Brighton
Margin: Liberal 14.3%
Region: Eastern Metropolitan
Federal: Goldstein (75%)/Melbourne Ports (25%)
Candidates in ballot paper order
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LOUISE ASHER JANE TOUZEAU MARGARET BEAVIS LOUISE CRAWFORD |
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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Brighton covers bayside suburbs to the south of St Kilda, an area affluent enough that Labor has never once been able to win the seat in a history going back to 1856. The redistribution has cut the Liberal margin from 17.6% to 14.3% by extending its bayside frontage northwards, with a gain of 6500 voters at Elwood from Albert Park. To the electorate’s south-east, 3750 voters at Brighton East have been transferred to Bentleigh.
Kennett government Treasurer Alan Stockdale held Brighton from 1985 until his retirement in 1999, an event that precipitated a preselection brawl between the party’s rival Kennett and Costello-Kroger camps. The former backed Louise Asher, Kennett government Small Business and Tourism Minister and member for the upper house province of Monash, while the latter preferred that Asher instead take the vacant seat of Kew so that Brighton could be left for Mitch Fifield, then an adviser to Peter Costello and now a Senator. Asher went on to easily defeat Fifield in the ensuing preselection ballot, while the Kew preselection went to another Kennett-backed candidate, Andrew McIntosh.
The defeat of the Kennett government brought a major promotion for Asher to deputy Liberal leader and Shadow Treasurer, although the latter role was reassigned to Robert Clark in October 2001. She also agreed to relinquish the deputy leadership in August 2002 when Denis Napthine was deposed by Robert Doyle, a Kroger-Costello man, but recovered it when Phil Honeywood stood aside in April 2006, and has retained it ever since. When the Baillieu government came to power at the end of 2010, she took on the portfolios of innovation, services and small business, and tourism and major events. She further gained employment and trade in the reshuffle that followed Baillieu’s departure in March 2013.