Melbourne is still Green

04 Jul 2018

The latest federal electorate redistribution has removed Flemington and Travancore – strong Greens areas – from the seat of Melbourne held by Green MP Adam Bandt.

Mr Bandt said the changes wouldn’t affect the Greens’ margin in Melbourne, saying he opposed the changes on principle.

“Some independent people have published analyses that the changes actually helped me,” Mr Bandt said. “I was arguing for something that might not help me vote-wise. I’m disappointed that I won’t be representing Flemington and Travancore.”

Changes to inner-city seats were necessitated by population growth, with the transfer of Flemington and Travancore to Bill Shorten’s seat of Maribyrnong to keep Melbourne within its quota of voters.

It is still unclear whether or not the Liberal Party will run a candidate in Melbourne after announcing a potential strategy of abandoning inner-city seats late last year.

Melbourne councillor and former Liberal candidate for Melbourne Philip Le Liu said he didn’t think the redistribution was significant but supported running a Liberal candidate.

“The result of the last federal election, where the two-party preferred vote is now Green versus Liberal, shows we are making in-roads into Melbourne,” he said.

“I will be doing as much as I can to ensure the Liberal vote in Melbourne is well represented and will be working with the party to increase that vote in state and federal elections.”

You must be registered with Docklands News to be able to post comments.
To register, please click here.