THE POLL BLUDGER
Western Australian Legislative Assembly Election 2008

VICTORIA PARK Labor 13.8%*
Upper house region: South Metropolitan Federal division: Swan * By-election 11/3/06: Labor 11.2% (old boundaries)
	BEN WYATT Labor (top) JAMES OLSEN Family First SASKIA MATTHEWS Christian Democratic Party KIM LISSON Greens BENJAMIN TRAVIA Liberal (bottom)

The safe Labor electorate of Victoria Park has been substantially changed by the redistribution, moving west into areas vacated by the contraction of South Perth (Kensington and Karawara) while ceding its south-eastern reaches to the new electorate of Cannington (Queens Park, Wilson and Cannington itself). These changes have slightly increased the electorate's overall affluence and cut the Labor margin by 1.9 per cent. The seat has been held by Labor since its creation in 1930, except when William Read held it as an independent from 1945 to 1953. Its two previous members were both party leaders: Ron Davies, member from 1961 to 1986 and unsuccessful leader at the 1980 election, and Geoff Gallop, leader from 1995 and Premier from February 2001 to January 2006. Gallop's surprise resignation initiated a by-election on 11 March 2006 which was won for Labor by Ben Wyatt, a Director of Public Prosecutions lawyer whose father Cedric Wyatt was an unsuccessful federal Liberal candidate for Kalgoorlie in 1996. Wyatt won preselection with Right faction backing ahead of Helen Creed, national secretary of the Left faction Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union, winning nine votes from the party's 14-member administrative committee.

ASSESSMENT: Labor retain