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-
george just sent this.
A story of one man, trying desperately to warn a sleepy Australian town of the coming carbon price armageddon…
http://tinyurl.com/6pebfnx
by BK on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:41 pm
Fran Barlow
Thank you for your summary, which said it all. Unfortunately I had to go and rinse my mouth out after reading all that – it left a sour taste.
by lizzie on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:41 pm
I see no change in my manner of posting at all.
I give back, I don’t hide from bullies (not accusing you, but there is certainly a bullying culture here). I can’t be bullied.
Will continue to post as long as the moderator permits.
If others leave, that is a matter for them (there have been a few), for whatever reasons. I won’t be leaving though…not until Bilbo tells me to POQ!
by Mod Lib on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:43 pm
528 ML
That’s just a bit of smoke and mirrors. The Oakeshott legislation would have enabled Abbott’s option as well as the government’s. Your response is only reasonable if you are referring to the Greens’ position not being considered.
Jacko! has also nailed you (it does seem a ‘get ML’ day) on misrepresenting the PM by relying on a subeditor’s misquote. I’d have thought you, of all posters a staunch defender of our free impartial press, would have been prepared to acknowledge this rather than run with the error verbatim.
by Gorgeous Dunny on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:44 pm
SK
Probably too late, but I do hope you have more than one toilet in your new house. It’s amazing how often the single loo is occupied!
by lizzie on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:45 pm
Mod Lib,
I am not bullying, not asking you to leave. But I can tell you it has changed. Make of it what you will.
by Space Kidette on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:45 pm
Modlib -
Funny that, because what you actually said was:
So they have to “support the High Court” to prove they have a conscience? How do they “support the High Court” exactly? Sounds like singing praises to me. For the HC doing its job. This is basically one of the LNP’s lines rebadged for your purposes about the ALP undermining institutions or somesuch (see how you put it as the ALP members didn’t “support the HC” – that’s tantamount to undermining the HC! zomg!). Until you squirm and talk about how what you really meant was no ALP MPs standing up for keeping the existing protections in law for all people who arrive on our shores.
Right, so it is all about how moral those particular libs are and how fraudulent, immoral, amoral, whatever the ALP MPs are. Nothing to do with the HC at all. Funny how your tune changes from minute to minute.
And as others have pointed out, just because certain protections are removed doesn’t mean there are no protections for those renditioned individuals, but knowing your position I won’t even bother to try to argue the point as it’s water off a duck’s back for your teflon position.
by Jackol on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:46 pm
Lizzie,
I have two loos and an outdoor shower too to clean off my grubs before they enter the house!
by Space Kidette on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:46 pm
link is to an article in the Oz (via google)
worth a look
by Leroy on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:47 pm
by Leroy on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:48 pm
At present, this seems highly unlikely, or are Gillard supporters trying to pretend that the polls don’t exist and Labor’s 12 points ahead instead?
by Thornleigh Labor Man on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:49 pm
SK
Phew! That’s good. The older you get, the more urgent!!!
by lizzie on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:49 pm
by Mod Lib on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:51 pm
Mod Lib: If they bully you out of here, I’m not hanging around either.
I for one appreciate your comments always, you’re a good, honest conservative – we need some variance of views over here, not just the endless “Gillard is wonderful” propoganda that is shoved down our collective throats 24/7.
by Thornleigh Labor Man on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:51 pm
BW
I don’t agree BW. The ALP has a fundamentally different brief — like the Liberals, to manage the affairs of the privileged so that the advantages of progress, if there is any, goes disproportionately to them, and if there is decline, that its burdens fall most heavily on the comparatively non-privileged.
That has been the dominant pattern at state and federal level for pretty much all of the last 100 years. For most of that time too, they have been expressly parochial if not positively xenophobic. They contain within them ardent homophobes, enemies of women’s rights, and apologists for US imperialist aggression. They contain folks who see those despoiling the biosphere as heroes of the country who deserve favourable adminstrative and tax dealing. They have a fetish with budget surpluses. They reject the idea of holding and building public infrastructure yet subsidise failing businesses. They make nice with the spivs from the Murdochracy even as those people lambast them with mountains of lies. And now, they’ve tried as hard as they can to become people smugglers in their own right so as to punish the vulnerable. In your model, we Greens would have been honorary prison warders and panderers to bigots. That sounds utterly unappealing.
There is a constituency for such policies, but it’s nothing like ours. It’s hard to imagine how we could cohabit in one organisation without upsetting at least one side of those constituencies.
We might perhaps cohabit with ALP members who have rejected the ALP’s corrosive embrace of the boss class and its momentary needs, but surely not the ALP as a whole.
by Fran Barlow on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:51 pm
lizzie,
I like the serenity of the separation between girls and boys loos. I’m the only girl in the house. So there is an information demarcation on my insistence!
by Space Kidette on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:51 pm
TLM:
I think its something about more mobile phones now than before!
by Mod Lib on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:51 pm
Puff, the Magic Dragon. @ 601
Agree Labor wins the election by default
by Meguire Bob on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:51 pm
SK
You could build an outside loo as well, for the men.
by Puff, the Magic Dragon. on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:52 pm
Where are these polls that put Labor in a position to win the next election?
A triumph of hope over reality, in the case of Ms Gillard, her factional allies & her ardent cheersquad on PB.
by Thornleigh Labor Man on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:52 pm
As much as that offer may have started some here to salivate, its not going to happen!!!
I’m here till Bilbo bans me.
by Mod Lib on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:52 pm
Puff, the Magic Dragon. @ 600
sorry
by Meguire Bob on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:52 pm
Puff,
A dog house too could come in handy. Though we don’t have a dog
by Space Kidette on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:53 pm
Mod Lib
The Coalition is smurfed. They have over-egged their omelet.
by Puff, the Magic Dragon. on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:53 pm
Convenient fall back position, ignoring the fact that the major polling organisations take data from people with mobiles only.
And Essential media is an internet based polling firm – what’s their last survey? Labor 12 points behind.
Gillard supporters talking crap again.
by Thornleigh Labor Man on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:54 pm
Sorry if linked already.
by lizzie on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:54 pm
Whyalla you are safe.
In tropical regions
There’s mozzies in legions
But none is a havoc completor,
As one little devil
Who’s not on the level
It’s Abbott the NoaConstrictor.
He pedals his snake oil Ignoring the bisons
Whilst proffering his own false allusions,
The sky, It’s down, like a good feast of Challah
And off the map, wiped & flooded, is the town of Whyalla.
He’ll wake in the morn real close to the dawn,
With his hands strongly grasping the siphon
But we know it’s safe and exclaim with a yawn,
There’s foam on the deck, what a terrible wreck
Ah, he’s grasping his own jama python.
by Gaffhook on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:55 pm
As I have said many. many times….by not allowing a bill to pass that enables teenagers to be sent to Malaysia without any protections of Australian standards (i.e., why the High Court struck out the bill).
Thats what I meant by supporting the High Court.
by Mod Lib on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:55 pm
Despite all the huffing a puffing, the conservatives are as far from power as they have ever been. Currently this is about 14-16 months at best.
How many times have we heard in the last what? two years that the days of both “the government” and “JG” are “numbered”?
If we have heard this once from the so-called pundits in the media and the tame-cat conservatives who come here, we must have heard it a thousand times.
My question to them is, well, why not?
The answer of course, is that despite all, an astute leader has kept Labor in power, still continues to do so, and will, likely as not, do so until August/September 2013.
Interestingly the top Nabob of the Libs has conceded the “polls will tighten” in the coming months – not perhaps immediately, but come November-December, who is to say? I also heard something similar here in Perth about a week ago. I don’t see it yet, but peak conservative and low point Labor was winter of 2011 – not 2012.
The Liberals know that time is their enemy.
They know the longer Labor stays on its feet and the more often most are wrong about its demise, even the dummies will start to wonder why?
Most of Labor’s legislative agenda will be well and truly bedded down by the end of this year, then it is into full-scale sell, sell, sell mode.
One soft-soap Budget, and I don’t mind buying off voters, if that is what they want as it is their money, and one more tough but “slay the dragon” election campaign and a Liberal win is not there for the taking.
It is absolutely no accident JG brought on the AS gig in this last week. It was calculated and deliberate. So much so, that one old dear on talk back radio here in Perth criticised JG not for the cliche of being a liar, but because she is “ruthless”.
The Abbott, “She will just not lie down and die” shows his ultimate frustration, not to mention his fellow media hacks spin the same yarn.
Best of all, there are some goodies to come – by the look of it – arising our the the Slipper affair and maybe Thomson. Who is to say which way it will go, but I wonder if there is not something there which smells and is strongly linked to the Skunk Works at Menzies House?
If nothing else, electoral impact or not, it would be good to call those sanctimonious hypocrites for what they are.
by Tricot on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:55 pm
Glad to oblige Lizzie. It was a walk down memory lane to the 1980s and the days of textual analysis and congruent rewriting, John Berger, Judith Williamson and so forth …
I haven’t done one of those in years.
by Fran Barlow on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:55 pm
Mod Lib: You can always join me, Vera and a few other rejects from here over on FB….we chat about the evil “Ex Prime Minister” in a certain place.
by Thornleigh Labor Man on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:56 pm
I am going to laugh my head off at Mod Lib if/when the ALP win the next election.
by Mick Collins on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:56 pm
SK
Dog-house with men’s loo?
What about a sluice-room next to the kitchen? Walk-in linen room?
by Puff, the Magic Dragon. on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:56 pm
We shall see.
The ALP one still has the broken shells from all the internal fighting!
by Mod Lib on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:56 pm
People who do t like emmo on twitter fear change
Thats all liberals
My goodness did i see a liberal last week with a fur
by my say on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:56 pm
by Space Kidette on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:56 pm
What is FB?
by Mod Lib on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:57 pm
Puff,
The whole idea was to downsize from 40sq’s to something far more manageable. Trying to keep rooms and cleaning to an absolute minimum!
by Space Kidette on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:58 pm
You would be well within your rights to do just that.
Can I do the same if Gillard is trounced?
by Mod Lib on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:58 pm
Facebook, Mod Lib.
More Labor leadership rumblings:
http://afr.com/p/opinion/raw_emotions_fail_to_stem_brinkmanship_hHjuPmwS4fFHSy52HN1uZM
by Thornleigh Labor Man on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:59 pm
Mod Lib –
wtf?
The legislature is somehow morally obliged to support the High Court by not touching legislation that the High Court is obliged to interpret? The High Court exists to interpret the law as created by the legislature. This isn’t a point of sophistry, it’s our system of government. The High Court does not need any “support” from the legislators in the manner you described.
I would say, Mod Lib, that you have completely lost your marbles, but I know that is not true – your points are just bogus and you’re flailing around at anything to try to save face.
by Jackol on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:59 pm
Zomster
As a regular ALP candidate I suggest you READ the high court judgement. They did NOT rule against the Migration ACT
The court or most of them argued not that the Migration Act was in any sense wrong. the argument was that the MINISTER BREACHED the Act in trying to send people to Malaysia because he could not be assured of their human rights protection.
Your are an important poster here influential and generally sane. It is your DUTY to get it right
by daretotread on Jun 30, 2012 at 3:59 pm
My daughter has a walk in linned room
She told about a friend with 6 children who has a very large laundry
Instead of keeping every day clothes in their bedroom
Each has shelving a d cupboards in laundry
That way she does not have to walk to all bedrooms
School clothes es are taken to bedroom as thet go to bed
I thought that would be amazing
by my say on Jun 30, 2012 at 4:00 pm
FB
I knew that.
Doctrinaire Reds have always seen the centre left as running dog enemies of the people. For the Reds, the Greens are a Wet dream: the perfect front party, small enough so that they can run things.
Nor do the Reds actually want to run the country. They have demonstrated this for around three quarters of a century. All that reality: too hard and too confusing. Better stick to debating how many Greens angels fit on the head of a pin and putting down all the benighted politically-incorrect folk.
The sooner the environment Greens get rid of the Reds, and then amalgamate with the Labor Party to form a new centre-left party, the better off we will all be.
In the interim, we will have to put up with reactionary governments, ever greater social disparity, and a combination of speeded up AGW and speeded up mass extinction event.
But this sort of dynamic suits the Reds, doesn’t it?
by Boerwar on Jun 30, 2012 at 4:00 pm
Fran Barlow
I knew that.
Doctrinaire Reds have always seen the centre left as running dog enemies of the people. For the Reds, the Greens are a Wet dream: the perfect front party, small enough so that they can run things.
Nor do the Reds actually want to run the country. They have demonstrated this for around three quarters of a century. All that reality: too hard and too confusing. Better stick to debating how many Greens angels fit on the head of a pin and putting down all the benighted politically-incorrect folk.
The sooner the environment Greens get rid of the Reds, and then amalgamate with the Labor Party to form a new centre-left party, the better off we will all be.
In the interim, we will have to put up with reactionary governments, ever greater social disparity, and a combination of speeded up AGW and speeded up mass extinction event.
But this sort of dynamic suits the Reds, doesn’t it?
by Boerwar on Jun 30, 2012 at 4:01 pm
Wrong.
Exhibit A: NSW election
Exhibit B: Qld election
by Mod Lib on Jun 30, 2012 at 4:01 pm
Most accurate political commentary of the weekend (although I haven’t read Megalogenis yet)
http://afr.com/p/opinion/hung_parliament_that_hung_itself_HCWalIckJk029qFE8Nk7CJ
by spur212 on Jun 30, 2012 at 4:02 pm
The question will be is how much longer will news ltd support their man abbott
They threw everything at Gillard and labor to forced an election or change of government without an election
and lost
Is it better for news ltd to turn on abbott, before he makes them look real foolish in 2013
by Meguire Bob on Jun 30, 2012 at 4:04 pm
Jackol:
I have stated the position many times and I have stated it is within the rights of the Parliament to change laws many times.
The reason I am very glad the bill was defeated last week is that the aim of the bill was to go around the problem with the Malaysian solution- the lack of protections.
You want every ALP MP to support a bill that removes or bypasses the requirement for those protections so that you can implement the Malaysian solution.
Fair enough. The ALP can change the bill so remove protections.
What you cannot do is hide from the fact that that is exactly what you are doing. If you are ashamed that this is what the ALP is doing then don’t take it out on me!
by Mod Lib on Jun 30, 2012 at 4:05 pm
The reason I don’t think Thornleigh Labor Man is really a Labor supporter any more, just anti Gillard, is how he answered a thrown out line about Labor election policies. Scoffed at the odds of winning, nothing to say about the substance of the comment.
I’m not one to say we are “likely” to win. I think its all up in the air. It will be a hard slog, regardless of leadership (harder if we change again IMO), but independent of that, in any election campaign you have to go to an election with policy plans. I’d be interested to know what actual Labor supporters here think they should be for 2013-2016. Much of it will be about consolidation of current measures, but what would people like to see govt do in the future?
by Leroy on Jun 30, 2012 at 4:05 pm