Blog CemeteryBruce
August 12th 2007 05:17
Booth Information
On its current boundaries, Bruce has been a marginal ALP seat at four of the last five elections, without falling to the Coalition at any stage. The ALP’s TPP performance has ranked between 13th and 16th (out of 37) at each of the last five federal elections, and in the last two elections, suggesting it likely to stay with the ALP in all but a large landslide. Further, the ALP has improved its performance against the state average at each of the elections considered here.
Detailed Result History
The ALP’s margin dropped across the seat in 2004, although by less than the state average and not by enough to cost Alan Griffin his seat. The Coalition carried 13 of the 32 booths, gaining four booths over 2001. These included large booths at Brandon Park and Gladeswood, with the later their first booth carried in the seat’s south since 1996. The Liberal’s strongest booths were at Jells Park in the seat’s East (TPP 67.54%) and Mount View (63.14%) in Glen Waverley. All but four booths swung towards the Coalition, with the largest swings against the ALP in the South-West of the seat at Gladeswood (7.91%), Whiteside (7.02%) and Silverton (6.39%). The ALP polled over 60% of the TPP vote in thirteen booths with the best booth at Sandown Park (72.62%). Despite the swing, Bruce was ranked in the same position amongst Victorian seats in TPP terms (14th best for ALP), and in primary vote for the ALP (11th), Liberals (23rd) and Greens (27th).
Booth Information
The major electoral characteristic of Bruce is that it is clearly divided into two sections. In the north, the suburbs of Wheelers Hill and Glen Waverley have given the Liberal Party a majority at all but the 2002 state election. South of Wellington Road, the suburbs of Mulgrave, Springvale, Noble Park and Dandenong has provided consistent majorities for the ALP. In the 2004 House election, the Coalition won just one booth south of Wellington Road, while the ALP won just three small booths of the 15 contested north of Wellington Road.
There have been two major factors in why the ALP has been able to secure a consistent, if small, majority from such a divided seat. Firstly, the southern areas of the seat are bigger in population than the North. While the seat’s total population is stagnant, thus not providing any suburbs similar to those in outer Melbourne which have given large swings to the Howard and Bracks governments, the Southern areas have consistently held around 10,000 more voters than in the North. Further to this both areas have trended to the ALP, although the southern areas of the seat have moved to the Howard government since 1998.
Booth Information
The most worrying aspect of this for the Coalition is that they have not managed to get a majority at any of the last five elections. While the seat’s position has not moved in TPP rank since the 1998 election the ALP has progressively added to its margin against the state average so that the Coalition would need a TPP of 55% to win the seat, based on 2004 results. Even though the seat has moved gently towards the Coalition since 1998 only the strongly ALP voting areas of Springvale and Noble Park have moved above the state average, and the Southern sections of the seat in total have hardly moved. The one helpful point here for the Coalition is that a swing back to Labor in the outer suburbs is unlikely to affect Bruce in all but these suburbs.
The diminishing Liberal TPP vote in the seats north has driven the ALP’s consistent rise in Bruce compared with the state average. While the Coalition’s majority in the north is still considerable, against the state average it has halved since 1993 at federal level, and almost halved since 1999 at state level. Most booths north of Wellington Road have moved considerably to the ALP since 1993, following the trend of adjacent Chisholm. The Coalition can get some comfort from the improved performance in 2006, as the Baillieu-led party stabilized against the state average, although this was well below the very strong performance in the 1999 state election.
Booth Information
While Bruce may be divided electorally, there appears little chance that the vote lead the Liberals gain in the North could outweigh the strength of the Labor-held suburbs south of Wellington Road. While their 1999 state election victory in the seat was built around a 62% TPP in the North of the seat they haven’t approached that since at either level amidst a swing which has hit all three northern suburbs.
The only real hope for the Liberals would be for the recent move to them in Springvale and Noble Park to gather momentum and spread through the seat’s South. But given that these areas improved against the state average at the 2006 state election, and that the swings in those suburbs only translated to a swing 1% above the state average since 1998 across the South, the most likely result is a swing to the ALP, although one unlikely to be above the state average.
WHAT TO WATCH FOR…
The Liberals could win Bruce if…
- They improve their TPP in Glen Waverley to 62% (currently 57.7%)
- They get a TPP over 40% in Noble Park (35.4% in 2004) and Dandenong (36.9% in 2004)
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