ALP 15.2% vs GRN
Incumbent MP
Kelvin Thomson, since 1996.
Geography
Northern Melbourne. Wills covers most of the City of Moreland and small parts of Moonee Valley and Yarra council areas. Key suburbs include Brunswick, Moreland, Coburg, Pascoe Vale, Oak Park, Glenroy, Hadfield and Fawkner.
History
Wills was created for the 1949 election as part of the expansion of the House of Representatives. Apart from a period in the early 1990s, it has always been held by the Labor Party.
Wills was first won in 1949 by the ALP’s Bill Bryson. He had previously held the seat of Bourke from 1943 to 1946. Bryson served as a member of the ALP until the split of 1955, when he joined the new Labor Party (Anti-Communist), which became the Democratic Labor Party. He lost the seat at the 1955 election.
The seat was won in 1955 by the ALP’s Gordon Bryant. Bryant served as a minister in the Whitlam government from 1972 to 1975, and retired in 1980.
Wills was won in 1980 by former President of the ACTU, Bob Hawke. Hawke was in the rare position of a politician who was already a significant national figure in his own right before entering Parliament, and he was immediately appointed to the Labor frontbench. Hawke failed in an attempt to replace Bill Hayden as Labor leader in 1982, but was successful in another attempt on the very day that Malcolm Fraser called the 1983 election, and he won that election, becoming Prime Minister.
Hawke won re-election at the 1984, 1987 and 1990 elections, but in 1991 he was defeated in a caucus leadership ballot by Paul Keating, and he resigned from Parliament in 1992.
The 1992 Wills by-election was a remarkable campaign, with 22 candidates standing. The seat was won by former footballer Phil Cleary on a hard-left socialist platform. Cleary’s victory was overturned in the High Court due to his status as a public school teacher on unpaid leave, shortly before the 1993 election. He was re-elected at the 1993 election, and held the seat until his defeat in 1996.
Wills was won back for the ALP in 1996 by Kelvin Thomson, a Victorian state MP since 1988. Thomson was appointed to the Federal Labor shadow ministry in 1997, and remained on the frontbench until early 2007. Thomson has been re-elected six times.
Candidates
Sitting Labor MP Kelvin Thomson is not running for re-election.
- Kevin Hong (Liberal)
- Ash Blackwell (Drug Law Reform)
- Tristram Chellew (Sex Party)
- Samantha Ratnam (Greens)
- Dougal Gillman (Renewable Energy Party)
- Will Fulgenzi (Socialist Equality Party)
- Zane Alcorn (Socialist Alliance)
- Camille Sydow (Animal Justice)
- Francesco Timpano (Independent)
- Peter Khalil (Labor)
Assessment
The Greens broke through to the top two in Wills in 2013. As a race between Labor and Liberal, Wills is very safe for Labor. As a race between Labor and Greens, it looks reasonably safe.
If the Liberal Party preference Labor, Wills remain very safe. If the Liberal Party reverts to its 2010 decision and preferences the Greens, Wills will become a lot more marginal.
In 2010, about 80% of Liberal preferences flowed to the Greens in neighbouring Melbourne and Batman – the figure is not known in Wills because the Greens came third. In 2013, that preference flow in Melbourne and Batman dropped to 32-33%. In Wills, the preference flow was 28.7% to the Greens.
If you assume that the Liberal preference flow to the Greens would be about 76% (assuming a slightly lower rate than in the neighbouring seats), then the margin would be cut from 15.2% to 4.4% if the Liberal Party reversed its preferencing decision.
The Greens would still have an uphill battle to win against a 4.4% margin, but it would be much more realistic.
2013 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Kelvin Thomson | Labor | 40,931 | 45.1 | -6.1 |
| Shilpa Hegde | Liberal | 20,710 | 22.8 | +0.0 |
| Tim Read | Greens | 20,157 | 22.2 | +0.1 |
| Adrian Trajstman | Sex Party | 2,363 | 2.6 | +2.5 |
| Anne Murray-Dufoulon | Palmer United Party | 2,158 | 2.4 | +2.4 |
| Dean O’Callaghan | Independent | 2,040 | 2.3 | +2.3 |
| Concetta Giglia | Family First | 1,285 | 1.4 | -0.2 |
| Margarita Windisch | Socialist Alliance | 1,024 | 1.1 | +0.3 |
| Informal | 5,304 | 5.9 |
2013 two-candidate-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Kelvin Thomson | Labor | 59,118 | 65.2 | |
| Tim Read | Greens | 31,550 | 34.8 |
Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into three areas:
- North-East – Coburg, Fawkner and other suburbs.
- North-West – Glenroy, Pascoe Vale and other suburbs.
- South – Brunswick and other suburbs.
The ALP topped the primary vote in all three areas. In the north-east and north-west, they easily topped the primary vote with 49-50%. In the south, Labor was less than 3% ahead of the Greens.
The Greens vote varied hugely from 37% in the south, to 19% in the north-east and 11% in the north-west.
The Liberal vote ranged from 15% in the south to almost 30% in the north-west. The Greens outpolled Liberal in the south, but the Liberal Party outpolled the Greens in the north-east and north-west. Overall, the Liberal Party came second on primary votes were outpolled by the Greens on preferences from minor candidates.
| Voter group | ALP % | GRN % | LIB % | Total votes | % of votes |
| South | 39.6 | 36.9 | 14.9 | 19,640 | 21.7 |
| North-East | 50.1 | 19.1 | 20.7 | 19,438 | 21.4 |
| North-West | 49.1 | 11.1 | 29.7 | 20,869 | 23.0 |
| Other votes | 42.9 | 22.4 | 24.6 | 30,721 | 33.9 |
Labor should win here, expect a big swing towards the Greens. Labor’s candidate and the preselection process was sloppy and Thompson had a higher than usual personal vote. The Green candidate is also well known as the mayor of Moreland LGA which takes up about 90 percent of the electorate.
Now that this is a Labor vs Greens contest – I’d expect a big swing towards the Greens now that they play the role of the left leaning party on a TPP basis.
L96
Yes Thompson had a high personal vote. Thoroughly undeserved IMV. Never heard him utter an original thought, or idea. Just another useless lawyer, turned scripted pollie. And no one ought to forget that reference he wrote for Fat Tony !!!.
I wonder what someone actually has to do to be dis endorsed as an ALP MP !!!??
BTW, i don’t think this is beyond the reach of the Greens. There are a lot of new voters moving in, & very few will vote labor.
Matt
Agreed
My seat.
Thomson has always seemed to be a visible and hard-working local MP, especially for such a safe seat. Plus IIRC he represented this area at state level for years before becoming a federal MP. His name recognition would be very high.
The Liberals still have a small base here, with areas like Strathmore and Gowanbrae being reasonably good for them. I would expect the next redistribution to remove these areas, boosting the Greens’ chances longer term.
In Wills similar to Batman the neighbouring electorate, the problem for the Greens is the Bell St dilemma, every booth south of that boundary is generally good for the Greens, conversely the booths to the north of that boundary are Labor booths, they tend to be lower socio economic areas as well as being multicultural.
Mark, I agree that Strathmore will be moved at the next redistribution, It should be moved into Maribyrnong as well as Ascot Vale, Travancore and Flemington from Melbourne.
L96, yes that’s how I see it playing out too.
MM
If KT was so on the ball, how did he NOT know who was the biggest criminal (family) in his own electorate. Having said that i respect your opinions, so i.m sure you are right about his visibility etc.
My PERSONAL feelings of antipathy towards KT ,will never abate. He wasted too much of my life with his parroting drone of senseless ALP party line drivel !!!.
A really boring twit IMV, so totally lacking in creativity, or any kind of lateral thought, that any form of corruption, or impropriety would be beyond him !!!
Good riddance.
L96, & MM
Doubtless you are correct about the future re distribution.
Actually Thompson had some quirky original opinions, he was skeptic on population growth, disliked free-trade & thought Australia should scrap adversarial common law system & have European style civil law system.
GR
Yes those are some unusual opinions. However they are not ideas. FWIW i also have concerns on all those issues.
I can’t see how the Greens can get above high 20 percent here, but I suppose it’s possible that they could win off an unholy alliance of Lib and Cleary preferences.
Despite a slightly messy preselection, Khalil is actually a real talent and would be an asset to the parliament, particularly on foreign policy debate.
PJ
L96 disagrees with you . He rates Khalil behind all the other labor candidates. I’d like to see anyone else take this seat. Cleary, the Greens, whoever. Now that Cleary has put his hand up , this becomes a real possibility.
What you refer to as an “unholy alliance” is nothing of the sort. It is simply that this is now one of the few occasions, where a candidate has to genuinely WIN votes to be elected. Rather than the usual reliance on rusted on sheep.
Thanks for that contribution mate. I’ll keep it in mind.
Strangely, we have still been receiving stuff from Kelvin Thomson here in the past few weeks. Nothing from Khalil as yet, a bit unusual given he’s a new candidate and the seat is being targeted by the Greens.
MM
BOOOMMM !!!!!. Kroger has his way !!!. The Libs will be preferencing the Greens. This is gonna be fun !!!
I was wondering if anyone might be able to give me some information. Who in the major parties decides where preferences are allocated on their tickets? Is it the Federal Leader, State Leader or State President?
Kelvin Thomson has the most original ideas in the Federal Parliament and will be sadly missed. He was the hardest working local MP ever seen in north-west Melbourne, well-respected on all sides of politics and his personal vote is at least 15-20%, so this seat will become a shoe-in for the Greens who have preselected an excellent, high profile local candidate in Samantha Ratnam.
I would say that Labor would be in front at the moment, far too much of the electorate is still Labor territory, although that being if Feeney’s incompetence was to have an affect on the result outside of Batman it would be here.
I’d take a punt and suggest Labor would hold 53-47
The entire Labor Party in Wills knows that Peter Khalil is a David Feeney factional stooge. The anger within the Labor Party in Wills in palpable with failure to select a local candidate ….Khalil appears much more competent and articulate than Feeney but why should anyone in Wills want to vote for a Labor factional hack to promote Feeney? Shorten should have sacked Feeney. Three strikes in a week and you’re out. Ratnam 53 – Khalil/Feeney 47
I completely agree with the factional stooge analysis, in fact I have mates who were turned away from the preselection ballot because they were members of the left faction, and then one of the candidates for preselection from the SDA vouched for them. Labor should lose the seat based on branch stacking alone, and the contempt they have for the seat. In the end areas such as Fawkner and Glenroy are too solidly Labor and the Greens still have a way to go around Pascoe Vale and Coburg. Maybe not this election but give it another one or two.
The demographics of Wills are shifting in the Greens direction. The southern part of the electorate is getting Greener and Greener and the Green friendly area is gradually moving north along the Upfield line and the Sydney Rd tram line. The Green friendly areas also are having the largest growth in flats as the old industrial an commercial areas are getting flats.
The Greens also appear to be putting in more campaign effort in Wills at this election.
Labor had a swag of excellent local candidates, including female ex-Morland Mayor Megan Hopper, a fantastic local woman in Melanie Raymond, and what ever happened to Bill Shorten’s choice Anna-Maria Arabia? Another ex-Moreland Mayor and head of Bullying Victoria Oscar Yildiz (my preferred) was bullied by the Labor factions into not even putting his hand up !!! The Wills Labor branches appear seriously fragmented and overtaken by ethnic branch-stackers…..there is no energy or interest for Khalil amongst Wills Labor members and he is finding it hard to get supporters to put up signs or man booths. Khalili’s factional backer Feeney has focussed his resources into Batman. The Green’s Samantha Ratnam will win Wills and could even canter in (…if either Phil Cleary stands and/or Liberals direct preferences her way). Do not underestimate the intelligence of voters in Glenroy, Hadfield and Fawkner…under Kelvin Thomson many knew they had a local member who cared and gave them voice in Canberra …….they may not be rusted-on Labor, July 2 will tell.
While I always thought this would be close, I just didn’t think that the Greens could win the seat this time around. Feeney’s repeated stumbles however have made me reassess their chances – I think they’re in with a chance!
Whoops wrong seat! Post above is meant for Batman ofc, not Wills!
It’s worth noting how strong a seat Brunswick is for the Greens at state level. They actually topped the primary vote at the last state election – one of only two seats where they did so – but lost 52-48 on Lib preferences. It was a much closer result than next door Northcote (56-44). Thus Wills, not Batman, may be Labor’s biggest headache in Melbourne’s inner north.
This seat may not go to the Greens this time around. However, if the Greens win the adjoining seat of Batman and then win the state seat of Brunswick expect a Greens win here in 2019.
Brunswick is stronger for the Greens than Northcote but Preston is stronger for the Greens than Pascoe Vale. The north east of the seat of Northcote has lots of ALP voting public housing, while there is no major public housing area in the seat of Brunswick and the South Morrang line has better services than the Upfield line and the north eastern part of Brunswick has only buses, unlike the seat of Brunswick.
Well, we have officially received more campaign material from Kevin Hong than from Peter Khalil. That’s really quite strange. Admittedly, it was a very small and generic “vote for [insert Liberal candidate here]” flyer, as expected in a safe Labor/Green seat. But it’s one better than Khalil has come out with.
Maybe the campaign is strong and willing down around Brunswick, but you wouldn’t think this was a hotly contested seat based on the activity in Pascoe Vale.
Perhaps Khalili is campaigning in Batman for Feeney, without realising he is under threat from Samantha Ratnam?
I would have thought that Pascoe Vale and Coburg would be key for both Labor and the Greens here. Every booth in and around Brunswick will just solidify even more so for the Greens, conversely I can’t see Labor losing too much ground in and around Fawkner and Glenroy, I wouldn’t think those areas would be particularly open to the Greens.
Greens might do OK in Fawkner and Hadfield, if they campaign hard, but agreed that Greens will struggle north of Boundary Road. The retirement of Kelvin Thomson will result in swings to Greens in Pascoe Vale and Coburg which will ensure comfortable victory to Samantha Ratnam.
Pascoe Vale and Coburg will swing in favour of the Greens but I wouldn’t expect those swings to be huge either. I think it’s a little to early to be calling a winner, although their does seem to be this view from Labor that it will be close but they will just hold on, and then next time it will just be even tougher.
L96, I also would have thought Pascoe Vale/Oak Park would be where the action’s at, but not much from anybody so far. There’s a couple of lawn signs for Khalil here and there, one plague-on-both-their-houses flyer from the Greens, and the “oh yeah, we almost forgot we have a candidate here” effort yesterday from the Libs.
Maybe Wills really is still 1-2 elections away from turning Green, and everyone is focussing all their efforts on Batman?
Samnatha Ratnam has Wills sown up this time around…Libs are running dead and telling members to preference Greens
It will be really close, Its almost certain the Libs will preference the Greens, and with Khalil being last on the ballot is a bit of a blow to him, just a bit too close to call at the moment.
It’s over for the Greens. The Libs are putting the Greens last in every seat.
Agreed will be difficult for Samantha Ratnam in Wills….Liberals now expecting a hung Parliament and don’t want progressives deciding who will form next Government. Given the Australian economy has been totally effed up by Abbott and Hockey with deficit doubling, not to mention the burgeoning private debt……Labor (if they had any brains) would not want to win this time around.
@Alex I am in the Liberal Party and can tell you, the mood is nothing but wholly optimistic – if the higher ups are concerned about a hung parliament then they certainly are not showing it – nor are the polls. Why would they wave the white flag when numerous polls show the Coalition stabilising?
If anything, I think this move is indicative of growing confidence. Turnbull is now confident of retaining government and holding onto his marginals, he no longer needs the open ticket. He hopes this move will play well with the conservative bedrock of the Coalition’s base who are rebelling.
The Lieberals headed by Abbott, Morrison and Hunt (Turnbull is MIA) have stuffed Australia. Why cant the conservative side of politics get its act together ? This is needed for a functional democracy.!!!…OK Shorten is not exactly brilliant and Rudd was pyschopath…
To bring this back on topic I don’t see why, if the Liberals areworried about a hung parliament, they would be more likely to preference against the Greens in seats like this one.
If it’s a choice between a Green member and a Labor member in a hung parliament, the Greens member is strictly better for the Liberals – even if you grant that the Green is nearly guaranteed to support a Labor government, numerically less seats for Labor weakens their claim to form government.
kme, I excpect it’s one of three things:
1) As Wos hinted, they are beginning to feel confident of victory, so can afford to be “principled”. (Whether this confidence is grounded in reality is a different question).
2) They wanted to play the scare campaign around fear of a minority government, “us versus the rag-bag Gillard coalition”, which Turnbull is basically already doing .
3) They didn’t get a good enough deal from the Greens in return, so spat the dummy.
I suspect there’s probably a combination of all 3.
Doesn’t point 2 play stronger with a larger crossbench, not a smaller one?
Personally I think it can be understood entirely in terms of a deal with Labor for Labor to support the Liberals over the Nationals in three-cornered contests and the Liberals to support Labor over the Greens. It seems like a classic win-win for the dealing parties.
The more australians ignore recommendations from political parties whatever persuasion and do not provide them the comfort of sociological driven inertia the better for democracy and accountability.
For what it’s worth, Morgan apparently put the Greens on 33% here. A good improvement on 2013, but not enough to win the seat. The Liberals had a visible presence at the pre-poll centre I saw, so their HTV cards will get handed out to people.
There was some debate over whether Samantha Ratnam could take her seat even if she won. As mayor of Moreland, she might be counted as “holding office for profit under the Crown”.
As far as I am aware, there has been no ruling either way on whether or not councillors and mayors hold offices of profit or trust under the crown. There is a long history of Commonwealth MPs and Senators holding local government offices. I believe the argument is that they are not under the crown because they are elected by the voters of what are municipal corporations.
The really interesting argument is whether lawyers, as officers of the court (like judges, who no one disputes would be ineligible), hold offices of profit or trust under the crown.
As the Chair of the Youth Committee in Moreland, Peter has done fantastic work engaging with young people. Unfortunately, cannot say the same about the Greens Party Candidiate. (I would usually consider myself a Greens voter, not this time)
Over what period David….I have lived all my life in north-west Melbourne and never heard of Peter Khalil until a few months ago when he came to prominence over a grubby Labor pre-selection deal brokered by the infamous David Feeney
My prediction: Likely Labor hold, with the main question here being how much the Greens gnaw off Labor’s margin. The Liberals are preferencing Labor in this inner-city leftist hotspot.
FWIW, I saw several groups of door-knockers for Khalil out and about in Pascoe Vale yesterday. So Labor obviously doesn’t feel it has the seat in the bag quite yet.