Box Hill
Margin: Liberal 9.4%
Region: Eastern Metropolitan
Federal: Chisholm (46%)/Deakin (31%)/Kooyong (23%)
Candidates in ballot paper order
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FRANK REALE STEFANIE PERRI BILL PEMBERTON GEOFFREY STOKIE ROBERT CLARK |
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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Located roughly 15 kilometres east of central Melbourne, Box Hill was once a bellwether seat but has drifted over time to the Liberals. The margin at the 2010 election blew out to 13.8%, but the redistribution has pared it back 4.4% through an eastward shift to fill the void created by the abolition of Mitcham. This adds approximately 14,000 voters in Blackburn, from which the electorate now extends westwards through Box Hill to eastern Balwyn and northern Surrey Hills. In the north-west, 6600 voters in the eastern part of Balwyn North have been transferred to Kew, while in the south-west 3000 voters in a part of Surrey Hills are shifted to Burwood.
Box Hill has existed as an electorate without interruption since 1945, in which time it has changed hands along with government in favour of the Liberals in 1955 and 1992, and Labor in 1982. Its bellwether status came to end when the swing at the 1999 election was limited to 2.7%, leaving the Liberals with enough of a buffer to survive with a 1.1% margin in the face of a 6.5% swing at the 2002 landslide. The Liberal hold was then secured with successive swings of 4.1% in 2006 and 4.4% in 2010.
The seat has been held for the Liberals since 1992 by Robert Clark, who first came to parliament in 1988 as member for the abolished seat of Balwyn. Noted as a social conservative, Clark served as a parliamentary secretary in the Kennett government and a front-bencher through the ensuing years of opposition, rising to Shadow Treasurer in September 2001. The role was briefly lost to Robert Dean following Robert Doyle’s leadership coup against Denis Napthine in August 2002, then returned to him when Dean was unable to contest the 2002 election because he had been removed from the electoral roll. Clark was reassigned to the Attorney-General portfolio after the election, and has retained it ever since. He further gained industrial relations in the reshuffle that followed Ted Baillieu’s departure in March 2013.