Box Hill – Victoria 2010

LIB 5.2%

Incumbent MP
Robert Clark, since 1992. Previously Member for Balwyn 1988-1992.

Geography
Eastern Melbourne. Box Hill covers northeastern corner of the City of Whitehorse and the northwestern corner of the City of Boroondara. The seat covers the suburbs of Box Hill, Box Hill North, Greythorn, Kerrimuir and Mont Albert and parts of Balwyn, Balwyn North, Canterbury and Surrey Hills.

History
Box Hill was created in 1945, and has been dominated by the Liberal Party, although it has been won by the ALP at a few elections.

The seat was first won in 1945 by the ALP’s Robert Gray. Gray had held the seat of Nunawading since a 1943 by-election. He held Box Hill for one term, losing in 1947 to George Reid of the Liberal Party.

Reid held the seat until 1952, when he lost again to Gray. Reid finally defeated Gray in 1955, and held the seat until his retirement in 1973. He served as a minister in the Liberal state government continuously from 1955 to 1973.

Morris Williams, also from the Liberal Party, won Box Hill in 1973. In 1976 he moved to the new seat of Doncaster, holding it until his retirement in 1988.

The Liberal Party’s Donald Mackinnon won Box Hill in 1973. He held the seat until 1982, when he was defeated by Margaret Ray of the ALP. Ray was re-elected in 1985 and 1988.

In 1992, a redistribution abolished the neighbouring seat of Balwyn, the sitting Liberal member for Balwyn, Robert Clark, challenged Ray in Box Hill, with the Liberals prevailing.

Clark served as a Parliamentary Secretary in the second term of the Kennett government and joined the Liberal frontbench after the 1999 election. Clark currently serves as Shadow Attorney General, Shadow Minister for Industrial Relations, Shadow Minister for Information and Communication Technology and Shadow Minister for Energy and Resources.

Candidates

Political situation
Box Hill is a reasonably marginal seat, but in the current environment should be any trouble for the Liberal Party to retain.

2006 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Robert Clark LIB 16,872 49.49 +2.70
Robert Chong ALP 11,165 32.75 -4.76
Peter Campbell GRN 4,809 14.11 -1.59
Gary Ong FF 908 2.66 +2.66
Christine Cummins PP 339 0.99 +0.99

2006 two-candidate-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Robert Clark LIB 18,827 55.22 +4.13
Robert Chong ALP 15,267 44.78 -4.13

Booth breakdown
Booths in Box Hill have been divided into two areas: booths in the City of Whitehorse (“East”) and the City of Boroondara (“West”).

The Liberal Party won a 9.8% margin in the west of the seat, while the ALP won a 3.2% margin in the east of the seat.

 

Polling booths in Box Hill at the 2006 state election. East in blue, West in yellow.
Voter group GRN % LIB 2CP % Total votes % of votes
West 14.20 59.77 16,131 47.31
East 13.61 46.76 9,619 28.21
Other votes 14.50 56.17 8,344 24.47
Two-party-preferred votes in Box Hill at the 2006 state election.
Greens primary votes in Box Hill at the 2006 state election.

5 COMMENTS

  1. Box Hill itself is socially mixed and has a large Asian community, but the west of the seat around Balwyn and Canterbury is solid established Liberal, more in character with Hawthorn and Kew closer to the city. Demographic change in Box Hill is certainly favouring Labor, although the Liberals were still able to hold on here during their wipe-out of 2002.

    Ben, it’s actually north-western Whitehorse and north-eastern Boroondara.

  3. Candidates in ballot paper order are:

    Robert Clark – Liberal
    Tim Baxter – Greens
    Peter Chandler – Labor
    Gary Ong – Family First

  5. Liberals won every booth here this time, including all the Box Hill booths, which generally went about 60% Labor at the federal election.

Comments are closed.