Niddrie
Margin: Labor 4.5%
Region: Western Metropolitan
Federal: Maribyrnong (82%)/Calwell (18%)
Candidates in ballot paper order
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SARAH ROBERTS ANDREA SURACE PADDY DEWAN BEN CARROLL JOHN WARNER REBECCA GAUCI MAURICI APPOLLO YIANNI ANDREW GUNTER |
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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Niddrie covers fairly comfortable territory for Labor about 12 kilometres north-west of the city, from Avondale Heights and Aberfeldie north through Niddrie to Keilor and Airport West. The redistribution has cut Labor’s margin by 2.4% through substantial changes in the electorate’s south-east, where the 3000 voters of Aberfeldie are gained from Essendon, and the north-west, where territory is both gained and lost. In the former case, 4000 voters are added from Keilor and part of Taylors Lakes, resulting in the name of the Keilor electorate being changed to Sydenham. Further to the south, a realignment of the western boundary along the Maribyrnong River sends the 2200 voters of Kealba to the new electorate of St Albans.
Labor has gone untroubled in Niddrie since the seat’s creation in 1976, its low ebb being a 3.6% margin when the Kirner government was defeated in 1992. The inaugural member, Cain government minister John Simpson, was succeeded in 1988 by Bob Sercombe, who went on to enter federal parliament as member for Maribyrnong in 1996. Sercombe’s successor Rob Hulls went the other way, having won the northern Queensland seat of Kennedy for Labor at the 1990 federal election after moving from Melbourne to Mount Isa to open a legal practice, then being unseated in 1993 by Bob Katter, who was at that time with the Nationals. Hulls promptly emerged as a senior figure in the opposition after entering state parliament, going on to serve in cabinet throughout the period of Bracks government, and then becoming Deputy Premier when John Brumby succeeded Bracks in July 2007.
Ben Carroll succeeded Rob Hulls as member following his retirement a year after the 2010 election defeat, polling 46.8% of the primary vote at a by-election in March 2012 in the absence of a Liberal candidate. A former adviser to Senator Stephen Conroy and earlier to Steve Bracks, and the brother of state party secretary Noah Carroll, Carroll won preselection ahead of Jaclyn Symes, a former electorate officer to Hulls, and Sebastian “Sam” Agricola, a solicitor. Carroll in fact came third in the ballot of local party members, but the certainty of defeat prompted Agricola to withdraw before the party’s Public Office Selection Committee added its 50% share of the vote, factional arrangements having reserved the seat for Labor Unity (the Right). John Ferguson of The Australian reported that a factional vote produced a decisive 20-4 split in favour of Carroll, despite reports that Symes was the preferred candidate of Brumby and Hulls. Carroll was promoted to shadow parliamentary secretary for public transport and roads in February 2013.
The Liberals have endorsed Rebecca Gauci Maurici, who picked up a 9.3% swing as candidate for Essendon in 2010.