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Revision as of 08:06, 6 December 2006 by Adam Carr (talk | contribs) (On 6 December, the count remained extremely close)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)The electoral district of Southern Metropolitan Region is one of eight new electoral divisions of the state of Victoria, Australia, each of which elects five members to the upper house of the Parliament of Victoria, the Victorian Legislative Council, by proportional representation. It was created in 2006 following the reform of the Legislative Council by the Australian Labor Party state government of Steve Bracks. It comprises the Legislative Assembly districts of Albert Park, Bentleigh, Brighton, Burwood, Caulfield, Hawthorn, Kew, Malvern, Oakleigh, Prahran and Sandringham.
Southern Metropolitan first elected members at the 25 November 2006 state election. The region covers most of the wealthiest areas of Melbourne (the districts of Brighton, Caulfield, Kew and Malvern have never elected Labor members, while Hawthorn and Sandringham are also safe Liberal seats), and only a few strong Labor areas (Albert Park and Oakleigh being the only safe Labor seats). It was generally expected that the Liberal Party would win three of the five seats, while the remaining two seats would be either two Australian Labor Party or one Labor and one Australian Greens.
In the event the Liberal Party elected only two members (David Davis and Andrea Coote), while Labor elected one (John Lenders). The remaining two seats remained in doubt a week after the election, with Labor's Evan Thornley, the Liberals' David Southwick and the Greens' Sue Pennicuik in a three-way tie. In a seat with an enrolment of 413,000 voters, it seemed likely that the result would be decided by at most a few hundred votes.
On 6 December, the count remained extremely close. After a notional distribution of the preferences of minor parties, the Liberals had 2.97 quotas, the ALP had 1.98 quotas, and the Greens had 1.05 quotas. Thus the Greens' Sue Pennicuik appeared to have won the fourth seat, with a very small surplus. This surplus flowed to the ALP, giving Evan Thornley 2.02 quotas and the fifth seat. Thornley's margin was however only 1,300 votes out of 353,000 so far counted. It was still possible that the Liberal candidate would regain the lead when the last outstanding postal and absentee votes were counted.