‘They remind me of each other’: Albanese announces candidate for late MP’s seat

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced federal Labor’s candidate for the seat of Dunkley after the death of Peta Murphy.

Speaking from the Frankston Bowling Club on Thursday, Albanese announced Jodie Belyea as Dunkley’s candidate, saying she would be a voice for the community.

The Age revealed earlier this week that Belyea was the frontrunner to replace Murphy, who died from breast cancer last month. Murphy’s husband Rod Glover stood beside Albanese during the announcement.

“Peta was a strong advocate at a local community and she was a patron of this bowling club here … and that’s why it’s appropriate that we’re here in the very place where Peta Murphy launched her campaign,” Albanese said.

“Jodie Belyea met Peta through her work for a not-for-profit organisation here in this community that supports local women doing it tough … Jodie Belyea is someone who I have asked along with others to stand as the Labor candidate for Dunkley.

“No two people are the same but they do remind me of each other in that they are both fighters. They’re both strong advocates.”

Belyea said she was determined to represent the seat of Dunkley and follow in the footsteps of Murphy.

“I am not going to necessarily be Peta, but I am going to lean into her legacy committed to making a difference. I have big shoes to fill,” she said.

A TAFE student who went on to become a teacher at the tertiary level, Belyea has also worked in small business. She has a child in high school.

In 2018, she founded a volunteer-led group known as the Women’s Spirit Project, which offers health and wellbeing programs for vulnerable women in the Frankston, Kingston and Mornington Peninsula council areas.

Labor holds the seat by a margin of 6 per cent, but party figures expect a swing against the government, predicting cost-of-living issues will remain top of mind in mortgage-belt suburbs such as Carrum Downs.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton will also be under pressure after the Coalition lost the Melbourne seat of Aston – another mortgage-belt area – in early 2023. It was the first time in a century that a sitting government won a seat from the opposition party.

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