THE POLL BLUDGER
Victorian Legislative Assembly Election 2006

HASTINGS
Labor 0.9%

Hastings covers the western part of the Westernport Bay coast to the east of Melbourne, from Somers north-east to Tooradin and inland to Baxter and Langwarrin. Liberal support is strongest in the northern part of the electorate, including Tooradin and the southern outskirts of Cranbourne; Labor does better in the coastal towns further south, including the large Hastings booth where the margin in 2002 was 8.6 per cent. The electorate was created at the 2002 election from territory that had previously been in Cranbourne and Mornington, which were respectively reoriented northward and westward with the abolition of Frankston East. The new electorate had a notional Liberal margin of 7.3 per cent, but an 8.2 per cent swing was enough to deliver Labor candidate Rosy Buchanan (left) a 582-vote victory. A constituent launched a legal challenge against Buchanan's election on the basis that her employment as a Centrelink manager (an "office or place of profit under the Crown") rendered her candidacy invalid, but it proved unsuccessful. Buchanan is said to be associated with the National Union of Workers, which restored its traditional link with the Right faction in late 2004 following the departure of national secretary Greg Sword, who had forged an alliance with the Left in early 2002. The Liberals have again nominated their unsuccessful candidate from 2002, technology consultant Neale Burgess (right).

Two weeks out from the election, Steve Bracks announced that commercial net fishing in Westernport Bay would come to an end if Labor was re-elected. Thomas Hunter of Crikey reported: "It appears to be another big win for Rex Hunt – who joined Bracks to make the announcement – and the recreational fishing lobby. Commercial fishing operators well remember what happened in 2002 when a fortnight before the election Bracks, again flanked by Hunt, made the same commitment for the Lake Tyers and Mallacoota fisheries. Sure enough, those commercial fisheries disappeared shortly after the election". Commercial fishing lobby group the Blue Wedge accused the government of using the proposal to buy the support of recreational fishing groups for the Port Phillip Bay channel deepening project – a hot issue on the Port Phillip Bay side of the Mornington Peninsula, particularly in the marginal Liberal seat of Nepean. Hastings has also been mooted as one of two possible sites (along with Werribee) for the Liberals' centrepiece water policy, a proposed $400 million desalination plant.

ASSESSMENT: LIBERAL GAIN