Mr Haermeyer, who holds the Manufacturing and Export, Financial Services and Small Business portfolios in Cabinet, is tipped to lose his ministerial responsibilities after Labor’s Left and Right factions cut a deal to excise four under-performing ministers – two from the Left and two from the Right.
A spokeswoman for the minister would not confirm whether or not Mr Haermeyer would keep his cabinet position after the election, saying instead that he was spending all his energy on the coming election.
“Andre, at this stage, is only worried about winning the election,” media adviser Claire Miller told Star. “I think it would be premature to start to speculate beyond November 25.”
The Herald Sun last week reported that Mr Haermeyer, a member of Labor’s Right-wing Labor Unity faction, had been named as one of four ministers who would lose their Cabinet positions in a post-election ministerial shuffle.
Fellow Right-wing factional member, and Minister for Consumer Affairs, Marsha Thomson, is also likely to lose her Cabinet position, while from the Left, Gaming Minister John Pandazopoulos and Housing Minister Candy Broad are set to be cut loose.
Mr Haermeyer was first elected to the seat of Kororoit at the 2002 state election.
He had moved over from the Yan Yean electorate in Melbourne’s north, where he had been the sitting member since 1992.
After the Bracks Government’s surprise 1999 election victory, Mr Haermeyer was appointed Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister for Corrections, positions he held until January 2005 when he was transferred to his current portfolios.
Kororoit is one of the state’s safest Labor seats, and would require a two-party preferred swing of more than 50 per cent to fall to the Liberal Party at this election.
