ALP 5.6%
Incumbent MP
Jenny Macklin, since 1996.
Geography
North-eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Jagajaga covers most of Banyule council area and southern parts of Nillumbik council area. Key suburbs include Ivanhoe, Heidelberg, Eaglemont, Rosanna, Viewbank, Yallambie, Montmorency, St Helena, Plenty, Diamond Creek, Watsonia North and Wattle Glen.
Redistribution
Jagajaga shifted north, losing Eltham, North Warrandyte and Research to Menzies, and gaining Watsonia North, Plenty, Diamond Creek and Wattle Glen from Scullin. These changes increased the Labor margin from 4.7% to 5.6%.
History
Jagajaga was created for the expansion of the House of Representatives in 1984, and has always been held by the ALP.
Jagajaga was first won in 1984 by Peter Staples, who had previously won the seat of Diamond Valley at the 1983 election, before it was abolished in 1984.
Staples was appointed as a junior minister after the 1987 election, and served until a reshuffle in 1993, and served as a backbencher until his retirement at the 1996 election.
Jagajaga was won in 1996 by Jenny Macklin, and she has been re-elected seven times. Macklin served as a shadow minister for the entirety of the Howard government. She was Deputy Leader from the 2001 election until 2006, when she was defeated by Julia Gillard when Kevin Rudd defeated Kim Beazley for the party’s leadership.
Macklin served as a minister in the Labor government from 2007 to 2013.
Candidates
Sitting Labor MP Jenny Macklin is not running for re-election.
- Maria Marcia Rigoni (United Australia)
- Kate Thwaites (Labor)
- Jeff Truscott (Rise Up Australia)
- Richard Welch (Liberal)
- Paul Kennedy (Greens)
Assessment
Jagajaga is technically a marginal seat but has become safer in the recent redistribution and would require a substantial swing to the Liberal Party (against the national trend) to win. The absence of Jenny Macklin’s personal vote may help the Liberals.
2016 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| David Mulholland | Liberal | 37,920 | 41.0 | -0.9 | 40.1 |
| Jenny Macklin | Labor | 36,238 | 39.2 | +1.2 | 41.1 |
| Hugh Mckinnon | Greens | 13,696 | 14.8 | +1.9 | 13.4 |
| Jessica Ward | Family First | 2,341 | 2.5 | +0.9 | 2.0 |
| Nathan Peter Schram | Animal Justice | 2,235 | 2.4 | +2.4 | 2.7 |
| Others | 0.7 | ||||
| Informal | 2,572 | 2.7 |
2016 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Jenny Macklin | Labor | 50,536 | 54.7 | +1.5 | 55.6 |
| David Mulholland | Liberal | 41,894 | 45.3 | -1.5 | 44.4 |
Booth breakdown
Polling places in Jagajaga have been divided into three areas: central, north and south.
Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in the centre (56.3%) and the south (58.8%) while the north was tied.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 11.2% in the north to 16.9% in the south.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| Central | 13.1 | 56.3 | 27,119 | 28.8 |
| South | 16.9 | 58.8 | 17,701 | 18.8 |
| North | 11.2 | 50.0 | 10,456 | 11.1 |
| Other votes | 12.9 | 58.6 | 14,876 | 15.8 |
| Pre-poll | 12.6 | 52.9 | 23,912 | 25.4 |
Election results in Jagajaga at the 2016 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and Greens primary votes.
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For the most part, Jagajaga is a fairly stable middle-class seat. It’s the kind of seat where a local MPs personal vote would count for quite a bit.
I’m pretty sure Labor will hold on, barring some catastrophe, but it will be interesting to see if there is any swing to the Liberals here with the loss of Macklin.
This is probably the right election for Labor politicians like Macklin in seats like Jagajaga to retire. This seat can’t be on the Liberals hit list, so it’s a free chance to slot in someone new and hope they build some personal vote by 2022.
For contrast, the Vic Labor state MPs retiring this year have woefully timing for the Labor party.
Agree, this could see a dampened Labor result – Macklin has been the local MP here for so long and would have a decent personal vote.
Having said that, at 5.6% there’s zero chance the Libs can win here. I’d expect a basically flat result (broader swing to Labor minus loss of personal vote).
I think Bennee is on the money – if the Liberals had a working majority they could potentially snag Jagajaga the way they picked up chisholm. However they’ll be far too busy sandbagging to seize on potential opportunities like Jagajaga and Isaacs. The best they can do is run a candidate that is happy to run again in 2022, and hope that the new ALP member is a fizzer.
The seat looks quite ugly post redistribution. Diamond Creek would have been a better boundary than the straight line through Eltham North, with the extra voters accounted for by pulling back on the semi-rural areas in the north (which are a bit too different in character to the rest of the seat, as diverse as the seat already is).
I live in central JagaJaga, rather close to the new boundary formed by the removal of Eltham. Normally I’d say that the Libs wouldn’t have a chance to pick this up despite Macklin retiring however the big unknown for me is how the demographic may have changed since last election. In my area at least there is a trend that has seen older residential blocks subdivided or sold, knocked down and rebuilt in the past 3-4 years. This has been accompanied by net movement into the suburb. I have heard real estate agents referring to newer buyers as the ‘Balwyn demographic’, an area which has historically voted liberal. I doubt this is enough to significantly change margins at this election but when the redistribution is added in and given the currently low profile of Thwaites, I think this could be an interesting one to watch.
As far as the straight line through the bottom of the northern arm of the electorate that’s a very minor road. Rural holdings and bushland on both sides apart from the far western portion. There doesn’t seem to be a great place over that side to set a boundary along some polling heterogeneity.l
The Libs finally have a candidate for Jagajaga, Richard Welch.
Kate Thwaites has been in the field, campaigning for months. She may even have a swing to her, regardless of Jenny’s retirement.