| Maranoa |
Division of Maribyrnong | Mayo |
 Hon Bill Shorten (ALP) His Parliamentary Secretary's website and his electorate website |  |
Location: Melbourne: Avondale Heights, Essendon, Moonee Ponds, Sunshine Division named for: The Maribyrnong River, an Indigenous word for "edible root" Median weekly family income: $936 (66th highest) Persons born in non English speaking countries: 31.7% (10th highest) Persons in professional occupations: 24.2% (86th highest) Persons aged 65 and over: 14.1% (55th highest) Couple families with dependent children: 37.0% (94th highest) Dwellings being purchased: 19.9% (131st highest) Sitting member: Hon Bill Shorten (Labor), elected 2007 Born: 12 May 1967, Melbourne. Career: Educated Monash University, Melbourne University (MBA). Solicitor. Staffer for Senator Hon Gareth Evans and Hon Neil Pope MLA. Victorian State Secretary, Australian Workers' Union 1998-2001, National Secretary, 2001-07. Member ALP National Executive 2001-07. President, Victorian ALP 2005-08. Member ACTU Exercutive 2001-07. Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services from 3 December 2007 1996 two-party majority: Labor 18.9 1998 two-party majority: Labor 22.1 2001 two-party majority: Labor 17.4 Effect of 2004 redistribution: 02.0 shift to Liberal 2004 two-party majority: Labor 09.5 2007 two-party majority: Labor 15.3 
2004 enrolment: 87,267 2007 enrolment: 87,484 (+00.2%) Maribyrnong was created in 1906, and at various times has covered most of the western and north-western suburbs of Melbourne. In 1949 it was cut back to the area around Essendon, but since then it has expanded to the west to take in newer suburbs such as Sunshine and parts of Keilor and St Albans. Maribyrnong is a solidly working-class seat, with 17% of its workforce engaged in manufacturing and a high proportion of people born in non English speaking countries. It is also the most Catholic electorate in Australia (46.1%), a fact of considerable importance in its history. Maribyrnong has been held by the Labor Party for most of its history, the only significant exception being the period 1955-66, when the Democratic Labor Party, with its base among working-class Catholics, directed its preferences to the Liberals, enabling them to win the seat. Members for Maribyrnong include Labor ministers Arthur Drakeford, Dr Moss Cass and Alan Griffiths. Bob Sercombe held the seat from 1996. Sercombe was on the Opposition front bench from 2004, but despite this he lost his preselection in a coup organised by the Labor Unity faction in 2006. His successor is Bill Shorten, the national secretary of the Australian Workers Union. In 2007 Shorten was appointed a parliamentary secretary in the Rudd government. At the 2007 election Labor won every booth, polling 79% of the two-party vote at St Albans South East and also topping 70% at three other booths in St Albans, three booths in Sunshine, two booths in Albion, and Avondale Heights and Kealba. The Liberals' best results were 47% at Essendon West and Moonee Ponds Central. | |  Two-party vote by booth, 2007
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