Ovens Valley – Victoria 2014

NAT 19.2%

Incumbent MP
Tim McCurdy, Member for Murray Valley since 2010.

Geography
Northern Victoria. Ovens Valley covers the towns of Bright, Cobram, Glenrowan, Myrtleford, Wangaratta and Yarrawonga, and is centred on Wangaratta. The electorate covers the entirety of Wangaratta Shire, the eastern half of Moira Shire, and most of Alpine Shire.

Redistribution
This electorate replaces Murray Valley, with a new name to reflect the seat’s shift to the south, away from the Murray River. Ovens Valley covers most of the former Murray Valley electorate, except for Numurkah (transferred to Shepparton) and Rutherglen (transferred to Benambra). Ovens Valley also took a large area from Benalla, including Bright and Myrtleford, and gained a small area near Myrtleford from Benambra. These changes made little difference to the margin – the previous Nationals margin of 19% increased to 19.2%.

History
Ovens Valley is a successor to the electorate of Murray Valley. Murray Valley was first created in 1945, and has always been held by the Country/National Party.

The seat was first won in 1945 by George Moss. He became leader of the Country Party in 1964, and served in that role until 1970. He retired from Murray Valley in 1973.

Murray Valley was won in 1973 by the National Party’s Bill Baxter. In 1976, a redistribution shifted Murray Valley’s boundaries, and he decided to contest the neighbouring seat of Benambra, where sitting National Thomas Mitchell was retiring after 29 years. Baxter topped the poll on primary votes but was defeated by the Liberal candidate.

Baxter then moved to the Legislative Council, winning a by-election for North Eastern Province in 1978. He held his seat until1984, when he resigned to run against the sitting Liberal MP for the overlapping federal seat of Indi, coming third on primary votes. He won back his Legislative Council seat at a 1985 by-election, and served until 2006, when his Legislative Council seat was abolished and he unsuccessfully attempted to win the Legislative Assembly seat of Benambra.

Murray Valley was won in 1976 by the National Party’s Ken Jasper. Jasper was re-elected in Murray Valley nine times, and retired in 2010.

Nationals MP Tim McCurdy has held the seat since 2010.

Candidates

• Jamie McCaffrey (Greens)
• Julian Fidge (Country Alliance)
• Gail Cholosznecki (Labor)
• Tim McCurdy (Nationals)
• Ray Dyer (Independent)

Assessment
Ovens Valley is a very safe Nationals seat.

2010 election result

2010 two-party-preferred result

Booth breakdown
Booths in Ovens Valley have been divided into four parts. Those polling places in the town of Wangaratta have been grouped, and the remaining booths were split into three areas. Those polling places in Wangaratta Shire outside of the town itself were grouped as “Central”, those in Alpine Shire were grouped as “East”, and those in Moira Shire were grouped as “West”.

The Nationals won a large two-party-preferred vote in all four areas, ranging from 64.2% in Wangaratta to 75.4% in “Central”.

The following table shows the two-party-preferred vote for National/Liberal candidates, and primary votes for the Country Alliance and independent candidate Roberto Paino. Paino’s vote percentage in Central excludes those booths where he was not a candidate.