Lowan
Margin: Nationals 21.9%
Region: Western Victoria
Federal: Mallee (61%)/Wannon (38%)
Outgoing member: Hugh Delahunty (Nationals)
Candidates in ballot paper order
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NKANDU BELTZ STEVE PRICE KATRINA RAINSFORD EMMA KEALY BOB SCATES |
2010 BOOTH RESULTS MAP |
PAST RESULTS
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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 safe Nationals seat of Lowan is the state’s largest in terms of geographic area, covering over half the length of the South Australian border commencing around 20 kilometres north of the coast. Its biggest population centres are Horsham in the north and Hamilton in the south. The redistribution has added territory in the east of the electorate, including 4000 around Warracknabeal from abolished Swan Hill and 1100 around Halls Gap from Ripon.
Lowan has existed as an electorate since 1889, except between 1945 and 1955 when it was replaced by Borung, and between 1992 and 2002 when it was replaced by Wimmera. The Liberals and the National/Country Party have been fighting it out here since the former party emerged in the 1940s, although the Nationals have had the upper hand since Bill McGrath defeated incumbent Jim McCabe in 1979. McGrath was succeeded as member for Wimmera in 1999 by Hugh Delahunty, brother of former Labor MP and Bracks government minister Mary Delahunty, who progressed to the recreated Lowan in 2002.
Hugh Delahunty is retiring at the coming election after serving for most of the current term as Minister for Sport and Recreation and Minister for Veterans Affairs, before standing aside in March. The new Nationals candidate is Emma Kealy, chief executive of the Edenhope and District Memorial Hospital. According to the Warrnambool Standard, other preselection nominees included “Horsham mayor David Grimble, football administrator Bruce Petering, seasonal wool classer and tipper driver Russell McKenzie and businessoman Andrea Cross”.