August 9, 2024
LIBS HIT BACK OVER MACNAMARA CHANGES THE Victorian Liberal Party has criticised claims by Labor that they are trying to redraw the boundaries of the seat of Macnamara to make it winnable by the Greens.
Macnamara's Labor MP Josh Burns has claimed that changes proposed by the Liberals would increase the chances of the Greens taking the seat.
Victorian Liberal Senator James Paterson said, "We won't be taking lectures from the Labor Party about the risk of the antisemitic Greens winning Macnamara given they preferenced them at the last election and refuse to rule out doing so again this time."
Proposed changes would see areas of Windsor and Prahran included in Macnamara, with parts of Toorak and South Yarra transferred to the seat of Melbourne.
"The Liberal Party's consistent position is that the seat of Melbourne should cross the Yarra at Southbank rather than at South Yarra, as this best unites similar suburbs in Melbourne and Macnamara, including uniting the Jewish community across Caulfield, St Kilda, Prahran and South Yarra in one electorate," Paterson said.
The Liberal Party's proposal would move three booths from Macnamara to Melbourne, each of which was won by the Greens: Southbank (Greens 40.7 per cent primary), Southbank North (40.9 per cent primary) and Fawkner Park (36.5 per cent primary).
That would seem to undercut Labor's assumption that the changes would make Macnamara more of a Green voting electorate.
"This is about uniting genuine communities of interest and Labor's desperate scaremongering does not help the Jewish community," Paterson said.
The Liberal Party similarly supported a submission from the North Eastern Jewish Centre in favour of a change to the boundaries of the seat of Menzies which would unite Balwyn and Balwyn North with Doncaster.
The party's submission said the Jewish community is a very important community of interest and supports uniting the north-eastern Jewish community as much as possible in within Menzies.
Meanwhile, the Victorian Liberal Party's State Council has voted overwhelmingly to stand with Israel and Victoria's Jewish community.
One motion recognised the right of the State of Israel to exist inside safe and secure borders and supported the right of Victoria's Jewish community to live peacefully.
The second motion called on the party to "consider the impacts upon local Jewish communities of electing Greens... when allocating preferences at future elections".
The pro-Israel motions were spearheaded by Liberal Friends of Israel patrons, Paterson and state Deputy Opposition Leader David Southwick and were publicly endorsed by Macnamara candidate, Benson Saulo and Victorian Upper House MP, David Davis.
