Footscray – Victoria 2010

ALP 24.7%

Incumbent MP
Marsha Thomson, since 2006.

Geography
Western Melbourne. Footscray covers most of the City of Maribyrnong and the southeastern corner of the City of Brimbank. The seat covers the suburbs of Braybrook, Footscray, West Footscray, Kingsville, Maidstone, Maribyrnong, Seddon and Tottenham and parts of Brooklyn, Sunshine and Yarraville.

History
Footscray has existed in its current incarnation since 1927, and in that time it has always been held by the ALP. It had previously existed from 1877 to 1904.

Footscray was first won by George Prendergast in 1927. He had been one of the first Labor members of the Victorian parliament when he won the seat of North Melbourne in 1894. He held it until 1897 and again from 1900 to 1926. Prendergast had served as the first leader of the Victorian ALP and as Premier for six months in 1924. He died in office in 1937.

The ALP’s John Mullens won Footscray at the 1937 electon.  He held the seat until 1945. He later went on to serve as federal member for Gellibrand from 1949 to 1955, when he left the ALP as part of the split that created the Democratic Labor Party.

In 1945, John Holland (also of the ALP) transferred from the seat of Flemington, which he had held since 1925. He served as Member for Footscray until 1955, when he returned to the seat of Flemington. He died six months after the 1955 election.

Footscray was won in 1955 by Roy Schintler, who moved three years later to the seat of Yarraville, holding it until his retirement in 1967.

Alfred Shepherd moved to the seat of Footscray at the 1958 election. He had held a number of other seats since 1945, but died only months after the 1958 election.

The 1958 by-election was won by William Divers, who held the seat until 1970. Footscray was held from 1970 to 1992 by Robert Fordham, who served as deputy leader of the ALP from 1977 to 1982.

Footscray was won in 1992 by the ALP’s Bruce Mildenhall, who held the seat until his retirement in 2006. He was succeeded in 2006 by Marsha Thomson. She is currently Parliamentary Secretary to the Premier and Parliamentary Secretary for the Arts.

Candidates

Political situation
Footscray is a very safe Labor seat on a two-party-preferred basis. Having said that, the Greens and a strong independent were both prominent in Footscray in 2006. If the Liberal Party falls into third place, the ALP’s margin would likely reduce dramatically.

2006 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Marsha Thomson ALP 16,471 52.49 -6.82
Cam Nation LIB 5,244 16.71 +1.74
Catherine Cumming IND 4,675 14.90 +4.51
Greg Ferrington GRN 3,799 12.11 +1.96
Ron Berchy FF 734 2.34 +2.34
Margarita Windisch SA 457 1.46 -1.25

2006 two-candidate-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Marsha Thomson ALP 23,428 74.67 -0.23
Cam Nation LIB 7,948 25.33 +0.23

Booth breakdown
Booths in Footscray have been divided into three areas. The ALP’s two-party-preferred vote was steady across the seat. The Greens polled most strongly in the south of the seat, while the independent polled the best in the northern end of the seat.

 

Polling booths in Footscray at the 2006 state election. West in yellow, North in green, South in blue.

 

Voter group GRN % IND % ALP 2CP % Total votes % of votes
South 17.73 14.99 76.14 8,579 29.28
North 9.34 17.77 75.99 7,119 24.30
West 8.01 12.34 77.52 6,246 38.37
Other votes 12.52 14.51 71.22 7,352 25.10
Two-party-preferred votes in Footscray at the 2006 state election.
Primary votes for independent Catherine Cumming in Footscray at the 2006 state election.
Greens primary votes in Footscray at the 2006 state election.

28 COMMENTS

  1. I’m surprised the Liberals came second on 2pp… they must’ve kept just ahead of Cumming on FF preferences. If Cumming had got ahead, that would’ve been a much closer result (if the Greens had her at #2). The VEC website doesn’t seem to show the full preference distribution, so it’s hard to say.

    I’d be keeping an eye on this seat. With Labor’s vote dropping from the high 60’s to the low 50’s over the last few elections, and close to 30% not voting for either major candidate, it’s not as safe as it looks. If I was a gambling man I’d put a tenner on the Greens or Cumming (if she runs again).

  2. Possibly…..Cumming is apparently a Maribyrnong councillor so would do well in the east of the seat but be less well known in the west. And while areas like Footscray, Seddon, Yarraville are rapidly turning Green, the west of the seat is pretty solid working class.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if either makes the final 2PP cut, but I don’t know if either has enough penetration in the Sunshine/Braybrook area to win.

  3. Cumming got 11% and 12% in for the two Brimbank council booths, which is still a fair bit – I’d say she did her groundwork. >10% in every booth is a fair effort for an independent.

    Janet Rice was the mayor of Maribyrnong, too – one of the first Green mayors anywhere. That could count for something in both parts of the seat: in the Maribyrnong part for being a well-known local, and in Brimbank for not being Labor. They currently don’t have a council, because it got sacked after severe dodginess involving Labor branch stacking.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brimbank_Council_dismissal,_2009

    I wouldn’t be surprised if Rice cracks 20% for the Greens. If the Liberal vote stays dead (it more than halved in 2002), then it’s game on.

  5. @Bird of Paradox,

    The VEC is much less comprehensive in its counting then the AEC. In seats where a party polls over 50% primary vote they don’t conduct a distribution of preferences. If someone passes 50% before the final two-party count they stop distributing at that point.

    And in seats where the notional two-party count is between different candidates to the final two, they don’t go back and redo the count.

    So we don’t know if the Liberals really did come second in Footscray.

  6. Assuming Libs got all preferences from FF and none from SA, they’d’ve got about 6% from the 27% that went to Cumming or the Green, less than a quarter. That would indicate Cumming’s preferences flowed to Labor about as strongly as the Greens’ did, so she’s certainly on the left. I’ll assume it would’ve gone something like Andrew Wilkie in Denison, with Cumming getting 80% Liberal / FF and 55% Green / SA preferences. That would’ve put her ahead of the Lib and then given Labor a 2cp margin of about 11% or 12%, less if the Greens had gone more for her. Basically, the margin would be fairly similar to Northcote. (You even get very similar primary votes to Northcote if you simply add the Cumming and Green votes, which I haven’t done.)

    Also, looking at the 2010 results for Gellibrand (where there were only three major candidates), the Greens did particularly well in the Footscray / Yarraville booths – most over 20% with swings of over 10%. The best was Footscray Central, with 33.4% (15.3% swing).

  8. It’s absolutely game on. A lot has changed since 2006 with very little in labor’s favour. A huge number of issues are playing out in the electorate, including the regional rail link acquisitions, the proposed westlink road tunnel, public transport issues, planning in central footscray, and the palpable antipathy that people have for labor in the brimbank part of the electorate. Colleen Hartland has been a high profile and active upper house member over the last 4 years, and my campaign is much better resourced and higher profile than either of our state campaigns in 2006 or the federal election campaign.

  9. In the Age on Saturday the 9th of October there was a table with the 2010 Commonwealth primaries for several inner city seats. The Footscray primaries were Greens 20.3%, ALP 57.6% and Liberal 22.1%. The Cumming factor is the biggest difference.

    Even if the Libs preference the Greens ahead of the ALP in Footscray they would presumable put Cr Cumming ahead of the Greens so the Greens have to hope that she is eliminated before the Libs. Footscray will be one of the most interesting contests of the whole election.

  11. I agree there are plenty of issues working against Labor here, but I still reckon there are enough people in Sunshine and Braybrook who would vote for a headless chook if it had ‘ALP’ written on it.

    Really, if the Greens haven’t been able to win better prospects like Melbourne and Richmond, they don’t have much chance here yet. Their best hope is probably for Labor to win the election and suffer a NSW-style implosion, then challenge strongly in 2014.

  12. This will certainly be one of the exciting ones to watch. Unlike last time the Greens are running a very high profile candidate and are putting a lot of resources into the campaign. Having lived in Footscray in the past I must say I have no idea about who Cumming is, other than her sitting on Council. Where did she direct preferences last time? Any suggestion as to where she’ll direct this time?? There are many issues right throughout the electorate working against Labor and a changing demographic in the west of the electorate. Federal results show a considerable level of support throughout the electorate, in most cases outpolling the Liberals.

  14. In 2006 the Greens advised a split ticket in Footscray with the only differences being the positions of the ALP and Cr Cumming.

  16. This is starting to look good for the Greens. It seems that the ALP are getting more and more worried about this seat and, at least at this stage, Cumming doesn’t seem to be running a campaign – now web presence, very little media and no comment on WestLink. Rice should outpoll both Cumming and the Libs this time. The only question is how much Labor will drop below 50%.

  17. This is starting to look good for the Greens. It seems that the ALP are getting more and more worried about this seat and, at least at this stage, Cumming doesn’t seem to be running a campaign – no web presence, very little media and no comment on WestLink. Rice should outpoll both Cumming and the Libs this time. The only question is how much Labor will drop below 50%.

  18. It seems Marsha Thomson is in a little trouble here, after a ‘typing error‘ in a leaflet claiming the government had funded a kindergarten which had actually been twice knocked-back for funding.

  19. Candidates in ballot paper order are:

    Ken Betts – Liberal
    Marsha Thomson – Labor
    Janet Rice – Greens
    Catherine Cumming –
    Margarita Windisch – Socialist Alliance

  21. First the Age and the ABC, now SBS reporting on the prospects of a Green or independent upset in Footscray. With Rice and Cumming preferencing each other this will be one seat I’ll be following closely on Saturday night.

  22. The demographic in seat of Footscray has shifted dramatically since the last election as well!

    When I mean dramatically, I mean a more drastic demographic shift than any other area in Melbourne over the last 4 years. There aren’t many stat’s available, but take a look at the link below to see the decrease in unemployment in the area relative to the surrounding areas over the past 12 months. Something big is going on! On the ground, there is a huge turnover in local residents over the past few years, new apartment blocks going up etc.

    http://cityproject.tumblr.com/post/1412737747/unemployment-trends-in-melbourne

  23. For what it’s worth, I was driving though here recently, and the Greens are running hard with their billboards and posters dominating Gordon St. Windisch and Cumming also had decent coverage in posters, but Labor seem to be placing no resources at all. So certainly could be the shock of the night.

  24. Was there much from the Liberals? It might seem silly to ask, considering they’re the ones who definitely can’t win, but if they crash so badly they come fourth, Cumming almost certainly wins. She could be third behind the Greens on ~20%, get Liberal preferences, leapfrog the Greens, and take out Labor. The same can’t be said for the Greens… to win, they’d need to do exceptionally well (like 30-35%) or get a heap of Cumming’s preferences (assuming she comes fourth, or doesn’t catch the Greens via Lib prefs). I think it’s gonna be Cumming’s contest.

  26. Fantastic result for Janet Rice. She’s still in with a chance with over 40% of the vote still to be counted, but Footscray is no longer a safe Labor seat.

  27. Rice has no chance – Liberal preferences, eh. Cumming doesn’t either, obviously… one day I’ll learn to stop tipping independents. I like them too much. Peter Andren, I miss the dude.

    Janet Rice has done well, though. Nice work to her and also the Green in Preston, who’s also cracked 20%. Now I guess they have some figuring out to do of who the true enemy is – possibly everybody, like in Tasmania. Bleh.

    It’s worth noting that Labor’s primary vote in Footscray has dropped from the high 60’s to the low 40’s over the course of the decade. They may need those Liberal preferences in future. I can almost imagine how they’ll get them, policy-wise.

  28. There’s a fairly wide range of booth results for the Greens here. The pick of the bunch were: 32.4% at Footscray Central, 31.8% at Hyde (where they came first on primary votes), and 29.5% at Seddon.

    Cumming only got above 10% in four booths, her best being 15.4% at Footscray North. Not a great result for her.

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