Seat of the week: Canberra

The Liberals once won the seat covering the southern half of the national capital at a by-election during the terminal phase of the Keating government, but they wouldn’t be holding their breath waiting for it to happen again.

Red and blue numbers respectively indicate two-party majorities for Labor and Liberal. Click for larger image. Map boundaries courtesy of Ben Raue at The Tally Room.

The electorate of Canberra covers the southern half of the national capital together with the bulk of the Australian Capital Territory’s undeveloped remainder, with northern Canberra accommodated by the seat of Fraser. Both seats were created when the territory was first divided into two electorates in 1974. The Australian Capital Territory had been a single electorate since the expansion of parliament in 1949, but its member only obtained full voting rights in 1968. A third electorate of Namadgi was created for the 1996 election, accommodating Tuggeranong and its surrounds in Canberra’s far south, which pushed the Canberra electorate north of Lake Burley Griffin to include the city’s centre and inner north. However, the previous order was reinstated when the seat entitlement slipped back to two at the 1998 election, in large part due to Howard government cutbacks to the federal public service. The two ACT electorates presently have enrolments of around 140,000 voters each, compared with a national average of around 105,000.

The Australian Capital Territory electorate was won by an independent at its first election in 1949, but was held by Labor after 1951. Kep Enderby came to the seat at a 1970 by-election and carried over to Canberra in 1974, succeeding Lionel Murphy as Attorney-General upon his appointment to the High Court in early 1975. Enderby was then dumped by a 10.4% swing to the Liberals at the December 1975 election, and for the next two terms the seat was held for the Liberals by John Haslem. The seat’s natural Labor inclination finally reasserted itself in 1980 with the election of Ros Kelly, who served in the Hawke-Keating ministries from 1987 until she fell victim to the still notorious “sports rorts” affair in 1994. Kelly’s indulgent departure from parliament a year later was followed by a disastrous by-election result for Labor, with Liberal candidate Brendan Smyth gaining the seat off a 16.2% swing.

Smyth unsuccessfully contested the new seat of Namadgi at the 1996 election, and Canberra was easily won for Labor by Bob McMullan, who had served the ACT as a Senator since 1988. The reassertion of the old boundaries in 1998 prompted McMullan to move to Fraser, the Labor margin in the redrawn Canberra being 5.1% lower than the one he had secured on the short-lived boundaries in 1996. Canberra went to Annette Ellis, who had entered parliament as the member for Namadgi in 1996, while Fraser MP Steve Darvagel agreed to go quietly after a brief parliamentary career that began when he succeeded John Langmore at a by-election in February 1997. Ellis added 7.2% to an existing 2.3% margin at the 1998 election, since which time the seat has returned fairly consistent results with Labor margins ranging from a low of 7.0% in 2013 to a high of 11.8% in 2007.

Both Ellis and McMullan announced they would not seek another term six months out from the August 2010 election. Large fields of preselection contestants emerged for the two seats, with the front-runner in Canberra initially thought to be Michael Cooney, chief-of-staff to ACT Education Minister Andrew Barr and a former adviser to opposition leaders Mark Latham and Kim Beazley. However, Cooney shortly withdrew amid suggestions Kevin Rudd was ready to use national executive intervention to block him. The eventual winner was Gai Brodtmann, a former DFAT public servant who had established a local communications consultancy with her husband, senior ABC reporter Chris Uhlmann. Together with Andrew Leigh’s win in Fraser, Brodtmann’s preselection was seen as a rebuff to local factional powerbrokers who had pursued a deal in which the Left was to support Mary Wood, adviser to Housing Minister Tanya Plibersek and member of the Centre Coalition (Right), which the Right was to reciprocate in Fraser by backing Nick Martin, the party’s assistant national secretary and a member of the Left. However, Brodtmann was able to build a cross-factional support base of sufficient breadth to prevail over Wood by 123 votes to 109. Following the 2013 election defeat she was promoted to shadow parliamentary secretary in the defence portfolio.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

1,955 comments on “Seat of the week: Canberra”

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  1. Wow is this true?

    “@adambrereton: Can’t believe former opposition leader Mark Latham is joining the Greens whoa”

  5. victoria@1781

    Before people start passing judgment on the murdered student, it has been mentioned that he was in fact a police informer

    I haven’t seen that anywhere, but if true I will have the greatest sympathy for him and his family.

  6. This is sinister – targeting selected people for the propaganda campaign.

    I know that MPs have access to data so they can target selected groups with political messages. However this is supposed to be paid for out of political funds or electorate allowances.

    It will be sinister if this propaganda is sent out by, say, Centrelink to pensioners or other recipients using taxpayer funds.

    [Prime Minister Tony Abbott has ruled out a television or radio advertising campaign to spruik the budget, telling MPs such a move would be “disingenuous” during the budget emergency.

    However sources have told the ABC the Government will embark on a letter or leaflet drop, targeted at those most affected by the Government’s proposed budget cuts.]

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-27/cormann-hints-at-taxpayer-funded-budget-ad-campaign/5480170

  8. citizen

    All Labor has to do is say you will know when your cost of living is being attacked. You will get advertising from the government

  9. [Now Abbott can get all indignant about having his family targeted, but that’s the price of using them as props during the election.]

    imacca,

    Unfair treatment of Ms. Abbott was one of points indignantly raised by one of Channel 10 panelists, and Mr. Graham responded in a similar vein as you have here. He specifically mentioned a prime-time program when Tony Abbott allowed his daughters to be shown bikini-clad in their pool. In response, an off-camera panelist said “It was 60 Minutes” in an engimatic tone of voice.

  11. imacca @ 1833. Yeah, mixed feelings about the girl being targeted. But then I recall stuff like “Ditch the Witch” and chaff bags and “Her father died of shame” and “Is your partner gay because he is a hairdresser?” And think, this is easy stuff, and she actually did accept the gift. It smacks of the kind of values this family appears to be living by. Entitled.

  12. This SA muckment should be easy for the Libs to handle.

    They should

    * Declare the government “illegitimate”,

    * Produce all the muck they have on Hamilton-Smith (but were hiding before, because he was one of their own),

    * Get the Victorian police – the police force of choice for Lib smear merchants nowadays – onto him,

    * Have him censured by Parliament, arrested and tried, stuffed into a chaff bag kicked to death and then thrown over the side of a boat for the Great Whites to chomp on,

    * After this, wreck the joint, by smuggling pipe bombs into Parliament and setting them all off simultaneously.

    * If anyone objects, hire Psephos to point out why their accusers are being naive.

    Oppositions are in opposition to oppose, after all.

  14. “@KnottMatthew: Joe Hockey to joint party room: “The Labor party has no values … We are the party of values; they are the party of rhetoric.””

  16. [“@KnottMatthew: Joe Hockey to joint party room: “The Labor party has no values … We are the party of values; they are the party of rhetoric.””]

    Pure Catholic cant.

  18. [Now Abbott can get all indignant about having his family targeted, but that’s the price of using them as props during the election. Suck it up Princess.
    ]

    His family should not be targeted at all but he is very fair game. Daughter has done nothing wrong – in fact the children of the wealthy and influential would find both the discount and the creation of a job specially for them business as normal. Businesses do it all the time and so long as there is no quid pro quo demanded completely above board.

    However the position of prime minister which Abbott wanted at the time demands more and if Abbott was informed at all then he should have disclosed it.

    Yet another reason for an ICAC – I guess too much dirty laundry on both sides is why they are too gutless to go ahead. Very weak.

  20. [All Labor has to do is say you will know when your cost of living is being attacked. You will get advertising from the government]

    Good suggestion guytaur

  21. Didn’t Abbott claim he would be treated like ‘one of the boys’ at the AFP college when refusing to live in the rented house while the Lodge is being refurbished?

    [TAXPAYERS are footing a hefty bill for Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s cook and an attendant to change his sheets and towels at the federal police college in Canberra.

    Mr Abbott took up the modest AFP college room after knocking back a luxury Canberra rental house he was supposed to occupy while The Lodge is being renovated.

    The cost of providing a cook who prepares his meals at Parliament House, an attendant, a house manager and garden maintenance for The Lodge will total $1.6 million this year, rising to $1.85 million in four years.

    “So the end of the age of entitlement doesn’t apply to the prime minister’s residence,” Labor Senator Penny Wong told a Senate estimates hearing on Tuesday.]

    http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/tony-abbott-gets-hotel-service-at-college/story-e6frfku9-1226932854819

  22. [“@KnottMatthew: Joe Hockey to joint party room: “The Labor party has no values … We are the party of values; they are the party of rhetoric.”” ]

    Did Joe really say that to his colleagues?

    It’s worse with him than I thought.

    Is there a doctor in the house?

  24. [* Produce all the muck they have on Hamilton-Smith (but were hiding before, because he was one of their own),]

    Of course as a former leader of one of the majors he will know just as much about what they want to remain hidden as they know about him.

  25. [ “@KnottMatthew: Joe Hockey to joint party room: “The Labor party has no values … We are the party of values; they are the party of rhetoric.”” ]

    The only values Hockey knows are those measured in dollars.

  26. [MTBW

    Clive rolls up to work in Roller with a chauffer to prove the point that other people have to buy their own cars and not use Comcar!

    I am starting to love Clive!]

    Clive is quite a stunt master – he probably goes over well with OAPs.

  27. [All Labor has to do is say you will know when your cost of living is being attacked. You will get advertising from the government]

    I actually think it’s fair enough to advertise the Budget, but only AFTER it has been passed, not as an advocacy measure to stir up political trouble and/or influence polls.

    You might squeak a couple of info letters to pensioners and the chronically ill to point out that co-payments won’t start until dd/mm/yyyy, whenever that is.

    Any general letters should be sent to anyone who voted Liberal in the election. I’m sure they would have lists, e.g. the entire area of Western Sydney, for example, now “Liberal Party Heartland” according to Tony Abbott.

  29. [Yet another reason for an ICAC – I guess too much dirty laundry on both sides is why they are too gutless to go ahead. Very weak.]
    WeWantPaul,

    New Maltida editor was being extremely careful to avoid making any suggestion of corruption, although he reckons it should be declared on the gifts register. His main argument is that the political party declaring “the end to the age of entitlement” has a PM who’s received this $60K entitlement for his family. He cited, for comparison, speaking with a woman who needed help from a charity organisation to make ends meet in order to pay her daughter’s tuition to Whitehouse Design.

  36. I’m pleased to see MHS moving to the Labor Cabinet.

    He’s my local member and I see him most days when he drops his kid off at the local public school.

    I think it’s a win for SA.

    We have a history of bipartisan Cabinets. Rob Kerin, a former Lib Premier, has also been appointed to the Economic Development Board.

  37. I’ve no problem with the Whitehouse Institute throwing scholarships at whoever they like. I’ve no problem with them concealing the names of scholarship recipients.

    The problem is that this was clearly a benefit to the Abbott family – and probably directly to Abbott, who, one assumes, would otherwise had footed the bill for his daughter’s education – which raises a potential for a conflict of interest and thus should have been declared.

    The issue with the identity of the other recipient is obviously around the ‘cover up’. If Abbott – and the institute – had been up front from the start that this was a special scholarship (with perhaps Frances stating that she had intended to pay for her own education and therefore no one thought it had to be declared) then a lot of heat would have gone out of the issue.

    Referring to another recipient was meant to give the impression that it was, indeed, something awarded on merit and therefore not declarable. Finding out that the other recipient was the owner’s daughter undermines that.

    And again, nothing particularly wrong with the owner of a private company allowing her daughter to be educated for free by that company. But it’s then not a scholarship in the true sense of the word.

    As I said, it’s the explanation, not the acts, which are the problem.

  40. z

    I agree with your comments but I’m not sure the rules say Abbott needed to disclose his daughters scholarship.

    Personally I think it should have been disclosed but the rules are too slack.

  42. [As I said, it’s the explanation, not the acts, which are the problem.]

    “Its not the crime its the cover up” – the words of Richard Nixon in reference to Watergate.

    He was wrong, of course, its both.

  43. Diog

    I don’t think the rules can (or should, or are meant to) cover every conceivable benefit an MP (or his nearest and dearest) might receive.

  46. Michaelia Cash is a ranter. She should be renamed Tantrum.

    I remember hearing her in the Senate over the car radio last year before the election. She sounded like she’d gone quite mad, raving about chalices of blood. I forget the context.

  47. [FB@ 1181… I also believe we should have some way of evaluating “wealth” derived from lifestyle — so as to ensure that people who were substantially advantaged in practice contributed aptly, regardless of what their notional wealth/income on paper suggested.]

    This proposition relies on the idea that a dollar in the hands of one person may not be worth “the same” in the hands of another person. Such thinking buys into Ayn Rand’s fallacy. Dollars are dollars. We have to eschew the metaphysics of evaluating extra-monetary lifestyle “wealth” effects.

    For the life of me, I cannot see why it makes sense to increase regressive taxes when they drive the need for additional transfer measures. Why not just keep indirect taxes as low as and simple as possible and focus on maintaining the integrity of the direct tax system?

    Allowing that we agree to tax ourselves at some level, the main design criteria of the tax system should be it orders production and distribution in ways that maximise economic welfare.

  48. z

    If there are loopholes in the rules, it’s too easy to say you didn’t do anything wrong. I note Labor have been very quiet on this one as I’m sure they don’t want to up the ante.

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