This was published 1 year ago
I’m sitting in Bikaner’s Curry Café on Foster Street in Dandenong, otherwise known as “Little India”, taking advantage of their Friday lunch special.
Over a mango lassi and chicken curry, it’s a good time to reflect on my first week in Bruce for The Age’s hot seats blog. It’s been a fascinating start.
Bruce is a traditionally safe Labor seat, currently held by Julian Hill, that the Liberals now think is firmly in their grasp, as concerns mount over cost-of-living pressures.
Only one week into the federal election campaign and it’s all been happening in Goldstein, where there is a rematch between the incumbent teal MP Zoe Daniel and former Liberal MP for the seat Tim Wilson.
Campaigning kicked off in earnest last Sunday with Daniel’s politics-at-the-pub session at the Black Rock Yacht Club to discuss fiscal drag and tax reform.
Wilson launched his campaign on the same day at Brighton Town Hall, which was packed to standing room only with more than 600 blue T-shirt clad Liberal supporters.
Break down how the booths voted in the seat of Wills at the last election and the ABC’s chief election analyst, Antony Green, points out a peculiarity to this seat and neighbouring Cooper, held by Labor’s Ged Kearney and which stretches from Clifton Hill to Reservoir.
“In the last four decades, there has been this intense gentrification at the southern end of these electorates, where living close to the city has become more desirable,” says Green.
“It’s a peculiarity of the way Melbourne’s northern suburbs grew – they were all working class, and the middle classes were all on the other side of the Yarra.”
When you drive into the main street of Berwick, you’re welcomed by a large billboard with Liberal candidate Zahid Safi’s smiling face.
It’s a blue-ribbon area that the Liberals are hoping will help them to victory, after the boundary redistribution has poured more potential Liberal voters into the Labor seat.
And after a few chats with people on the main strip, it’s clear the locals here will be doing their part to turn Bruce blue.
Teal independent MP Zoe Daniel and Liberal candidate Tim Wilson engaged in a fiery debate before members of the Jewish community at the Brighton Hebrew Congregation on Thursday night.
The two candidates for Goldstein at times had attendees booing or applauding loudly, and quite a few came wearing their teal or blue Liberal T-shirts.
Daniel said many people in the Jewish community had not felt safe since the October 7, 2023, terrorist attacks.
“I will never use your pain for political gain,” she said. “I object to the conflict in Israel and Gaza being used as a vote-getter by the Coalition and, to some extent, the Greens.”
Teal independent MP Zoe Daniel and Liberal candidate Tim Wilson will make their pitch to voters tonight at the Goldstein Jewish Community Election Forum.
It is the first time in this campaign that the two candidates will debate each other after Wilson declined to participate in the Bayside Climate Crisis Action Group’s candidate forum two weeks ago.
The forum is being organised by the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council and the Jewish Community Council of Victoria and is being moderated by Rebecca Davis of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council and Zeddy Lawrence of Zionism Victoria.
The Liberals are throwing party royalty at the seat of Bruce, a Labor-held electorate now firmly in their sights.
Liberal candidate Zahid Safi was out door-knocking a few weeks ago with former prime minister John Howard. “I’m honoured to have him here,” Safi told Sky News at the time. “It means that the party and Mr Howard cares about Bruce.”
And on Thursday, the chairman of Bruce’s Liberal federal election committee, Rampal Muthyala, had lunch with Howard at The Australian Club on William Street.
Returning to the corflute wars of Kooyong, I can now confirm that the City of Boroondara has ruled on the Liberals’ two-for-one meme corflutes – and they’re allowed to stay.
Yesterday, new corflutes started appearing, zip-tied as addendums to Liberal candidate Amelia Hamer’s usual signs.
They read: “Monique, please DO NOT take this sign!” – a pointed reference to last week’s embarrassing incident where Ryan’s husband was caught removing a Hamer sign.
George Spyropoulos runs an unusual pharmacy on Bell Street, Pascoe Vale South – one that also serves coffee. He calls it a pharmacino.
“It’s a pharmacy first and people will grab a coffee as an aside,” he says.
On Thursday, though, it was primarily the backdrop to a prime ministerial press conference as Anthony Albanese, Health Minister Mark Butler, and the local MP for Wills, Peter Khalil, dropped in.
Liberal candidate for Goldstein Tim Wilson is facing accusations of using a Liberal Party branch secretary and campaign volunteer as a tradie in a Facebook campaign ad.
In the ad, Wilson says he is focused on making housing more affordable. The video shows him speaking with a few constituents – including a man in a fluoro vest holding a hard hat who looks like a tradie or builder.
The man appears instead to be one of Wilson’s campaign volunteers, Frazer Hurst, who has no listed affiliation with the housing and building sector.