Published: 2 July 2021
Last updated: 4 March 2024
DASH LAWRENCE: The Electoral Commission decides not to proceed with an electoral redistribution after lobbying from local figures
LABOR’S JOSH BURNS is on track to retain the marginal Melbourne seat of Macnamara at the next federal election, after the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) announced it wouldn’t pursue a proposed redistribution to one of Australian Jewry's most populous electorates.
In a surprise decision on Tuesday, the Commission declared that parts of St Kilda East and Elsternwick, and all of Caulfield, Caulfield North and Caulfield East – which include several booths won by Labor in 2019 – would remain in Macnamara.
In March, the AEC had tabled a plan to realign the seat, shifting suburbs east of Hotham Road into the neighbouring Liberal stronghold seat of Higgins.
The move would have pushed South Yarra and Prahran – areas with a rising Greens vote – out of Higgins and into Macnamara. Seasoned Greens candidate Steph Hodgins-May, who has unsuccessfully contested the seat in 2016 and 2019, was favoured to end Burns’ brief tenure had the redistribution gone ahead.
Macnamara, known as Melbourne Ports until the 2019 federal election, has been held by Labor for over a century. A decline in the area’s working-class character and rising gentrification has seen the Greens’ vote ascend since the early 2000s.
The AEC’s shock announcement has narrowed the Greens’ path to a greater vote and possible victory.
Burns told The Jewish Independent he was pleased the AEC has decided to “make this redistribution less disruptive both to the Jewish community and to all of my constituents in Caulfield, Elsternwick and St Kilda East, and I hope to continue to have the honour of representing them in Parliament”.
The 34-year-old MP, considered a rising star in Labor ranks, has positioned himself as an avowed supporter of Israel since his election in 2019.
