THE POLL BLUDGER
Victorian Legislative Assembly Election 2006

MORWELL
Labor 4.9%

The town of Morwell is located 140 kilometres east of Melbourne; the electorate bearing its name extends into 1,500 square kilometres of surrounding territory, including the towns of Traralgon, Toongabbie and Boolarra. There is considerable electoral diversity in this area, including rock-solid Labor booths in Morwell and Churchill in the west, naturally marginal Traralgon further east along Princes Highway, and small conservative rural booths beyond. Created at the 1955 election that brought Henry Bolte's Liberal government to power, Morwell was held by the Liberals until 1970 and by Labor thereafter. Latrobe mayor Brendan Jenkins (left) won Labor preselection when long-standing member Keith Hamilton, a colleague of Jenkins in the hard left Pledge faction, announced his retirement ahead of the 2002 election. Jenkins suffered something of a rebuff when the electorate swung against Labor by 4.4 per cent, sharply against the overall trend. In the Traralgon area the swing was upwards of 11 per cent; according to Tim Colebatch of The Age, Labor sources blamed this on a plan to move the council head office from there to Morwell, which Jenkins had spearheaded as mayor. Jenkins also leaked votes to independent candidate Brad Platschinda, a CFMEU-backed timber worker who ran against the Bracks government's logging policies and polled 14.7 per cent. The seat was contested by both the Liberals and the Nationals, who polled 19.1 per cent and 12.4 per cent respectively. Poll Bludger commenter Geoff Robinson noted that Jenkins' poor show echoed a similarly weak performance when Keith Hamilton debuted in 1988 after a "messy preselection", which was corrected by a pro-Labor swing against the trend of the 1992 election. The Liberals have nominated Stephen Parker (right), chief executive of the La Trobe Country Credit Union.

Labor’s Traralgon branch secretary Lisa Proctor, a former Latrobe councillor and unsuccessful preselection contestant at the 2002 election, quit the party early in the campaign and announced she would run against Brendan Jenkins as an independent, directing preferences against him. Three other prominent local branch members also quit the party at this time, including Traralgon branch president and Latrobe councillor Derek Amos, who had held the seat for Labor from 1970 to 1981. The Age published Amos's resignation in the final week of the campaign, which complained of "our local member and his surrounding Left clique" having "ignored, criticised or punished" those who "have a different view of the world".

ASSESSMENT: Labor retain