With the federal election looming, residents in Melbourne’s north will take to voting booths on Saturday, May 21 to elect a local MP.
Hume and Whittlesea encompass the electorates of Calwell, Scullin and a small fraction of McEwen.
The electorate of Calwell covers most of the municipality of Hume, including Craigieburn, Mickleham, Broadmeadows, Kalkallo, Roxburgh Park.
Labor’s Maria Vamvakinou has held the seat of Calwell since 2001, and won the 2019 election, securing 68.8 per cent of the two-party preferred vote.
Calwell has been deemed a safe Labor seat since it was first contested. It has had only two members since it was created in 1984 – Dr Andrew Theophanous and Ms Vamvakinou.
There are six other candidates running for the seat.
Mark Preston will run on behalf of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, Tim Staker-Gunn will represent the Liberal party, Natalie Abboud for The Greens, Joshua Naim from the United Australia Party, Jerome Small has been put forward by the Victorian Socialists and Maria Bengtsson from the Australian Federation Party.
Bordering Calwell, the electoral division of Scullin covers a number of suburbs in Whittlesea, including Thomastown, Lalor, Epping, Mill Park, South Morang and Mernda.
The seat of Scullin is currently held by Andrew Giles from the Labor party and has been since 2013.
Scullin has had only four members in the six decades since it was first contested, all representing the Labor party.
Running against Mr Giles will be Patchouli Paterson (The Greens), Ursula van Bree (Pauline Hanson’s One Nation), Eric Koelmeyer (Liberal Democratic Party), Yassin Albarri (United Australia Party), Virosh Perera (Liberal Party) and Cameron Rowe (Victorian Socialists).
Parts of Whittlesea, such as Donnybrook, parts of Mernda, Doreen and Woodstock, fall within the electorate of McEwen, which is currently held by Labor MP Rob Mitchell.
Locals can find out all about early voting, postal voting, and polling day booths on the Australian Electoral College (AEC) website.
Details: www.aec.gov.au/election/voting.htm#start.
