Richmond – Victoria 2010

ALP vs GRN 3.6%

Incumbent  MP
Richard Wynne, since 1999.

Geography
Inner Melbourne. Richmond covers most of the City of Yarra, covering the suburbs of Abbotsford, Burnley, Clifton Hill, Collingwood, Fitzroy, Richmond and parts of Fitzroy North.

History
Richmond was first created as a two-member district in the first Victorian Legislative Assembly in 1856. Both seats were held by unaligned members until 1889, when one of the two seats was won by the ALP.

In 1904, Richmond became a single-member district. It was first won by unaligned member George Bennett, who had been one of the two members for Richmond since 1889.

In 1908, the ALP’s Edmond Cotter won Richmond. He held it continuously from 1908 until 1945. In 1945, Richmond was won by Stan Keon, who left in 1949 to take the federal electorate of Yarra. He went on to be expelled from the Labor Party in 1955 and helped found the Democratic Labor Party.

In 1949, Richmond was won by Frank Scully, also of the ALP. He served as an assistant minister in the Cain government until 1955, when he left the ALP as part of the split that saw the creation of the Democratic Labor Party. He won re-election in Richmond in 1955 and became leader of the DLP in the Victorian Parliament from 1955 to 1958, when he lost the seat to the ALP’s Bill Towers. The ALP has held the seat ever since.

Towers held the seat until 1962, when he was succeeded by Clyde Holding. Holding became leader of the Victorian ALP from 1967, losing the 1970, 1973 and 1976 elections. In 1977 he moved to the federal seat of Melbourne Ports, and served as a minister in the Hawke government, and retired in 1998.

Richmond was held from 1977 to 1988 by Theo Sidiropoulos, and was won in 1988 by Demetri Dollis. In 1999, Dollis was disendorsed by Labor leader Steve Bracks, and was replaced by former Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Richard Wynne.

Wynne served in a variety of frontbench roles in the Bracks government, and now serves as Minister for Housing, Minister for Local Government and Minister for Aboriginal Affairs in the Brumby government.

Candidates

Political situation
Richmond is a very strong area for the Greens, with the Greens being the main opposition to the ALP in Yarra council area. Richmond is also entirely contained within the federal electorate of Melbourne, won by the Greens in the August federal election. It is highly vulnerable to the Greens at the state election. Jolly’s candidacy will throw a spanner in the works. Some protest voters will switch to him rather than the Greens, but you would expect his vote to favour the Greens on preferences.

2006 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Richard Wynne ALP 14,855 46.41 -1.08
Gurm Sekhon GRN 7,900 24.68 -3.96
Maina Walkley LIB 6,365 19.88 +0.11
Stephen Jolly IND 1,805 5.64 +3.65
Richard Grummet PP 497 1.55 +1.55
Ann Bown Seeley FF 443 1.38 +1.38
Luke Watts IND 146 0.46 +0.46

2006 two-candidate-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Richard Wynne ALP 17,170 53.64 +0.55
Gurm Sekhon GRN 14,841 46.36 -0.55

Booth breakdown
There are thirteen booths in the seat of Richmond. The northern half of the seat covers the suburbs of Collingwood and Fitzroy, and the southern half mainly covers the suburb of Richmond itself.

The ALP won a majority in both areas, winning just under 55% of the two-candidate vote in the north of the seat, and 56.7% in the south of the seat. The Liberals polled much more strongly in the south, with 24% in the south and 14% in the north.

 

Polling booths in the seat of Richmond at the 2006 state election. Collingwood-Fitzroy in red, Richmond in blue.
Voter group LIB % ALP 2CP % Total votes % of votes
Fitzroy-Collingwood 14.65 54.88 12,547 39.19
Richmond 24.47 56.66 11,750 36.70
Other votes 21.39 52.19 7,718 24.11

Note: total numbers of votes cast in primary vote figures and two-candidate-preferred figures do not always equal the same numbers. “Total votes” here is based on the two-candidate-preferred figure, but the primary vote figures are calculated from a slightly different total. Victorian Electoral Commission figures do not always match exactly.

Two-candidate-preferred votes in Richmond at the 2006 state election.
Liberal primary votes in Richmond at the 2006 state election.

20 COMMENTS

  2. In the Age on Saturday the 9th of October there was a table with the 2010 Commonwealth primaries for several inner city seats and the Commonwealth ALP or Green 2CP (depending on the winner) margins for the inner 4 that are ALP versus Green and for Richmond it was 5% for the Greens.

  3. http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/state-election-2010/second-liberal-hopeful-walks-20101103-17e47.html

    The more interesting than you’d expect Liberal candidate, Tom McFeely, has just quit the party and is running as an independent. Between him, Stephen Jolly, and obviously the Greens and Labor, the new Liberal candidate will probably get lost in the mess.

    Weirdly enough, the Liberals had similar candidate dramas last time, with the similarly atypical Prodos Marinakis losing pre-selection in what seemed to be a bit of a mess. That must be a weird little branch.

    http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/the-man-the-libs-rejected/2006/09/25/1159036473104.html

  4. Sky News reported tonight that McFeely has somehow been persuaded to get back in the fold and be the Liberal campaign. Bailleu looked pretty unconvincing when asked if McFeely had quit, but either way some swift work was done to repair the damage!

  6. Yeah, I saw the original story there, but I never believe (or link) anything by Landeryou, so I dug up a real newspaper’s link instead the next day. It tends to be slanderous gossip.

  8. Jobs for the Boys tarnished ALP socialist
    A openly homosexual nightclub owner running for the Liberals and the every threatning pathiest green.

    If ever a seat needs a DLP member this is the one.

    All the best Sarah

  10. Zephyr
    Posted November 7, 2010 at 11:15 PM
    Don’t think the DLP should bother in Richmond Tony. Voters tend to be university educated here…

    Thats right a number of graduates will be helping us in that seat and Sarah has not long completed her degree.
    The recent interest in Universities on the Distributist beliefs are certainly helping us to form groups in Uni’s around the country and judging by the nominations it looks as though this area along with some of the Western areas of Victoria is where our youth groups are growing fastest.
    Having a number of candidates in this region will certainly bolster our chances in the upper house region her as well. The primary vote there last time was about 5.2% and with the renewed interest could go as high as 7-8% which might just be enough.

  11. I doubt that the Liberals will preference Jolly the Socialist ahead of the Greens because unlike Wilkie he is to the Left of the Greens. I also do not think that he can get ahead of the Liberals even if he gets 10% because the Liberals will poll higher than that especially in the Richmond part of the electorate. Who will Jolly preference?

  12. Candidates in ballot paper order are:

    Richard Wynne – Labor
    Stephen Jolly –
    Tom McFeely – Liberal
    Kathleen Maltzahn – Greens
    Angela White – Sex Party

  13. Sex Party accuses Maltzahn of being a Shelia Jeffries’ clone which is a misrepresentation. Did Greens under perform here in 2006? candidate factors? or did Jolley divide the non-Labor left vote?

  15. Not much choice here for right-wingers here, but then again, most right-wingers (myself being one) probably don’t want to live that close to the city anyway.

  17. The DLP isn’t a real party it is just the Right to Life in political dress…and it is a very righ- wing Catholic group

  18. Yet another Morgan micro poll – this time the most bizarre result was for an 11% swing back to the ALP (in 2PP) during the course of a week. This is not serious polling – it is simply attention seeking behaviour

  19. Deblonay
    Posted November 21, 2010 at 12:45 AM
    The DLP isn’t a real party it is just the Right to Life in political dress…and it is a very righ- wing Catholic group

    So if you have a right to life stand does that make you (right wing) …. I dont think so.
    Nor does the rank and file of the many protestants etc that are members of the DLP even from their inceptio when the communist back left ALP broke away.

    Their longest serving lower house member was a man called Les Diplock. (Certainly not a Catholic) and most Victorians would be aware of Jack little.

    So why is that extreme lefties like yourself. (as the DLP is considered centrist) like yourself pick this rubbish up. Obviously to your lot anything left of communism is right.

    If we were a Catholic party we’d have over 30% of the vote.
    If our members were just those of the Pro-Life movement … once again we’d have a much larger vote.

    We are a labor party, that is for sure and one far closer to the beliefs of traditional labor than then this mob of frauds in the ALP… who are the left overs from the old commo breakaway group that swung to the right when Bob Hawke introduced Australia to the term ” Economic Rationalism”

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