Have a Seat: Brand

At the moment, the ALP can expect to win a swag of seats in Queensland and South Australia, and pick up a bunch in the South-Eastern states. But they can also expect to lose seats in Western Australia, the only state where the Coalition is still ahead in the polls.

The wafer-thin seats of Swan and Cowan will switch back to the Liberals with little else but a hiccup, but the seat that the ALP cannot afford to ignore is that of Brand.

Brand has been held by Labor since 1984, first by Wendy Fatin, and by Kim Beazley since 1996. Beazley shifted electorates from Swan when the margins were a little too uncomfortable for the then Deputy Prime Minister. Swan is now being held by the ALP by 104 votes, the first to switch if Labor can’t improve polling in WA.

Brand has a margin of 4.7%, but as an Opposition Leader for most of the last decade, Beazley is expected to have a considerable personal vote. His retirement could only send the seat the way of the Liberal Party’s Phil Edman, who had a 15% swing his direction with the 2004 primary vote.

Labor has endorsed former ALP secretary Gary Gray in the seat, who was the centre of Paul Keating’s now infamous attack on Lateline. Perhaps revenge for Gray nicknaming him ‘Captain Wacky’.

Coupled with the disaster that was the Brian Burke scandal, Labor will suffer in Western Australia, and their hold on Brand is particularly tenuous.