Hotham – Election 2010

ALP 13.0%

Incumbent MP
Simon Crean, since 1990.

Geography
Southeastern Melbourne. Hotham covers the suburbs of Clarinda, Heatherton, and parts of Springvale, Cheltenham and Oakleigh. It covers parts of Kingston, Glen Eira, Greater Dandenong and Monash council areas.

History
Hotham was originally created as a safe Liberal seat, but changes turned it into a safe Labor seat, and the ALP has held it continously since 1980.

The seat was first won in 1969 by Liberal Party minister Don Chipp. Chipp had previously held the seat of Higinbotham since 1960, but the seat was abolished in 1969.

Chipp served as a minister in the Liberal government until the election of the Whitlam government in 1972. He was briefly included in Malcolm Fraser’s caretaker ministry after the dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975, but was not included in the ministry after the election.

Chipp resigned from the Liberal Party in 1977, and later that year became the leader of the newly-formed Australian Democrats. He was elected as a Senator for Victoria at the 1977 election, and remained in the Senate until his retirement in 1986.

The seat of Hotham was retained by the Liberal Party in 1977, with the seat won by Roger Johnston.

Johnston lost in 1980 to Labor candidate Lewis Kent. Kent held Hotham for the next decade. At the 1990 election, Kent moved to the new seat of Corinella, where he lost to Liberal candidate Russell Broadbent.

Hotham was won by former ACTU president Simon Crean. Crean has held the seat ever since.

Crean immediately entered the ministry upon his election in 1990, and served in the ministry until the Howard government won the 1996 election.

Crean served as a senior Labor frontbencher, and became the party’s deputy leader after the 1998 election. Following Kim Beazley’s defeat at the 2001 election, Crean was elected Leader of the Opposition.

Crean’s leadership was fraught, and he resigned from the leadership in late 2003 without leading the party to an election. He continued to serve in a senior frontbench role, and was appointed Minister for Trade after the election of the Rudd government in 2007.

Candidates

  • Fazal Cader (Liberal)
  • Geoff Payne (Greens)
  • Trent Reardon (Secular Party)
  • Gary Ong (Family First)
  • Simon Crean (Labor) – Member for Hotham since 1990, Labor leader 2001-2003.

Political situation
This seat is very safe for the ALP.

2007 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Simon Crean ALP 44,853 55.15 +3.93
Vince Arborea LIB 27,451 33.75 -5.22
Matthew Billman GRN 5,572 6.85 +1.46
Peter Dorian FF 1,657 2.04 -0.53
Craig Cadby DEM 800 0.98 -0.25
Terry Farrell DLP 758 0.93 +0.93
Mike Woodward CEC 240 0.30 +0.02

2007 two-candidate-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Simon Crean ALP 51,240 63.00 +5.60
Vince Arborea LIB 30,091 37.00 -5.60

Booth breakdown
Hotham covers parts of four local government areas. The largest proportion of the seat lives in Kingston, and other parts in Glen Eira, Greater Dandenong and Monash.

The ALP won a majority in all areas. Their smallest majority was 52% in Kingston Central, at the southern end of the seat, and just under 57% in Glen Eira in the northwestern corner of the seat. The ALP polled much higher, around 68-79%, in the other parts of the seat.

 

Polling booths in Hotham. Glen Eira in red, Monash in blue, Greater Dandenong in yellow, Kingston North in green, Kingston Central in orange.

 

Voter group GRN % ALP 2CP % Total votes % of votes
Glen Eira 7.85 56.97 18,438 22.67
Kingston Central 6.24 52.22 17,901 22.09
Kingston North 4.36 76.67 12,490 15.36
Greater Dandenong 4.45 79.02 8,205 10.09
Monash 9.58 67.96 6,870 8.45
Other votes 8.26 61.16 17,427 21.43
Results of the 2007 federal election in Hotham.

6 COMMENTS

  1. Kent was pushed out as the redistribution made Hotham a Labor Unity seat, Jenny Acton also from the ACTU was lining up to run but had to stand down for Crean she was rewarded with an IRC position.

  2. Matthew Billman’s 6.85% is a really impressive result for the Greens. It’s the best minor party vote in that seat since 1990. I was surprised that the Greens polled worse in the Glen Eira booths than the Monash booths- but those Kingston North and Greater Dandenong booth figures are what I’d expect – they’re tough areas to campaign in for anyone other than the ALP.

  3. The Greens had the donkey vote, which might have inflated the vote a little.

    The Greens’ Senate vote was lower than the Reps vote in the Greater Dandenong booths, only slightly higher in the Kingston booths, and the more typical 2-3% higher in the Glen Eira and Monash booths. That would seem to fit the hypothesis of the influence of the donkey vote, which I’ve noticed seems to produced a higher Greens’ reps vote compared to Senate vote in solid Labor areas with very low base Greens votes, but makes a less noticeable difference in areas with a higher base Greens vote.

  4. @Nick C – I don’t think the Greens vote is relevant in what you’ve noticed (although that is a genuine pattern) – it seems to be more a function of regions with a high NESB, working-class, ALP voting background rather than being related to how the Greens poll. I noticed the same thing when I was a Dems candidate in Holt in 2001 (got a higher reps vote than the senate vote). I guess it may be interesting to see if group A has a corresponding increase in the senate on those booths to see if it really holds up.

    I don’t think the donkey vote would account for the majority of the increase in the Green’s vote, though. It was a significant improvement on their 2004 vote – and isn’t the donkey vote meant to be much reduced in impact since they started putting party names on the ballot paper?
    Also, Hotham is very demographically diverse – there has been a lot of gentrification in Glen Eira & Monash end of the electorate, while it’s a very multicultural & traditional blue-collar electorate in the Kingston and Greater Dandenong end of the electorate, so I think that would balance out the donkey vote effect a bit and make it less extreme. You’d probably get a bigger impact from the donkey vote in seats like Calwell or Gorton.

  5. Fair points Polly, I wouldn’t contend that the donkey vote was more than perhaps a 1% boost at most.

    Actually, Group A did do better in the same booths. In the three booths where the Greens House vote was higher than the Senate vote (Spring Valley, Springvale, Springvale South), the Climate Change Coalition polled 1.2%, 1.38% and 1.17% respectively, compared to a state-wide vote of 0.78%.

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