ALP 1.8%
Incumbent MP
Alan Griffin, since 1996.
Geography
South-eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Bruce covers the northern suburbs of Greater Dandenong council and the eastern suburbs of Monash council. Suburbs include Dandenong, Noble Park, Mulgrave, Wheelers Hill, Glen Waverley and Notting Hill.
History
The seat of Bruce has existed since the 1955 election. Prior to 1996 it was a relatively safe Liberal seat, but demographic and boundary changes have seen the seat become a marginal Labor seat.
The seat was first won in 1955 by Liberal candidate Billy Snedden. Snedden served as a Cabinet minister from 1964 to 1972, serving as Billy McMahon’s Treasurer from 1971 until the government’s defeat in 1972. Snedden was elected Leader of the Liberal Party, and served in the role for the first two years of the Whitlam government. He used the Coalition’s Senate majority to block the Whitlam government’s budget, triggering the 1974 election, which he lost.
Snedden lost the Liberal leadership in early 1975, and was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1976 after the election of the Fraser government. He served in the role for the entirety of the Fraser government, and after the defeat of the government in 1983 he retired from Parliament.
The 1983 Bruce by-election was won by the Liberal Party’s Ken Aldred. Aldred had previously held the seat of Henty from 1975 to 1980, when he was defeated. Aldred held Bruce until 1990, when he moved to the seat of Deakin, and held it until 1996.
Bruce was held by the Liberal Party’s Julian Beale from 1990 to 1996, when he lost to the ALP’s Alan Griffin. Griffin has held Bruce for the last twenty years.
Griffin served as a shadow minister from 1998 to the election of the Rudd government in 2007, when he was appointed Minister for Veterans’ Affairs. He left the ministry after the 2010 election.
Candidates
- Doug Leith (Animal Justice)
- Stefanie Bauer (Greens)
- Helen Kroger (Liberal)
- Nathan Foggie (Family First)
- Jill Jarvis-Wills (Renewable Energy Party)
- Julian Hill (Labor)
- Alan Roncan (Drug Law Reform)
Assessment
Bruce is a very marginal Labor seat. On the one hand, Labor looks likely to gain a swing towards them in Victoria. On the other hand, the loss of Alan Griffin’s personal vote will likely weaken Labor’s position, and Liberal candidate Helen Kroger is a strong opponent. Considering these factors, it would not be a surprise if Bruce bucked the trend and went Liberal.
2013 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Emanuele Cicchiello | Liberal | 35,501 | 43.0 | +5.2 |
| Alan Griffin | Labor | 34,626 | 41.9 | -6.8 |
| Lynette Keleher | Greens | 5,491 | 6.6 | -2.8 |
| Rebecca Filliponi | Family First | 2,186 | 2.7 | -1.4 |
| Paul Tuyau | Palmer United Party | 2,173 | 2.6 | +2.6 |
| Geraldine Gonsalvez | Democratic Labour Party | 1,334 | 1.6 | +1.6 |
| Kiry Uth | Independent | 682 | 0.8 | +0.8 |
| Robert White | Rise Up Australia | 652 | 0.8 | +0.8 |
| Informal | 4,810 | 5.8 |
2013 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Alan Griffin | Labor | 42,812 | 51.8 | -5.9 |
| Emanuele Cicchiello | Liberal | 39,833 | 48.2 | +5.9 |
Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into four areas. The northern half of the seat is contained in the City of Monash and the southern half of the seat is contained in the City of Greater Dandenong. Two areas are contained in each council area.
From north to south, these areas are Glen Waverley, Mulgrave-Wheelers Hill, Springvale-Noble Park and Dandenong.
The ALP won large majorities across the southern half of the seat (63% in Dandenong, 65% in Springvale-Noble Park), while the Liberal Party won smaller majorities across the northern half (53% in Mulgrave-Wheelers Hill, 55% in Glen Waverley).
| Voter group | GRN % | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| Dandenong | 4.8 | 62.9 | 12,537 | 15.2 |
| Glen Waverley | 8.7 | 44.8 | 17,693 | 21.4 |
| Mulgrave-Wheelers Hill | 6.3 | 47.1 | 17,248 | 20.9 |
| Springvale-Noble Park | 5.6 | 65.3 | 8,961 | 10.8 |
| Other votes | 6.7 | 49.7 | 26,206 | 31.7 |
The sectionalism in this seat is very interesting! Very strong Liberal booths in the north, countered by strong Labor booths in the south.
IMO this seat and not McEwen (sorry Winediamond!) is Liberal target # 2. Helen Kroger is the strongest candidate the Libs have put up here in a long time, so it seems like they are actually planning to put some effort into winning this seat. Does anyone know much re: on the Labor candidate?
Furthermore, the trouble for Labor is exacerbated by the loss of Alan Griffin who was well-known as an MP and did the remarkable feat of bucking the trend in 1996.
Whilst at the moment I think Labor are ever so slightly ahead here, I may even venture to say that this seat and not Chisholm will be the liklier Coalition pickup in Victoria.
As always though, we shall have to see how the state shapes up 🙂
The Labor candidate is quite capable, he used to be head of the Vic public service and mayor or Port Phillip council, which is incidentally covered by Melbourne Ports, that being said he did grow up in Bruce and he was Griffin’s anointed successor.
I did chat to someone whose working on his campaign and they said that internal polling was suggesting 53-47 to Labor.
Also I do think this is the wrong seat for Kroger, she would have been better suited for Chisholm in my view. After all she did say that not enough people speak english well enough and Bruce is the only seat in the country where more than 50% were born overseas.
L96
Julien Hill certainly sounds very impressive. Labor certainly needs new talent, & the recent new MP’s haven’t impressed me. (gellibrand, hotham bendigo)
I would say that Labor in Victoria have picked a wide array of good new candidates. Peta Murphy, in Dunkley who is a Criminal defence attorney, Simon Curtis in La Trobe who is a teacher as well as Hill and Perri. Labor seem to be looking more local in Victoria compared to NSW. Obviously it came as a slap in the face when they preselected Khalil in Wills who would have to be the biggest hack of all time, that being said he was director of SBS.
WoS: I grew up in Wantirna South, just over the border in the seat of Aston. The Monash Freeway (which runs diagonally NW-SE through the centre of Bruce) has long been a social divide in this part of Melbourne. Even if you know nothing about this seat, you could draw the freeway almost perfectly just by looking at the booth maps.
In the north, Glen Waverley has a significant Asian community, but it’s an affluent/middle class community so still leans Liberal. Wheelers Hill (the stronger Liberal booths in the north east) is “Mansion on a hill with million dollar views across the valley” territory.
In the south, Noble Park and Springvale are more typical lower-income migrant areas, traditionally with a large Vietnamese community. Dandenong has also traditionally been a low income melting pot suburb, but its status as a mini CBD means that it is slowly gentrifying.
If you took Sydney’s Epping and Carlingford, and placed them just down the road from Cabramatta and Liverpool…..that’s the seat of Bruce.
This is totally the wrong seat for Kroger…while I think she grew up around here I don’t she has endeared herself to the electorate re: her not enough people speak English claims.
I’m pretty sure she lives around Hawthorn and she has had a helping hand from her ex-husband to get her preselected here. Her plummy voice is a turn off-also. I think Labor is quite comfortable holding on here.
If you overlay Bruce with its state counterparts, it’s the opposite story to Chisholm. The overlapping state electorates include the entirety of Mulgrave (ALP), plus parts of Oakleigh (ALP), Clarinda (ALP), Dandenong (ALP) and Mount Waverley (Lib).
So whilst the retirement of a long-term incumbent should certainly be of concern, I suspect Bruce is more naturally Labor territory than Chisholm is.
David,
You’ve forgotten the part of Bruce that is in Forest Hill (lib). Pretty much the entirety of Mount Waverley (Lib 4.6%) and Mulgrave (ALP 4.5%) are in Bruce and only small parts of Clarinda and whislt its about 30% of Oakleigh’s size this area is mostly industrial estates and Monash University.
It is very much marginal territory.
Sandbelter
Nice to hear from you again.
Do you think the big swing here in 2013, was Griffin losing most of his personal vote ??
Or was it more a demographic change ??.
IMV this seat is very difficult to gauge.
You’re right, there is also a small part of Forest Hill within Bruce. It’s only about half of Mount Waverley though.
likely ALP hold
Hi winediamond, been busy so only get to hop fleetingly on this site.
I’d go with a probable ALP hold for both at this stage, but with a smaller than expected anti government swing.
Rationale is once you adjust for members retirement (using Antony Greens figures) you get a ALP margin of 0.1% in Chisholm and 0.3% for Bruce, add on the fact the ALP had the donkey vote in both seats last time so in my books the ALP (if it hasn’t got the donkey vote again) may need a swing to hold them, but the polls are pointing in that direction. .
@Sandbelter I agree. My feeling at this stage is Chisholm a slight Liberal gain, Bruce a very marginal Labor hold and McEwen safe ALP retain.
I’ve heard from people working on Julian Hill’s campaign that they are starting to wind down and head office is diverting more resources to Dunkley and La Trobe.
Internal polling from what I’ve seen is at 54-46 Labor, and are crucially winning the Chinese vote, which generally leans Liberal.
L96
A battle won before it starts !!!.
If the Libs win this Julian Hill might end up feeling like (Field Marshall ) Guderian!!!.
“Fast Heinz ” was ordered south in August (41) by the Fuhrer, when he he wanted his panzers to continue east to Moscow. Granted the Libs have no Zhukov to capitalise on such a mistake, but things can change as quickly as the weather.
BTW i always travel to Melbourne with warm, if not WINTER clothes !!!
@Winediamond, nothing is really set in stone at this stage. It has not been like the Gillard or Abbott era where the government had had nearly 3 years of bad polling, things have been too volatile. Therefore, we cannot really know individual results with any kind of certainty.
However I will say this, the one advantage the government has is the Budget – it is their ace in the hole. All it takes is a ‘Fistful of Dollars’ and I think they will seen their prospects improve in most places.
W of S
Agreed there are many cases of premature extrapolation happening !!.
It is hard to believe that this budget will not be the most boring non-event in national history.
There will be no Fistful of Dollars. Even if there were, it could not be taken seriously.
It will be interesting to see if the punters punish labor for the unfunded, big spending policies, they already have.
These policies really embody labor’s fundamental refusal to learn from, & correct their past mistakes
Sandbelter
Interesting about the donkey vote.
Given that you estimations are correct ( & they usually are ). That would make these 2 seats the fulcrum of the minor parties campaign (of diverting preferences) against the libs, & Greens.
What are your thoughts on the influence of the E-W link debacle on these 2 seats ??
Also do you have anything to add on demographic changes ??
I’m surprised that the Liberals are putting Helen Kroger as a candidate in this seat. I thought their best chance of winning it in its current format was 2013 but they lost it on Greens preferences.
Labor to win, but close.
Bruce, like many other Divisions in Melbourne’s east and SE is well below quota. According to the AEC it is at -9.23% as of 30/4.
With Kooyong, Melbourne Ports, Hotham, Aston, Deakin and Chisholm also all well under quota it’s likely that its CIty of Monash portion of Bruce is going to be required to supplement numbers in the other Divisions, meaning Bruce may well be a City of Dandenong-based division after the next Redistribution. In which case the Liberals will have no hope of retaining it even if Kroger gets up this time.
Wow Helen Kroger misses out to Ricky Muir last time and now when the third Liberal spot is all but guaranteed she gets this seat, so she can probably miss out by another one percent of voters.
Not much of a swing is required here, perhaps Liberals will do a preference swap deal in Wills or Batman with the Greens for an open ticket in Bruce? Will be watching closely on election day if a scenario like that occurred.
Thoughts?
JW, if a seat is abolished in the eastern suburbs, the most logical candidate is Chisholm. In which case, Bruce would move north and west to take in Mount Waverley, and become a Liberal-leaning seat.
If a seat is not abolished, then I agree the obvious move is to push Bruce south into Dandenong, making it virtually impossible for the Liberals to win.
If Kroger does win, I would expect the Liberals to try something more “imaginative”, like pushing Bruce north into Forest Hill or east into Wantirna/Rowville.
The ABC has released its reckoning of the most left/right seats based on responses to their vote compass. Perhaps surprisingly, the most right-wing seat in metropolitan Melbourne is Bruce. Plays into the Coalition’s appeal to the so-called ‘aspirational’ class perhaps?
In a seat with a large number of people for whom English is very much a second language, perhaps you get a disproportionate sample who reply to English-language surveys?
@MM true, although the translation services provided by Google these days is fantastic! So, who knows?
I live in Bruce. Just got the lib htv card in the mail. greens last. seems no deal done.
Manny got this seat from a Labor to a Marginal. Springvale, Noble Park and Dandenong are all CFA Fire Stations. Don’t listen to those that tell you there are State and there are Federal issues??!! This will not play out well for Labor. Was working at pre poll the other day and a Fire Truck went past with a big sign on the side, Put Labor Last!
@GOM while I would love for the Liberals to take this seat, odds are that they will fall short. A Galaxy poll had Labor up 52 – 48 here. This is in line with most people have been saying, either a small swing to the Coalition (but not enough to win) or away from it (but well below the statewide swing)
However, that poll does not bode well for neighboring Chisholm which I suspect is more naturally Liberal-leaning than Bruce. With the stronger (or more ‘appropriate’) Liberal candidate, I’d guess 50/50 atm.
Apparently the Liberals wheeled out John Howard in Chisholm yesterday to campaign. The two seats aren’t directly comparable, but I agree Chisholm’s probably a better chance to flip han Bruce.
@MM I agree. What’s your view on Liberal chances in Chisholm?
My prediction: Likely Labor hold, although Alan Griffin’s retirement has created an opening. This being said, the Liberals would have to work hard against the trend to gain Bruce.
Wos, it’s hard to compare directly. In both cases, it will depend on the Liberals’ ability to connect with the Melbourne middle-class Asian community. They seem to have done that quite well in Sydney, but it remains to be seen whether that has also happened down here.
Chisholm has seen Bill Shorten, Julie Bishop and now John Howard parachuting in during the past week or two, so both sides must see it as potentially up for grabs.
Mark Mulcair: I know Melbourne better than Sydney, but I really appreciate your comparison (back in April) of the suburbs in Bruce to those in parts of Sydney. It’s a fascinating way to look at these things – maybe you should write a book!
The swing to Labor here was entirely driven by the Labor-voting end. Big pro-Labor swings in nearly every booth in Dandenong, Noble Park, and Springvale. In contrast, Glen Waverley and Wheelers Hill saw basically no swing at all.
Evidence that Alan Griffin less of a personal vote than Anna Burke which is unsurprising. The ‘social conservatism’ of seat cited above might reflect ethnic composition, but no evidence Libs tried to use this.