ALP 10.3%
Incumbent MP
Catherine King, since 2001.
Geography
Western Victoria. The seat of Ballarat covers the urban Ballarat area, the Ballarat council area, and the neighbouring Hepburn council area and parts of the Moorabool and Golden Plains council areas.
Redistribution
Ballarat lost Ballan and Bacchus Marsh to the new seat of Hawke and shifted south, taking in most of the Golden Plains council area from Corangamite and Wannon.
History
Ballarat is an original federation electorate, having existed since 1901. Throughout it’s entire history it has changed hands between the ALP and the Liberal Party (and its predecessors). The seat was officially named ‘Ballaarat’ until 1977.
Ballaarat was first won in 1901 by Alfred Deakin. Deakin had been a member of the Victorian colonial parliament since 1879, and was a prominent leader of the federation movement.
Deakin first served Attorney-General in Edmund Barton’s Protectionist government, and in 1903 became Prime Minister.
Deakin led the Protectionist party for the remainder of the decade, and served as Prime Minister from 1903 to 1904, and again at the head of a Protectionist minority government from 1905 to 1908. In 1908, the ALP (with a larger number of seats than the Protectionists) withdrew their support from Deakin’s government, and formed government themselves.
In 1909, Deakin’s protectionists merged with the Anti-Socialist Party to form the Commonwealth Liberal Party, with Deakin as the party’s leader. He became Prime Minister for a third time when Parliament returned in 1909.
Deakin’s Liberals lost power at the 1910 election. Deakin retired as Liberal leader before the 1913 election, and retired from Ballaarat that same year.
Ballaarat was won in 1913 by state Labor MP Charles McGrath. McGrath was re-elected in 1914 and 1917, but at the 1919 election he lost Ballaarat to Nationalist candidate Edwin Kerby by one vote. The result was declared void, and McGrath won back the seat at a 1920 by-election.
McGrath continued to serve as a Labor MP throughout the 1920s. In 1931 he was one of a number of Labor MPs to walk out and join Joseph Lyons’ new United Australia Party, and was re-elected that year as a UAP member.
McGrath retired in 1934, and the United Australia Party’s Archibald Fisken won the seat. Fisken held the seat for one term, and retired in 1937.
In 1937, Ballaarat was won by the ALP’s Reg Pollard. Pollard was a former state MP and state minister. He served as a minister in the Chifley government from 1946 to 1949, when the Chifley government was defeated. In 1949, Pollard moved to the new seat of Lalor, which he held until 1966.
Ballaarat was won in 1949 by Liberal candidate Alan Pittard. Pittard only held the seat for one term, losing in 1951 to the ALP’s Robert Joshua. Joshua was a fierce anti-communist, and left the ALP in 1955 as part of the split that led to the creation of the Democratic Labor Party.
Joshua came third in Ballaarat in 1955 with 23%, with both the Liberal and Labor candidates polling 38%. With the assistance of Joshua’s preferences, the seat was won by Liberal candidate Dudley Erwin.
Erwin held the seat for the next two decades, often coming second on primary votes and winning with preferences from the Democratic Labor Party who regularly polled strongly in Ballaarat.
Erwin retired in 1975, and was succeeded by Liberal candidate Jim Short. Short was re-elected to the renamed ‘Ballarat’ in 1977, but lost in 1980 to the ALP’s John Mildren. Short was elected to the Senate in 1984. He served as Assistant Treasurer at the beginning of the Howard government in 1996, but was forced to resign in late 1996 due to a conflict of interest, and he resigned from the Senate in 1997.
Mildren held Ballarat for the ALP for a decade, winning re-election in 1983, 1984 and 1987, before losing in 1990 to the Liberal Party’s Michael Ronaldson.
Ronaldson served as a shadow minister from 1993 to 1996, and as a Parliamentary Secretary then a whip in the Howard government. He retired from Ballarat in 2001, reportedly due to ill health. He later was preselected as the lead Senate candidate for the Liberal Party in Victoria in 2004, and was elected to the Senate at that year’s election. He served as a Senator for Victoria from 2005 to 2016.
After Ronaldson’s retirement in 2001, Ballarat was won by ALP candidate Catherine King. She has been re-elected six times.
- John Barnes (Greens)
- Ben Green (Liberal)
- Alex Graham (Independent)
- Kerryn Sedgman (Federation)
- Terri Pryse-Smith (United Australia)
- Rosalie Taxis (One Nation)
- Julia McGrath (Liberal Democrats)
- Catherine King (Labor)
Assessment
Ballarat is a safe Labor seat.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Catherine King | Labor | 49,077 | 47.8 | +4.5 | 46.9 |
| Tim Vo | Liberal | 31,462 | 30.6 | -4.1 | 31.6 |
| Karen Mcaloon | Greens | 9,077 | 8.8 | -2.0 | 9.0 |
| Peter Cozyn | United Australia Party | 4,741 | 4.6 | +4.6 | 4.6 |
| Bryn Hills | Animal Justice | 4,393 | 4.3 | +4.3 | 3.7 |
| Nick Shady | Independent | 2,288 | 2.2 | +2.2 | 2.0 |
| Alex Graham | Independent | 1,645 | 1.6 | +1.6 | 1.3 |
| Others | 0.9 | ||||
| Informal | 4,689 | 4.4 | -0.9 |
2019 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Catherine King | Labor | 62,615 | 61.0 | +3.6 | 60.3 |
| Tim Vo | Liberal | 40,068 | 39.0 | -3.6 | 39.7 |
Booths have been divided into five areas. Polling places in the Ballarat urban area have been split into Ballarat south and Ballarat north. Remaining rural booths have been split into east, north and south.
Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all five areas, ranging from 50.5% in the east to 67.5% in southern Ballarat.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| Ballarat South | 11.4 | 67.5 | 13,382 | 14.2 |
| Ballarat North | 9.6 | 63.5 | 12,020 | 12.7 |
| North | 11.3 | 62.6 | 9,371 | 9.9 |
| South | 8.8 | 55.2 | 6,862 | 7.3 |
| East | 7.7 | 50.5 | 2,191 | 2.3 |
| Pre-poll | 7.7 | 58.1 | 38,922 | 41.2 |
| Other votes | 8.2 | 58.7 | 11,628 | 12.3 |
Election results in Ballarat at the 2019 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor and the Liberal Party.
Labor hold
Catherine King must have a personal vote in Ballarat itself because it appears that federal Labor are significantly overperforming in the city of Ballarat.
*compared to Wendouree on the state level
@ Nether Portal
While Catherine King does probably have a personal vote i think Ballarat is fairly safe these days and not likely winnable again for Libs. You also need to need to remember that the Hepburn Springs/Daylesford area is very left wing and not in Wendouree while Eureka is more marginal a lot of Eureka is actually in Hawke. I personally think even in Catherine King retired in 2013 Labor would have narrowly retained it. Interesting, 2013 was actually slightly better for the Coalition statewide than 1996. Labor won a 50.2% in 2013 compared to 50.3% in 1996. However, Labor actually still won a majority of seats unlike 1996 as they won Ballarat, Bendigo, McEwen (due to more Pro-labour boundaries) and Chisholm (due to incumbency). The one seat that is moving in the opposite direction is Monash which is becoming weaker for Labor generally.
Ballarat, Bendigo and Geelong are pretty much the only regional areas that Labor does well in Victoria, which is still pretty extraordinary given that the rest of regional Victoria are hardcore Liberal/National. However given that the former three are becoming more tree-changers’ paradise and gentrifying to be satellite cities than regional towns it’s probably not surprising, like Newcastle and Wollongong.
Macedon/Gisborne areas are also leaning more and more left but it’s a swinging area that could really determine the fate of McEwen next election. I guess it will depend on whether they’re more economically sensitive or more socially-conscious to vote either Labor or Liberal. The parts in outer northern Melbourne (Mernda, Hurstbridge etc) are solid red Labor but any further north and it’s deep Liberal territory so it’s all dependent on the Macedon Ranges.
@ Tommo9
The Labor party is also starting do better in Bass Coast shire which is different to the rest of Monash which is trending rightwards.
I live close to McEwen, it is a bit of pieces electorate I will explain it. It comes in 3 communities of interest.
1. Macedon Ranges Shire-Upper Middle class Tealish, often votes Labor marginally but a strong Green vote highly educated. This area is very Anglo, a lot of tree changers have moved here.
2. Mitchell Shire & Whittlesea Council: Includes Wallan, Donnybrook, Beveridge,Mernda. These are mortgage belt areas generally less welloff Labor voting but sensitive on interest rates. This area is more CALD
3. Nilumbik Shire: this is like Macedon Ranges on the opposite end, high quality of life wealthier population a mix of Labor and Liberal booths but not a swing area at all. A decent Green vote. This area is very Anglo and a bit like Adelaide hills.
@tommo9 im rating McEwen as a possible Liberal gain this cming election
@nimalan that’s the reason I tried to break it up and actually succeeded based off the first incorrect numbers the updated numbers however made that impossible
Agree Darth Vadar it does not have a community of interest and if you go to different suburbs the mood will be quite different in the mortgage belt parts COL, interest rates etc will be an issue while in the other parts it is less of an issue and you get people who are more socially progressive.
@nimalan agreed it could be solved by removing macedon ranges in exchnage for more of Niulmbuk.which it what i tried to do. but like vader was only able to based on the first incorrect numbers nad wasnt feasible under the revised correct numbers
@ John
I agree with you this seat is made up of areas that are not really connected to each other and little common.
@nimalan ive moved this to the mcewen thread
Ballarat, Bendigo and Corangamite are perfect examples of what used to be marginal/Coalition seats that have drastically turned on them in the past few years. Much of it came at the 1999 VIC election: Labor gained some rural seats like Geelong, Bendigo East, Ballarat West & Ballarat East, Macedon. These were considered big shocks, considering how some were safe and had high-profile MPs and candidates.
Nowadays, these aforementioned electorates are safe Labor when at one point they were Liberal held, marginal or safe.
From what I’ve heard and seen Catherine King is very much involved in her community, business and education, attends a lot of events, very approachable, and is definitely better than the Shutterstock ‘sleazy car salesman’ the Liberals chose last time who didn’t even live the electorate (Ben Green).
King is almost certainly holding Ballarat, barring any major gaffe, though I do believe her margin may slide down a little.
Another update but the Liberal candidate for 2025, Wes McKnight has withdrew due to holding dual citizenship with the US.
@james he would only need to renounce his citizenship before nomniations to be considered
@ James
Good analysis there has been demographic change and these seats have a lot more tree/sea changers a lot of public servants and have become more socially progressive. The 1999 election was a major turning point and this had been another reason why Victoria has shifted left. I mentioned in the Corio thread, despite a worse result for the Voice than than the Republic, there was a slightly better result for the voice here.