THE POLL BLUDGER
Victorian Legislative Assembly Election 2006

YAN YEAN
Labor 9.5%

Yan Yean is located beyond Melbourne's northern outskirts, from the Yarra River north through Diamond Creek and Hurstbridge to Yan Yean and Whittlesea. Andre Haermeyer won the seat for Labor by 1.9 per cent when it was created in 1992, and only slightly increased his margin over the next two elections. By now a senior front-bencher, he accordingly sought refuge in the new city seat of Kororoit in 2002, and the seat stayed with his Labor Unity ("Right") faction with the preselection of Danielle Green (left). A former vice-president of the Community and Public Sector Union, Green was a local Socialist Left convenor in the 1990s but changed factions a few years before her preselection. The front-runner was originally reckoned to be Banyule mayor Colin Brooks, also of Labor Unity, but he was persuaded to make way for Green (and was eventually rewarded for his patience with preselection for Bundoora at the coming election). Haermeyer's efforts to see that his old seat stayed in the Labor fold extended to an extraordinary parliamentary attack on Liberal candidate Matthew Guy a month out from the 2002 election, on the basis of what appeared to be confidential police information. This began an ongoing controversy over unauthorised access to police files which has been a running sore for the government throughout its current term, and which contributed to Haermeyer's demotion from the police portfolio in early 2005. This time the Liberals have nominated Aneta Ivanovski (right), a young university student – perhaps betraying a lack of confidence in their prospects.

In the first days of the campaign, the Coalition promised to come good on an unfulfilled Labor election promise from 1999 by extending the Epping rail line, which until 1959 extended a further 15 kilometres to Whittlesea. The proposal is to extend the line to South Morang at a cost of $12 million, although Labor claims this sum ignores the factor which has prevented the government from proceeding with the project: the resulting need for track duplication further down the line, which it claims would cost as much as $300 million. Local residents have received letters from Transport Minister Peter Batchelor apologising for the decision to delay the project. Labor's campaign promises in the area have included a 112-bed "medi-hotel", a new mental health team and expanded chemotherapy services at the Northern Hospital in Epping, along with a $10.5 million expansion of the TAFE campus at Epping.

ASSESSMENT: Labor retain