THE POLL BLUDGER
Victorian Legislative Assembly Election 2006

FERNTREE GULLY
Labor 2.3%

Ferntree Gully is in Melbourne's outer eastern suburbs, from Boronia south to Rowville. Despite the close margin in 2002, Labor won every booth except the anomalous Lysterfield at the electorate's eastern tip, where the Liberal margin was 6.2 per cent. The electorate was created at the 2002 election in place of the abolished Knox, which Labor held from its creation in 1976 until the 1992 landslide, when the retirement of inaugural member Steven Crabb added fuel to an 11.3 per cent swing. The subsequent Liberal member was Hurtle Lupton, who used to have a regular segment on 3AW's breakfast program because its presenters found his name amusing. This did not save him from the electorate's lash at the 2002 election, when a 9.9 per cent swing delivered the seat to Labor's Anne Eckstein (left). A former primary school teacher and Education Department manager, Eckstein is said by Labor sources to be an operative in the Socialist Left faction. The Liberal candidate this time out is former Knox councillor Nick Wakeling (right), who won preselection over council colleague and former Young Liberal Movement president and Knox mayor Emanuele Cicchiello (who also nominated for Bayswater). In September, Jason Dowling of the Sunday Age reported that "senior Liberals" had identified Wakeling as "ministerial material".

ASSESSMENT: LIBERAL GAIN