THE POLL BLUDGER
Victorian Legislative Assembly Election 2006

NARRACAN
Labor 6.8%

Narracan covers more than 4,000 square kilometres in western Gippsland, including the towns of Moe, Warragul and Neerim. Moe is deeply working-class and exceptionally strong for Labor, whose two-party margins there in 2002 were upwards of 30 per cent, whereas Warragul, Neerim and surrounding rural areas are naturally conservative. The electorate was created in 1967 and held by the Liberals for its first 32 years, though only by precarious margins in the period of the John Cain government. A 3.8 per cent swing at the 1996 election cut the margin to 1.6 per cent, so that a relatively modest swing of 4.1 per cent at the 1999 election (in the context of the disastrous rural backlash against the Kennett government) delivered the seat to Labor's Ian Maxfield (left), a former organiser with the Right faction Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Union. The redistribution ahead of the 2002 election shifted the seat 3.0 per cent in the Liberals' favour, so that Labor needed to pick up a slight swing in order to retain it; in the event, Maxfield went untroubled with a swing of 7.2 per cent. This time the Liberals have nominated Baw Baw shire councillor Gary Blackwood (right), who runs a Gippsland timber transport and harvesting business.

ASSESSMENT: Labor retain