Seat of the week: Corangamite
Corangamite has covered a shifting area around Colac 150 kilometres west of Melbourne since its creation at federation, its complexion changing somewhat with the absorption of the Geelong suburbs of South Barwon and Belmont in 1955. It was one of Labor’s two gains in Victoria when Kevin Rudd came to power in 2007, giving Labor its first win in the seat since the Great Depression. In its current form the electorate includes the Geelong suburbs south-west of the Barwon River and the Great Ocean Road as far as Apollo Bay, together with rural areas to the west and north. The Geelong suburbs, which include Liberal-leaning Highton and marginal Belmont and Grovedale, contain a little over a third of the electorate’s voters, and are distinguished (along with Torquay) by a younger demographic profile and a preponderance of mortgage payers. Growth in Geelong, Torquay and the Bellarine Peninsula left the seat over quota at the redistribution to take effect at the next election, resulting in the transfer of most of the Bellarine Peninsula (accounting for about 5700 voters) to Corio. This has had a negligible impact on the Labor margin, which on Antony Green’s calculation goes from 0.4% to 0.3%.
Labor’s only wins in Corangamite prior to 2007 were in 1910, when future Prime Minister Jim Scullin became member for a term (he would return as member for the inner Melbourne seat of Yarra in 1922), and at the 1929 election when Scullin’s short-lived government came to power. The Country Party held the seat for one term from 1931, after which it was held by the United Australia Party and then the Liberal Party. The enlargement of parliament in 1984 cost the electorate its most conservative rural territory in the west, but it took another 23 years before Labor was able to realise its hopes of gaining the seat. It was assisted to this end by the “sea change” phenomenon, the ABC TV series of that name having been set in the electorate at Barwon Heads. This has drained about 10% from the Liberal primary vote in the Great Ocean Road towns since the early 1990s, with the Greens vote there burgeoning to 17% at the 2010 election.
Corangamite was held from 1984 to 2007 by Stewart McArthur, who to the dismay of some in the Liberal Party sought another term in 2007 at the age of 70. His Labor challenger was 31-year-old Darren Cheeseman, an official with the Left faction Community and Public Sector Union who won a hotly contested preselection over Peter McMullin, the Right-backed mayor of Geelong and candidate from 2004. Cheeseman went on to overwhelm McArthur’s 5.3% margin with a 6.2% swing that was evenly distributed throughout the electorate. Faced at the 2010 election by a fresh Liberal candidate in Sarah Henderson, a former state host of The 7.30 Report and daughter of former state MP Ann Henderson, Cheeseman was brought within 771 votes of defeat by a 0.4% swing that went slightly against the trend of a 1.0% statewide swing to Labor. Cheeseman went on to receive substantial publicity in February 2012 when he declared Labor would be “decimated” if Julia Gillard led it to the election, which set the ball rolling on Kevin Rudd’s unsuccessful leadership challenge a week later.
Sarah Henderson will again represent the Liberals at the next election after winning a fiercely contested struggle for Liberal preselection against Rod Nockles, an internet security expert and former Peter Costello staffer who also sought preselection in 2010. Henderson’s backers reportedly included Tony Abbott and Michael Kroger, with Nockles having support from Peter Costello, Andrew Robb, Senators Arthur Sinodinos and Scott Ryan and Higgins MP Kelly O’Dwyer. In the event, Henderson won a surprisingly easy victory with an absolute majority on the first round.
Categories: Federal Election 2013, Federal Politics 2010-
I think that refugees trying to get to Australia from Indonesia probably have better information about their chances than white anglo Australians in sunny Melbourne.
Currently the High Court has rejected the Malaysian solution
As Bruce Haigh a former Australian Ambassador to Sri Lanka has said many times on ABC Unleashed website, the Sri Lankan government is conducting genocide against teh remaining Tamils, so the Tamils are still going to leave Sri Lanka. Tamils may go to the Middle East to seek work or Europe to flog knock-off bags to [Australian] tourists or they may rot in malaysia or indonesia or seek to enter New Zealand and eventually get to Australia after they gain Kiwi citzenship
by billie on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:08 am
At the moment the number of AS arriving in Australia is constrained by two things and two things only.
Firstly the refugee quota. This sets a yearly maximum and is well controlled.
Secondly, the boat sailing process and its effectiveness.
If the quota were doubled, the inclination to attempt the second process would be virtually undiminished. Therefore the boats would still sail and deaths would predictably occur.
So, the only way to stop the drownings – or significantly reduce them – is to suppress the inclination to attempt the boat journeys. This then begs the question of how to stop the boats SAILING as opposed to stopping the boats ARRIVING.
by BK on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:09 am
guytaur @ 300
Read my 297 and try and get your head around that.
by bemused on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:10 am
bemused
Read my @ 300 and try and get your head around that. Either you are arguing for prevention of death at sea or you are not.
Arguing numbers arriving is a different argument. Simple fact
by guytaur on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:11 am
Whyalla laughing in the face of its impending demise.
http://i.imgur.com/Vd833.jpg
by Greensborough Growler on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:13 am
GG
I did not think Ballieu had set aside state funds to cover this spend
by victoria on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:14 am
[Greensborough Growler
Posted Saturday, June 30, 2012 at 11:13 am | Permalink
Whyalla laughing in the face of its impending demise.
http://i.imgur.com/Vd833.jpg
Do you think that is a pro-ALP billboard GG?
by Mod Lib on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:15 am
It’s only a $3.5 billion funding differential given Abbott’s “commitment”.
A Lib should be able to handle that OK.
by BK on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:16 am
Mod Lib,
The blue sky is proof positive that it is ALP positive.
It is well known that the sky is always grey under the Libs.
by Greensborough Growler on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:18 am
@ABCNews24: Coming up @CliveFPalmer will join @LyndalCurtis on #WeekendBreakfast from the #libfed council meeting in Melbourne #auspol #asylum
by guytaur on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:19 am
vic,
The Libs making a populist uncosted announcement.?.
Well, gosh!
by Greensborough Growler on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:20 am
guytaur @ 306
I realise Greens have trouble dealing with more than one simple issue at a time, but both points are applicable.
To simplify so even a Green can understand.
1. As a matter of conscience we should act to stop deaths at sea.
2. We can be more generous in how many Asylum Seekers we accept, but we simply cannot have an open borders policy.
by bemused on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:21 am
Modlib
Another woman hater Modlib?, men generally don’t like a woman in charge because in most homes they have to toe the line, because the wife wears the trousers.
Also the Libs are ten points ahead in the polls, it only takes SIX voters in ONE hundred to change their votes and the ALP is AHEAD!. get your head around that!.
Libs and Nats are held together by a umbilical cord, without sucking up to each other they would NEVER be in government, at least the ALP stands on it’s own two feet!.
by 1934pc on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:21 am
Accompaniment to Whyalla Wipeout http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5D07c0dJuQ
by This little black duck on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:22 am
Puff, the Magic Dragon @ 295
It looks like the evacuation is well under way. Residents are grabbing thier kids and whatever else they can and are heading for the airport before it ceases to exist.
http://celebrity-gossip.net/katherine-heigl/katherine-heigl-jets-baby-adalaide-686951
http://celebrity-gossip.net/jennifer-lawrence/jennifer-lawrences-pre-weekend-luggage-loadup-686973
And in other breaking news shockwaves from the looming disater are already spreading around the globe. In Hollywood there have been some notable splits -
http://gawker.com/5922394/tom-cruise-katie-holmes-divorcing-because-they-couldnt-fake-being-in-love-forever-and-plus-shes-not-a-dude
and here
http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/celebrity/single-again-20120629-217au.html
And in Namibia Charlize Theron was so overcome by grief at the plight facing Australians that she shaved her head in sympathy -
http://celebrity-gossip.net/charlize-theron/charlize-theron-debuts-shaved-head-namibia-686392
by leone on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:22 am
Excellent! No doubt you can use your influence to have more billboards (which are apparently great ads for the ALP cause you seem to think) to spread all over the country.
I am sure the Liberal party will not object to these billboards, so you get a free run…
by Mod Lib on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:23 am
bemused
It is your side accusing Greens about drowning at sea. So it is up to your side to put your actions where your words are. Where are the planes flying to Indonesia etc to prevent the sea voyages to prevent drownings at sea.
Put up or shut up.
by guytaur on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:23 am
GG
True. They do populist really well.
Anyhow off to stimulate the economy!!
by victoria on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:25 am
Mod Lib @ 309
I read it as pro-sanity.
by bemused on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:25 am
Not just open borders, a bloody shuttle service. Just call up your friendly local Australian Consulate and inform them you’d like to apply for asylum. They’ll send a driver around for you and as many relatives (close and distant) as you can name. Then it’s the flying Kangaroo into Mascot, a few days at Villawood, and BINGO another happy group of new Australians freshly minted.
What could possibly go wrong?
by ratsak on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:26 am
Mod Lib,
Your words, not mine. You may quote me any time. But, please don’t verbal me.
by Greensborough Growler on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:27 am
Is there any truth in the rumour that Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono phoned Julia Gillard late last night with an offer of assistance? Apparently he has offered to send boats to Australia to take homeless refugees from Whyalla, Port Pirie, Woollongong and other towns facing imminent destruction to sanctuary in Indonesia.
by leone on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:28 am
ratsak
Go look at what the argument is about. It is about the accusations against the Greens. I am calling those claiming the Greens are for “drowning at sea” for the hypocrites they are.
by guytaur on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:30 am
Guytaur,
Labor supported legislation this week that will stop the deaths on the high seas.
You obviously haven’t been watching or listening. Obviously, you Greens have been too busy practicing your faces of mock outrage to give a damn about the demise of a few ASs.
by Greensborough Growler on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:30 am
leone,
Indonesia haven’t signed the UN treaty.
Unfortunately, the WAS’s just have to die.
by Greensborough Growler on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:32 am
leone,
How about this comment:
by Space Kidette on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:32 am
There is not balance or reason in the Australian and I do not think you show reason or balance
by scoutdog on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:33 am
guytaur @ 319
Yes. And by the Greens stupidity and actions, they are.
Did you sleep through the last couple of days parliamentary debate?
Truthyesque stupidity.
Australia, like every other country in the world, is not about to offer free flights to anyone who wants to come from anywhere in the world. It would destroy our orderly Asylum Seeker intake and any semblance of a migration program.
Planes currently bring Asylum Seekers who had have their claims assessed in a number of countries and will continue to do so.
See above.
by bemused on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:34 am
GG
But…but…but.. Chrissie Pyne said last night that Indonesia would look after anyone arriving in a boat. He said it several times too. Surely he wasn’t lying…
by leone on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:35 am
Guytaur,
I know what the argument is about. I also know the simplistic answer of ‘just give em a plane ride’ is no solution. Until the Greens are prepared to grapple with horrendous complexity of the entire issue, and the very real and dangerous unintended consequences of the their simplistic suggestions then I will ignore their prattling and look to practical people who are prepared to find a workable solution no matter how far it falls short of their aspirations.
by ratsak on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:35 am
GG
You
fail go read the posts.
by guytaur on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:35 am
Ms Deborah @Helishingly
scenes of chaos at Whyalla on their eve of destruction http://www.whyalla.com/page.aspx?u=71 via @spacekidette
by Greensborough Growler on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:36 am
by Space Kidette on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:37 am
ratsak
I am not actually going around claiming people have “blood on their hands” or are for drowning at sea.
I am just pointing out the hypocrisy for those that that are
by guytaur on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:37 am
SK
‘Run like the wind’ is something Ms Holmes should have done years ago.
by leone on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:39 am
Isn’t Joe a lovely bloke? He laughs, he cries, he babysits. Such humour!
by lizzie on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:39 am
Cruise + Travolta?
by This little black duck on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:39 am
guytaur,
It’s pretty hard for the Greens to have blood on your hands when you drown people at sea. The water washes it off. But the inner moral stench remains.
by Greensborough Growler on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:39 am
leone,
Exactly. But I think there is going to be one hell of a bun fight over his only biological child.
by Space Kidette on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:41 am
lizzie,
Joe Hockey is his own perfectly formed American sitcom with his own canned laughter.
by Greensborough Growler on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:42 am
WewantPaul said:
Indeed … they’d like a chance at dignified life and not only have an opinion on how that might be achieved, but are willing to stake everything of value — including their lives and of their children in many cases on that judgement.
On the other hand, we have a regime that devised the Lindsay Test as a policy filter described as impartial.
You nym is apt indeed. You really have lost touch with reality. Like the Abbottistas, you can and will say anything that serves your perceived momentary interest. Richo’s “whatever it takes” rules.
ratsak said:
Fallacy of equivocation
Principles can be broad guidelines, rules of thumb if you will, but a political party’s principles, if it has any, must by definition exclude some things or else the party must admit that it stands for nothing but a vague and ill-defined set of impulses which can be set aside whenever inconvenient.
This is one of the reasons, the principal one, (pun intended) that the ALP is in such terrible trouble at the moment. Nobody can declare with certainty what it stands for. It is an empty vessel into which any policy or principle can be poured, that exists primarily to serve the elite with persons qualified to administer competently its interests. Its rivals — the Liberals — are the “competition” that allows the elite to manoeuvre and reconcile differences between its fractions.
The ALP and the Liberals cannot have prescriptive principles because that would complicate the business of coalition and constituency formation. They both have to present themselves as blank slates on which the contending fractions of the boss class can inscribe their wish lists. This is neoliberal democracy in Australia and pretty much the western world, in the 21st century.
And above, ratsak faithfully iterates its central political demand — principles must be infinitely malleable and dispensible. The vague and non-committal must inherit the Earth.
Those whose principles are actually meaningful must be howled down as pious purists, as “eunuchs” as fit to be placed in chaff bags or irregular entry vessels and dumped at sea. That’s one principle on which the bosses and their flunkies are quite keen.
by Fran Barlow on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:43 am
guytaur,
Only need to read one of your posts. They are all the same.
You are definately stuck on stupid.
by Greensborough Growler on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:44 am
GG
You are wrong and what is more you know it.
by guytaur on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:44 am
guytaur,
I’m never wrong and this time I’m right.
by Greensborough Growler on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:45 am
Backpedalling after you had another look at what you posted eh? Very wise!
by Mod Lib on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:46 am
TLBD
This is so much more fun than endless raving about the Greens.
Did you know that Rhianna (who?) escaped a hotel fire?
http://celebrity-gossip.net/celebrity-news/video/rihanna-escapes-hotel-fire
Or that Paris Hilton fell over?
http://celebrity-gossip.net/celebrity-news/video/paris-hilton-knocked-down-paparazzi-scuffle
I suppose it’s all Labor’s/Julia Gillard’s fault. I expect Tony Abbott will have a lot to say about our PM causing so many international disasters.
by leone on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:46 am
GG,
May I tweet your Hockey quote?
by Space Kidette on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:46 am
GG
Remember you cannot have your own facts
by guytaur on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:46 am
An encouraging sign from the enigmatically smiling Kate McClymont, as she runs a column headed:
There was me, thinking that finally the SMH has finally acknowledged and grabbed Wixxy’s mountain of detail and done some investigative digging on its own account. Could a full expose be far behind?
Sadly, it turns out to be a few short words on some Wikipedia flame war – competing Wiki “editors” doing what anonymity allows them to do best – playing whack-a-mole with each other’s posts on the Wikipedia’s “HSU” page.
The investigative gumshoes at the Herald even manage to identify one of the “editors” as a Canberra taxi driver with a son in the HSU who reckons that if Thomson ever gets sick he should be served poisoned food. That’ll fix him for stealing $6,000-odd and spending it on hookers.
As to Kathy Jackson’s own fiddles, the Byzantine interferences of her lover, the bizarre court appearances and the connections all the way to the top of the Liberal party…. crickets…….
The reason the MSM is failing is that it regards itself as the sole repository of wisdom and judgement in all aspects of public discourse and information.
It writes tosh stories like this one, doesn’t invite interactive feedback, holds comments in moderation limbo for hours (thus killing any sense of ebb and flow of argument and opinion) and almost never – with the noble exceptions of George M and Jack the Insider – deigns to respond to its readers, except to tell them to “F**k off moron” if they dare to criticise on twitter or (the horror!) by email.
They nail what amounts to “Papal Bulls” to the door of their own church in the town square, and still – in this day and age – expect the villagers to come down in their Sunday best to pay chin-stroking, head-nodding obeisance to whatever they dish up as “news”.
The Thomson story has moved on a long way from Thomson himself. It now involves his main accuser as perhaps an even worse offender than Thomson is alleged to be. It involves her cringingly embarrassing attempts to bamboozle a judge with an amateurish exposition of his own law.
It involves her judicial lover too, a murky legal backdrop of anti-union pin-striped thugs doing pro-bono work (not only for Jackson, but for Ashby as well).
And it involves the Leader of the Opposition who appointed said lover, a family friend of Abbott’s, to his cosy sinecure from where he initiates police investigations and pulls God know what other strings.
And what’s the best the the Ace Investigative Reporter McClymont can dredge up?
A couple of hundred words about a Canberra cabbie flaming another anoneme on Wikipedia.
Pathetic, but illustrative about what’s wrong with the media.
In a nutshell: they’re up themselves.
by Bushfire Bill on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:47 am
How many have the Rudd/Gillard ALP drowned so far since 2007?
Using your paradigm its several hundred….just terrible, terrible.
by Mod Lib on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:47 am