LIB 4.8%
Incumbent MP
Russell Broadbent, since 2004. Previously Member for Corinella 1990-3, Member for McMillan 1996-8.
Geography
South-eastern Victoria. McMillan covers parts of Victoria stretching from the south-eastern fringe of Melbourne to the Latrobe Valley. The seat stretches from Pakenham in the west to Moe in the east, and stretches down to the coast. McMillan covers the entirety of Baw Baw and South Gippsland council areas, as well as a majority of Cardinia LGA and parts of Bass Coast LGA (particularly Wonthaggi and Inverloch). The seat also covers a small part of Latrobe council area around the town of Moe. McMillan is the southernmost electorate on the Australian mainland, covering Wilson’s Promentory.
History
McMillan was first created in 1949. The seat has mostly been held by conservative parties, although since the 1980s the ALP has won the seat on a number of occasions.
The seat was first won by Geoffrey Brown of the Liberal Party in 1949. Brown won a three-cornered contest on Country Party preferences. The Country Party occasionally would contest the seat throughout the 1950s and 1960s, but never managed to overtake the Liberal Party. Brown was reelected in 1951 and 1954 but died in 1955 before the election.
The seat was won at the 1955 election by Alexander Buchanan, also a Liberal. Buchanan held the seat for seventeen years without taking ministerial office before losing the Liberal Party’s endorsement in 1972.
Buchanan stood as an independent in 1972, and preferences from the DLP and Buchanan allowed Country Party candidate Arthur Hewson to leapfrog the official Liberal candidate and defeat the ALP candidate on Liberal preferences.
Hewson was reelected in a fierce contest in 1974, when the Liberals stood Ronald Dent against him despite a coalition agreement, and Hewson narrowly defeated Dent on primary votes before overtaking the ALP on preferences.
Hewson was defeated by Liberal candidate Barry Simon in 1975, and the Nationals never came close to winning McMillan again. Simon held the seat until 1980, when the ALP’s Barry Cunningham won it.
Cunningham held the seat throughout the 1980s, losing to John Riggall (LIB) in 1990. Riggall was defeated by Cunningham in 1993, and Cunningham was defeated by Russell Broadbent in 1996.
Broadbent had previously held the neighbouring seat of Corinella for one term from 1990 to 1993, and Corinella had been abolished at the 1996 election.
Broadbent was again defeated in 1998 by Christian Zahra, a 25-year-old ALP candidate. Zahra was made a shadow Parliamentary Secretary after the 2001 election, and was considered to have a promising career, before losing to Broadbent in 2004.
Broadbent managed to win re-election in 2007 after developing a reputation for rebelling against the Howard government’s immigration policies. Broadbent now holds the seat with a 4.8% margin.
Candidates
- Christine Maxfield (Labor)
- Leigh Gatt (Independent)
- Linden Stokes (Family First)
- Russell Broadbent (Liberal) – Member for Corinella 1990-1993, Member for McMillan 1996-1998 and since 2004.
- Malcolm McKelvie (Greens)
Political situation
McMillan is a classic swinging seat, and was held by the ALP for all but one term of the Hawke-Keating government. With a strong candidate the ALP could definitely win this seat. On the other hand, 4.8% is still a substantial margin for the ALP to gain, and Broadbent now has substantial history representing the area, probably developing a personal vote that could save him from losing his seat a third time. Broadbent suffered practically no swing against him in 2007, which could either suggest a personal vote for Broadbent or that there is still room for the ALP vote to grow in 2010.
2007 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Russell Broadbent | LIB | 40,254 | 49.93 | +7.00 |
| Christine Maxfield | ALP | 30,743 | 38.14 | +0.28 |
| Sandra Betts | GRN | 4,839 | 6.00 | +1.52 |
| Terry Aeschlimann | FF | 2,370 | 2.94 | +1.23 |
| Don Walters | DEM | 1,206 | 1.50 | +0.65 |
| Suryan Chandrasegaran | DLP | 775 | 0.96 | +0.61 |
| Theo Alblas | CEC | 287 | 0.36 | +0.19 |
| Ben Fiechtner | LDP | 141 | 0.17 | +0.17 |
2007 two-candidate-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Russell Broadbent | LIB | 44,172 | 54.79 | -0.20 |
| Christine Maxfield | ALP | 36,443 | 45.21 | +0.20 |
Booth breakdown
McMillan is covered by five local government areas. I have divided booths between these five LGAs. The only part of Latrobe council area in McMillan is the area around the town of Moe.
The Liberal Party won in the three areas making up the largest parts of the seat. They polled over 60% in Baw Baw and South Gippsland, which together make up a majority of the seat. Broadbent also polled almost 58% in Cardinia, which includes Pakenham and the fringe of Melbourne.
The ALP won a huge majority (almost 69%) in the town of Moe, and won a slimmer majority on the Bass Coast, as well as amongst prepoll and postal votes.
| Voter group | GRN % | LIB 2CP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| Baw Baw | 5.65 | 60.18 | 18,243 | 22.63 |
| South Gippsland | 7.05 | 60.97 | 14,866 | 18.44 |
| Cardinia | 4.44 | 57.93 | 11,544 | 14.32 |
| Moe | 3.63 | 31.30 | 9,497 | 11.78 |
| Bass Coast | 11.01 | 48.46 | 4,977 | 6.17 |
| Other votes | 6.30 | 45.70 | 21,488 | 26.66 |
“Broadbent suffered practically no swing against him in 2007, which could either suggest a personal vote for Broadbent or that there is still room for the ALP vote to grow in 2010”
Two other significant factors are:
– Decline of the traditional blue-collar workforce in the Latrobe Valley, which obviously harms Labor.
– ALP internal problems in the area, as evidenced by the conservatives winning the state seats of Narracan and Morwell in 2006, the lack of swing in McMillan and Gippsland in 2007, and the excellent National result at the Gippsland by-election.
If I’m correct Broadbent is also a leading moderate in the Liberal Party.
That was an interesting thing about the last election – the two ‘rebel’ Liberal moderates in Victoria, Broadbent and Georgiou, both had virtually no swing against them.
I got this seat wrong – I thought its record of changing hands so often would mean Broadbent would lose it. Overall I tipped Labor to get a net gain of 22 seats, so I was 1 off (they got 23) – I got NSW right, but got individual seats wrong in SA, WA and Qld, where I certainly didn’t get the huge swing in the non-metro seats. In Victoria I’d decided Labor would gain 2 seats – I thought Deakin would be one, but I was tossing up between this one and Corangamite for the other, so in the end I went the wrong way. Thought I did pretty well though – especially since the ‘experts’ were pretty much all tipping something in the 30-seat range.
Christine Maxfield, wife of a former state MP, is the Labor candidate.
Hi Ben,
The Greens are running Malcolm McKelvie in McMillan.
Malcolm ran for the Greens in the recent Gippsland by-election.
Cheers
Does anyone know much about the demographics of Moe? It seems to be very left-wing compared to the rest of the seat.
I’m pretty sure that Moe is a very strong industrial town, which probably explains why Labor dominates but the Green vote is so small.
Yep,
Solid working-class coal mining and electricity generation town.
This is an unusual seat……..MR C. Zahra had a personal vote as does Mr Broadbent…… with population decline ….. ALL of the La Trobe Valley will end up relocated in this seat or Gippsland. that with a good
ALP vote esp in Traralgon. That seat would be a close contest………. but the ALP needs to mend its internal divisions in the La Trobe valley
Prior to 2004 election, Morwell & Traralgon were part of McMillan which meant the seat was always likely to be comeptitive. The subsequent redistribution took those towns into Gippsland, cutting it’s margin but took McMillan south into largely more conservative territory.
Whilst LaTrobe Valley ALP’s propensity for indiscipline & behaving like lemmings have had it’s impacts, said redistribution has been the main cause of ALP’s eclipse in McMillan
The Latrobe Valley will remain in Liberal hands to to the South Coast redistribution. Although the generational working class towns of Moe, Trafalgar and Newborough are all strong labour booths there are still strong alegencies to the National party in the area taking in Leongatha and Warragul. With no strong NP candidate it should be a walk in the park for Broadbent but…stranger things have happened
I’d suggest if the co-alition are any chance, they will need to retain McMillan and La Trobe. I don’t think they can retain both.
My prediction: Liberal retain, at most a 2% swing to Labor. Given Broadbent’s history of defying general trends, and other comments here about Labor troubles in this area, can’t see Labor winning it.