The Poll Bludger - Australian State and Federal Elections

SCARBOROUGH Liberal 2.4%
New electorate Upper house region: North Metropolitan Federal divisions: Stirling/Curtin
	ELIZABETH RE Independent JIM McCOURT Family First LIZA HARVEY Liberal (top) SONJA LUNDIE-JENKINS Greens JENNIFER WHATELY Christian Democratic Party SCOTT BLACKWELL Labor (bottom)


Two-candidate booth results are ALP vs LIB in booths that served Carine at the 2005 election, and IND (Elizabeth Constable) vs ALP in those that served Churchlands

Located 14 kilometres north-west of the city, the coastal suburb of Scarborough began to urbanise shortly before the Second World War, and an electorate was first created to accommodate it at the 1974 election. It was won narrowly for the Liberals on that occasion by Raymond Young, previously member for abolished Wembley, as part of the Charles Court-led Coalition's defeat of John Tonkin's one-term Labor government. Young was eventually defeated when the northern suburbs turned decisively to Labor under the leadership of Brian Burke in 1983, delivering Scarborough to another colourful Labor figure, Graham Burkett (sentenced to jail in 2006 for receiving kickbacks from developers while working as chief-of-staff to Housing Minister Nick Griffiths). George Strickland gained the seat for the Liberals at the 1989 election, moving to the successor seat of Innaloo when Scarborough was abolished at the 1996 election. Innaloo fell to Labor's John Quigley when Strickland retired in 2001, and was subsequently abolished at a redistribution which divided it beween Carine and Churchlands (forcing Quigley to the new outer suburbs seat of Mindarie). The one-vote one-value regime introduced after the 2005 election required that a new electorate be created in the northern coastal corridor, which was achieved by pushing Carine north and Churchlands south to acccommodate the re-creation of Scarborough. Antony Green calculates the new seat has a Liberal margin of 2.4 per cent, the strong Labor vote in interior Innaloo being cancelled out by a slight Liberal leaning along the coast.

The original front-runner for Liberal preselection was said to be Australian Taxation Office accountant Tony Krsticevic, but he instead snapped up the safer seat of Carine when Katie Hodson-Thomas announced her retirement on the morning Troy Buswell became leader. The party's new nominee is Liza Harvey, a local tackle shop owner who has associated herself with the dangerous cause of high-rise on the Scarborough foreshore. The preselection runner-up, Stirling councillor Elizabeth Re, reacted to her defeat by quitting the Liberal Party and announcing she would run as an independent. Re complained the result reflected “the business vote over the community”, and criticised Harvey over the high-rise issue. Also in the field was Aaron Gray, a mining consultant who had served with the United Nations Transitional Authority in East Timor. Gray's nomination may have suffered from the Liberals' urgent need for female candidates, with Hodson-Thomas's retirement depriving them of their last remaining woman in the lower house.

Labor's candidate is Scott Blackwell, local GP and former state Australian Medical Association president, who was being mentioned as a parliamentary contender as long ago as 1999. Blackwell was deposed from his AMA position in 1998 by Rosanna Capolingua, now national president, which he blamed on his call for decriminalisation of abortion. There was some discussion that unsuccessful federal Stirling candidate Peter Tinley would nominate, but he curiously decided Scarborough voters would not be sufficiently familiar with him despite all his efforts in the area ahead of the November 2007 election. Also mentioned was former Cottesloe mayor John Hammond, a perennial figure in Labor preselection speculation.

A Westpoll survey of 400 respondents conducted during the first week of the campaign showed Liza Harvey leading Scott Blackwell 52-48 on two-party preferred, from primary votes of 49 per cent for Liberal and 40 per cent for Labor.

ASSESSMENT: Liberal retain