Forest Hill
Margin: Liberal 3.5%
Region: Eastern Metropolitan
Federal: Deakin (44%)/Chisholm (44%)/Bruce (12%)
Candidates in ballot paper order
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KANE ROGERS MELISSA TROTTER NEIL ANGUS PAULINE RICHARDS BREWIS ATKINSON LYNNE MADDISON WENDY ROSS |
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 eastern suburbs electorate of Forest Hill was one of the twelve gains that delivered victory to the Coalition at the 2010 election, a relatively mild swing of 3.9% being more than sufficient to account for Labor’s narrow margin from 2006. The electorate extends from Blackburn South and Burwood East in the west, which are naturally marginal, through Forest Hill itself to Vermont in the east, which give the seat its Liberal lean. It has only been slightly altered by the redistribution, which adds 5000 voters in the north-east of the electorate at northern Vermont and the north-eastern part of Forest Hill, which were previously in the abolished seat of Mitcham. The changes nonetheless give the Liberals a helpful 0.3% boost in one of the election’s key seats.
Forest Hill was created in 1976 and has only been held by Labor from 2002 to 2010, having remained just outside the party’s grasp during the John Cain years. It finally fell to Labor following a 12.0% swing in the 2002 landslide, and was held for the next two terms by Kirstie Marshall, who had won fame as an aerial skier in the 1994 and 1998 Winter Olympics. Marshall’s cause in 2002 was aided by the retirement of veteran Liberal member in 2002, and a 5.0% correction in 2006 pared her margin back to 0.8%.
Marshall was defeated at the 2010 election by Liberal candidate Neil Angus, who had previously been a chartered accountant. Labor’s new candidate is Pauline Richards, a former Whitehorse councillor and staffer to Mike Symon, who held the federal seat of Deakin for Labor from 2007 to 2013.
Labor was starting to get its hopes up here early in the final week, but this should be among the seats firewalled by the late move to the Liberals recorded by the polls.