| Dawson |
Division of Deakin | Denison |
 Mike Symon (ALP) His electorate website |  |
Location: Melbourne: Blackburn, Heathmont, Mitcham, Ringwood Division named for: Hon Alfred Deakin, Prime Minister of Australia 1903-04, 1905-08, 1909-10 Median weekly family income: $1,051 (42nd highest) Persons born in non English speaking countries: 15.9% (49th highest) Persons in professional occupations: 30.2% (38th highest) Persons aged 65 and over: 15.9% (25th highest) Couple families with dependent children: 36.0% (107th highest) Dwellings being purchased: 28.4% (54th highest) Sitting member: Mike Symon (Labor), elected 2007 Born 21 February 1965, Melbourne. Career: Educated Box Hill TAFE. Electrician, campaign officer Electrical Trades Union. 1996 two-party majority: Liberal 02.5 1998 two-party majority: Liberal 01.9 2001 two-party majority: Liberal 01.6 Effect of 2004 redistribution: 00.1 shift to Labor 2004 two-party majority: Liberal 05.0 2007 two-party majority: Labor 01.4 
2004 enrolment: 87,436 2007 enrolment: 87,711 (+00.3%) Deakin was created in 1937, originally a rural seat to the north-east of Melbourne, and has gradually been reduced by successive redistributions to a block of suburbs centered on Mitcham and Ringwood. Despite being in the outer suburbs it is not a mortgage belt seat: it has low levels of families with dependent children and of dwellings being purchased. Its high level of over-65s also suggest a stable, ageing population. Deakin is remarkable for its social and political homogeneity, but the older, western end of the seat has more in common with inner suburban seats like Chisholm and Kooyong than does the newer, eastern end, which behaves more like other outer suburban areas. The seat's stability is largely due to its solidly middle-class, home-owning character. Since 1969 Deakin has always been a marginal seat, but Labor has only won it twice: in 1983, when the Liberal member Alan Jarman stayed on too long and lost to Labor's John Saunderson, and in 2007, when Phil Barresi, the member since 1996, was unexpectedly defeated by Labor's Mike Symon. Symon was an official of the Electrical Trades Union, and the unions spent heavily on his campaign. This will be a front-line seat at the next election. In 2007 Labor polled 58% of the two-party vote at Bedford Road, Burwood Heights, Heatherdale and Nunawading. The Liberals polled 61% at Inala Village retirement home. | |  Two-party vote by booth, 2007
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