Forest Hill Victoria—Legislative Assembly |
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Location of Forest Hill (dark green) in Greater Melbourne
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State | Victoria |
Created | 1976 |
MP | Neil Angus |
Party | Liberal Party of Australia |
Electors | 40,991 (2014) |
Area | 25 km2 (9.7 sq mi) |
Demographic | Outer Metropolitan |
Forest Hill is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of Victoria. It is a 25 km² electorate located in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, encompassing the suburbs of Blackburn South, Burwood East and Vermont South and parts of Forest Hill and Vermont. The electorate had a population of 50,163 as of the 2006 census.
Forest Hill was created as a relatively safe Liberal seat in 1976, and was won by Liberal candidate John Richardson at the election that year. Richardson was re-elected at six consecutive elections, surviving some close races against Labor candidates at the height of the Cain government in the 1980s, and held the seat with a comfortable margin of over 7% when he retired at the 2002 election. However, Labor nominated high-profile skier and Winter Olympics medallist Kirstie Marshall as their candidate at that election, which combined with a statewide Labor landslide and the loss of Richardson's personal vote saw Labor easily win the seat for the first time. Marshall suffered a sharp swing back to the Liberal Party at the 2006 election, and held the seat by a margin of only 0.78%. At the 2010 election, Marshall was defeated by Liberal candidate Neil Angus.