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​The Bass electorate: a brief history

10/11/2022

 
FROM a safe Liberal seat to a cliffhanger, the Bass electorate has played a crucial role in Victoria electoral history, including bringing down the Kennett Government.

Alan Brown (father of current Liberal candidate Aaron Brown) was the Liberal MP for the equivalent seat, known then as West Gippsland and before that Western Port, from 1979 to 1996.


Brown’s resignation in 1996 to take up the post of Victorian Agent-General in London forced a by-election for West Gippsland. It was such a safe seat that Labor didn’t bother running a candidate. Instead a local, Susan Davies, ran as an independent and unexpectedly won the seat.
Ms Davies won again at the 1999 state election, one of three rural independents who now held the balance of power. They opted to go with Labor, so bringing a sudden and unexpected end to the Kennett Government. 

The Liberal Party reclaimed the seat (now known as Bass) in 2002 and it stayed in Liberal hands until 2018. It was regarded as such a safe Liberal seat that neither major party paid it much attention and Bass was notoriously absent from any pork barrelling.
 
In 2014 former Bass Coast mayor Clare Le Serve stood as an independent, turning it from a safe seat into a marginal one by winning almost 12 per cent of the vote.
 
The ALP took notice.  Suddenly the money and promises poured into the electorate. At the 2018 election, Jordan Crugnale secured a 7 per swing to win the seat for the ALP for the first time since it was created in 2002. The margin was 1.8 per cent.

Following a boundary change, the Victorian Electoral Commission puts the Liberal Party narrowly ahead, at 50.6 per cent to Labor’s 49.4 per cent, based on the 2018 votes.

Anne Heath Mennell
14/11/2022 04:31:26 pm

What a saga! And what a reflection on our so-called democratic system.


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