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THE POLL BLUDGER BLAXLAND
The western Sydney seat of Blaxland was created with the expansion of parliament in 1949, with Bankstown emerging as its centre of gravity in 1969 after it was earlier dominated by Auburn. Always held for Labor by margins of no less than 8.8 per cent, the greatest moment of electoral interest came in 1949 when Jack Lang tried to move in after winning Reid as a Labor renegade in 1946. He failed, but his latter-day pupil Paul Keating would hold the seat from his entry into politics in 1969 until his exit in 1996. Keating was succeeded as member but the rather less illustrious Michael Hatton. When the party's national executive was empowered by its national conference to dictate the outcomes of this and other important New South Wales seats, the under-achieving Hatton was disendorsed and replaced by Jason Clare, a Transurban executive and former staffer to NSW Premier Bob Carr. | |