Williamstown by-election, 2007

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The Williamstown by-election, 2007 was a by-election held on September 15, 2007 for the Victorian Legislative Assembly electorate of Williamstown in suburban Melbourne.

The by-election was triggered when Steve Bracks, the Australian Labor Party member for Williamstown and outgoing Premier, resigned from politics on July 30, 2007. Bracks had held the seat since 1994, and had been leader of the state Labor Party since 1999, serving as Premier from 1999 to 2007. Williamstown is generally considered a safe seat for the ALP, and Bracks' predecessor in the seat, Joan Kirner, was also a former Premier.

With the resignation of Premier Steve Bracks on July 30, 2007, a by-election was required. On 4 August 2007 Janet Rice was confirmed to be the candidate for The Greens, the previous day (August 3, 2007) the Liberal Party had confirmed that they would not run a candidate. This left Janet Rice as the person most likely to displace an ALP candidate, although she would need to greatly improve upon the vote that the Greens received in the 2006 state election. Former Transport Workers Union of Australia assistant secretary Wade Noonan held the seat for Labor.^[1]

Williamstown state by-election, September 15, 2007
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	+/–	Two-party preferred
						Votes	%
	Australian Labor Party	Wade Noonan	16,775	55.74	-5.96	19,278	64.10
	Australian Greens	Janet Rice	6,592	21.90	+9.54	10,797	35.90
	Independent	Catherine Cumming	2,703	8.98	N/A
	Family First	Veronica Hayes	1,472	4.89	+0.44
	Democratic Labor Party	Vern Hughes	780	2.59	N/A
	Independent	Janis Rossiter	648	2.15	N/A
	Independent	Vivienne Millington	485	1.61	N/A
	Independent	Nathan Tavendale	331	1.10	N/A
	Independent	Wajde Assaf	311	1.03	+0.22
		Informals	2,193	6.79	+1.16

Total Enrolment: 38,034 Formal Votes: 30,111 Informal Votes: 2,193 (6.79%) Total Votes: 32,304 (84.93% of enrolled voters)

[edit] Notes