Cranbourne
Margin: Labor 12.4%
Region: South Eastern Metropolitan
Federal: Holt (94%)/Flinders (6%)
Candidates in ballot paper order
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JONATHAN WILLIE ELI JUDE PERERA GEOFF ABLETT ROSEMARY BLAKE NAGARAJ NAYAK PAMELA KEENAN LAITH GRAHAM RANIA MICHAEL |
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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Cranbourne is a satellite town located some 40 kilometres to the south-east of central Melbourne, which has given its name to an electorate since 1992. It encompasses Cranbourne itself, the suburbs of Lyndhurst and Lynbrook immediately to its north-west, and lightly developed territory around Botanic Ridge at the south. This is an area of proliferating new housing developments, and the electorate is accordingly dominated by young mortgage-paying families.
The rapid growth of the population has caused the electorate to be substantially redrawn in the redistribution, with particularly large numbers of voters transferred to its western neighbours. Previously Cranbourne had sat at the eastern end of the electorate, which extended westwards to the inland edge of the bayside suburban corridor. The latter area has now been transferred to Carrum, which absorbs the 21,000 voters of Carrum Downs, Seaford, Skye and Sandhurst, and Frankston, which gains the 3500 voters of Frankston North. At the southern end of the electorate, 5700 voters in northern Langwarrin have been transferred to Hastings. The compensating gains are smaller, including gains of 8500 voters in Cranbourne North from Narre Warren South, 5300 in Lynbrook and newly developed Lyndhurst from Lyndhurst (causing its name to change to Keysborough), and 2600 around Junction Village from Hastings. The effect of the changes has been to cut 0.7% from the narrow Labor margin.
Cranbourne had a notional Labor margin of 4.4% on its creation at the 1992 election, but the ensuing landslide delivered the seat to the Liberals with a 9.1% swing. Gary Rowe held the seat for the Liberals over the next three terms, but his position was considerably weakened by the redistribution before the 2002 election, which made the seat notionally Labor by transferring territory along Westernport Bay, from Pearcedale east to Tooradin, to the new seat of Hastings. There followed a 9.4% swing in the ensuing Labor landslide, delivering a double-digit margin to Labor candidate Jude Perera, a Sri Lankan-born former software developer. Perera did well to pick up a slight swing at the 2006 election, when Gary Rowe re-emerged as the Liberal candidate, before a heavy 9.4% swing in 2010 sent the seat into the marginal zone.
Jude Perera is aligned with the Socialist Left, and has had a generally low-key career in parliament. He won promotion to shadow parliamentary secretary for multicultural affairs in February 2012, but was dropped in April 2014. As in 2010, the Liberal candidate is Geoff Ablett, Casey mayor, veteran of 200 AFL games for Hawthorn and the brother of Gary Ablett Sr. Unsuccessful aspirants for the Liberal preselection included Gary Rowe, who is now also on Casey City Council.
Early in the campaign, The Australian reported that the Liberals were hopeful of snaring Cranbourne by way of compensating for likely defeat in Frankston. Shortly after, a report in the Herald-Sun indicated that Labor “swears it will hold” the seat, whereas the Liberals were “hopeful but not overly”. On the morning of election day, the paper reported that the Liberals considered themselves a “strong chance”.