The Poll Bludger - Australian State and Federal Elections

PERTH Labor 13.3%
Upper house region: North Metropolitan Federal division: Perth/Curtin
	GUENNADI MOUKINE Christian Democratic Party JONATHAN HALLETT Greens JOHN HYDE Labor (top) CHRIS EDWARDS Liberal

The electorate of Perth extends from the city itself northwards through Northbridge and Highgate to Leederville and North Perth. The recent redistribution has shifted it westwards, cutting voters through an exchange of heavily populated Mount Lawley (now the basis of a new electorate) for largely commercial West Perth and unpopulated Kings Park. The changes have added a further 1.3 per cent to the already healthy Labor margin. Perth has existed as an electorate without interruption since 1962, having gone out of existence for the previous 12 years after the creation of Perth South. Labor's only defeat since then was in 1965 at the hands of Peter Durack, later a Senator and Attorney-General in the Fraser government. Brian Burke's brother Terry recovered the seat for Labor in 1968 and held it until he resigned in 1987. He was succeeded at a by-election by Dr Ian Alexander, who quit the party on ideological grounds in 1991 and did not contest the 1993 election (he later ran against Jim McGinty as Greens candidate for Fremantle in 2001). Former ABC Radio presenter Diane Warnock narrowly retained the seat for Labor in 1993 and boosted her margin in 1996 before retiring in 2001. Redistribution had made the seat safer for Labor by this point, and current member John Hyde has further increased the margin at the two elections he has contested.

Hyde came to state politics via gay activism and the mayoralty of the inner city Town of Vincent. A member of the Left faction, he soon found himself subjected to preselection threats from Old Right and Centre rivals, which were a major factor in the national executive's intervention to protect all sitting members ahead of the 2005 election. The Eastern Voice News reported that those with their eyes on his seat included John Little, whose rocky relationship with Hyde went back to their time together on Vincent Town Council; North Metropolitan MLC Graham Giffard, who in June 2004 claimed he had the numbers to defeat Hyde; and Vince Catania, then state Young Labor president and now upper house member for Mining and Pastoral. There has been no repeat of such talk ahead of the coming election. Hyde was frequently named as a cabinet contender as various ministerial careers fell by the wayside, but had to wait until April 2007 to be named a parliamentary secretary. However, he has enjoyed a high profile recently as chairman of the committee overseeing the Corruption and Crime Commission.

ASSESSMENT: Labor retain