor and former state party president and adviser to Steve Bracks, whose backers included Kosky, Bracks, Joan Kirner and Nicola Roxon, then the member for the corresponding federal seat of Gellibrand. Hennessy went on to survive a hefty 12.3% swing to the Liberals at the February 13 by-election, but nonetheless retained a margin of 7.9%, to which she added a further 4.1% at the general election the following November. She was elevated to the shadow ministry after the election defeat, and promoted to the important public transport portfolio in December 2013.