Victorian election 2014

Ferntree Gully

Margin: Liberal 11.5%
Region: Eastern Metropolitan
Federal: Aston (88%)/La Trobe (12%)

Candidates in ballot paper order

ferntreegully-lib

ferntreegully-alp

STEVE RAYMOND
Greens

ROBERT ROYTEL
Australian Christians

MATT POSETTI
Labor (bottom)

RUSSELL WULF
Country Alliance

NICK WAKELING
Liberal (top)

2010 BOOTH RESULTS MAP

PAST RESULTS
(KNOX/FERNTREE GULLY)

DEMOGRAPHICS

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.

While carrying over the name of an existing electorate, the outer eastern suburbs seat of Ferntree Gully can more properly regarded as a new electorate, as the bulk of the seat as previously constituted now forms the basis of the new seat of Rowville. What had formerly been the northern end of Ferntree Gully, accounting for around 15,000 voters, now lies at the eastern end of an electorate that extends to what had been the southern part of Bayswater and the northern part of abolished Scoresby. In the former case, 12,000 voters have been absorbed in western Boronia, southern Wantirna and the northern part of Wantirna South. In the latter, the balance of Wantirna South and Knoxfield have added 14,000 voters. From the electorate as previously constituted, 25,500 voters in Lysterfield, western Rowville and southern Ferntree Gully go to Rowville, while a further 4300 voters in Boronia to the north have been transferred to Bayswater.

The electorate of Ferntree Gully was created at the 2002 election in place of abolished Knox, which was held by Labor from its creation in 1976 until Hurtle Lupton won it for the Liberals with an 11.3% swing in the 1992 landslide. The area’s volatility told against Lupton at the 2002 election when Anne Eckstein gained the seat for Labor with a 9.9% swing, but it was back in Liberal hands in 2006 when a 2.3% swing gave victory to Nick Wakeling by just 27 votes. In 2010 it recorded another remarkably heavy swing, in this case the second biggest of the election, of 12.0%. Despite the transformation the electorate has undergone in the redistribution, there has only been a 0.5% change in the margin, in favour of Labor.

Prior to entering parliament, Wakeling was a Knox councillor and an industrial relations adviser in various capacities, most recently with the recruitment agency Adecco. He was promoted to shadow parliamentary secretary in February 2008, and reached the lowest rung of cabinet as cabinet secretary after Ted Baillieu’s resignation in March 2013. A further promotion to Higher Education and Skills Minister followed in the March 2014 reshuffle, held after a number of members stood aside pending their retirements from parliament at the election.

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