Yan Yean

Margin: Liberal 0.1%*
Region: Northern Victoria
Federal: McEwen (64%)/Scullin (36%)

* Labor-held seat made notionally Liberal by redistribution

Candidates in ballot paper order

	BRUCE STEVENS Country Alliance ROB CLARK Shooters and Fishers DANIEL SACCHERO Greens DANIELLE GREEN Labor (top) SAM OZTURK Liberal (bottom) GERALDINE ROELINK Rise Up Australia RODNEY BAKER Family First

Located at Melbourne’s northern outskirts, Yan Yean encompasses brand new housing estates along the urban fringe at Mernda and Doreen, the more established suburban area around Diamond Creek further to the south, and semi-rural territory further to the north, including the towns of Wallan and Whittlesea. According to 2012 census figures, the electorate has the state’s third highest proportion of mortgage-paying households, and the sixth highest proportion of family households.

Owing to the area’s rapid growth, Yan Yean has undergone a complex set of changes in the redistribution, the combined impact of which is to turn Labor’s 4.1% margin from the 2010 election into a notional Liberal margin of 0.1%. Strong areas for Labor have been lost to their already safe seats of Mill Park, which gains 15,000 voters in eastern Epping and South Morang, and Thomastown, which gains 4400 voters in western Epping and undeveloped areas to the north. Further to the east, 4900 voters in a marginal area around Greensborough and Research have been transferred to Eltham, and 2200 voters in North Warrandyte go to Warrandyte. In the semi-rural east of the old electorate, 3000 voters around Arthurs Creek and St Andrews have been transferred to the new seat of Eildon. The only gain is from abolished Seymour in the electorate’s north-west, accounting for 6000 voters in Wallan, Upper Plenty and Beveridge.

Yan Yean was created at the 1992 election, when it was won for Labor by Andre Haermeyer on a margin of 1.9%. Haermeyer only slightly increased his margin as the tide moved back to Labor over the next two elections, and the redistribution at the 2002 election made the seat notionally Liberal. By now a senior front-bencher, Haermeyer sought refuge in the new western suburbs seat of Kororoit. He was succeeded in Yan Yean by his electorate officer, Danielle Green, who easily retained the seat with a 10.0% swing amid the landslide win of 2002. Green suffered fairly mild swings over the next two elections of 1.6% in 2006 and 3.8% in 2010, emerging on the latter occasion with a margin of 4.1%.

Like her former employer, Danielle Green is a member of the Labor Unity (Right) faction, but as a former vice-president of the Community and Public Sector Union she had previously been in the Socialist Left. Green served as a parliamentary secretary through Labor’s final term in office, and won promotion to the shadow ministry following the 2010 election defeat. Her portfolio load initially consisted of emergency services, volunteers, health promotion and disability services. Emergency services and volunteers were traded for women and child safety in February 2012, and in December 2013 she dropped disability services and had child safety rebadged as prevention of family violence. She will be opposed at the election by Liberal candidate Sam Ozturk, a lawyer of Turkish extraction who lives in Doreen.

The Australian offered mixed messages from Yan Yean and neighbouring Eltham in the opening fortnight of the campaign. In the first week, it was reported that Labor’s internal polling showed it on track to retain both seats. But the following week, it was related that the Liberals believed themselves to be competitive or better. At around the same time the Herald-Sun reported that Labor “swears it will hold Yan Yean”, about which the Liberals were “hopeful but not overly”.