THE POLL BLUDGER
Victorian Legislative Assembly Election 2006

MORDIALLOC
Labor 4.5%

Located on Port Phillip Bay about 25 kilometres south-east of Melbourne, the electorate of Mordialloc was created in 1992 to accommodate expanding urban sprawl along the outer coastal metropolitan area. Booth results indicate a clear trend of Labor strength in the west (Cheltenham and Mordialloc) balancing out a high Liberal vote in Dingley to the east. The seat had a notional Labor margin of 1.5 per cent going into its debut election, but was easily won for the Liberals by Geoff Leigh with a swing of 8.8 per cent. Leigh had previously held the much safer seat of Malvern nearer the city, but was forced to seek refuge here after losing preselection to future party leader Robert Doyle. His margin in Mordialloc was progressively whittled away at the 1996 and 1999 elections, and he was defeated following a 7.0 per cent swing in 2002.

The successful Labor candidate was Janice Munt (right), a company director ("specialising in property and shares investment") and member of the Labor Unity (Right) faction who won preselection ahead of Kingston mayor Elizabeth Larking. Munt's most newsworthy act in her first term was to put her name to a letter with three other local MPs calling on preselectors to support Martin Pakula over Simon Crean in the Hotham preselection. Michael Gordon of The Age reported that Munt had "expressed outrage at the way Crean was being treated" to local branch members three weeks earlier, and would not comment on her apparent change of heart. She also attracted attention during the 2002 election campaign for distributing fundraising badges which read: "I donated to Janice Munt because the other guy is a ....". The Liberal candidate is Stephen Hartney (left), whose September 2005 preselection win was described by Peter Mickeburough of the Herald-Sun as a defeat for the Kroger-Costello camp. The following month Julian Sheezel, party state director and Kroger-Costello factional operator, criticised Hartney for writing a letter to the Herald-Sun raising concerns over Commonwealth Games security measures. Hartney had previously been candidate for Chisholm at the 2004 federal election.

Stephen Hartney has been campaigning hard on the issue of a proposed bypass to relieve congestion in Dingley. Labor promised to spend $30 million on the project ahead of the 1999 election, but subsquently claimed EastLink would render it unnecessary by reducing traffic volumes by 30 per cent. The government has moved to further relieve local traffic problems through the $24 million extension of South Road from Warrigal Road to Old Dandenong Road, located in Clayton to the north. This has been dismissed as inadequate by Kingston Council as well as the opposition.

ASSESSMENT: Labor retain