By NOEL MURPHY
ALP HEROES John Cain and Steve Bracks will be among Labor Party faithful celebrating 50 years of continuous state representation in Geelong this weekend.
The former premiers will join Victorian opposition leader Daniel Andrews, former federal defence minister Gordon Scholes and serving Labor immigration spokesman Richard Marles in a show of strength at Geelong Trades Hall ahead of the 29 November state election.
Labor has been a fixture of the region’s political landscape since the late Neil ‘Nipper’ Trezise, a former Cats rover, won the former state seat of North Geelong in 1964. His son, Ian, holds Geelong until he retires at this year’s poll.
Labor’s candidate to retain the seat, Christine Couzens, said Saturday’s anniversary would be a “momentous milestone” but also a time to “express concern about the demise of manufacturing in Geelong and with it a mass loss of jobs”.
Today’s society was a far cry from 1964 when Nipper Trezise won North Geelong, she said.
“People had hope then, a vision for the future, and, importantly, they had jobs.”
