ALP 10.3%
Incumbent MP
Bill Shorten, since 2007.
- Geography
- Redistribution
- History
- Candidate summary
- Assessment
- 2019 results
- Booth breakdown
- Results maps
Geography
Western Melbourne. Maribyrnong covers suburbs near the Maribyrnong River, including the entire Moonee Valley council area, southern parts of the City of Hume, and small parts of the City of Melbourne and the Brimbank and Moreland council areas. Suburbs include Essendon, Aberfeldie, Moonee Ponds, Niddrie, Gowanbrae, Essendon Fields, Ascot Vale, Kensington, Tullamarine, Keilor Park, Gladstone and Flemington.
Redistribution
Maribyrnong has been stretched further to the north-west and south-east, taking in Kensington from Melbourne and also taking in Tullamarine, Melbourne Airport, Keilor Park and Gladstone from Calwell. Maribyrnong lost Maidstone to Fraser. These changes cut the Labor margin from 11.2% to 10.3%.
History
Maribyrnong was created for the 1906 election. Apart from a few early wins by conservative parties, the seat has almost always been won by the ALP.
The seat was first won in 1906 by Samuel Mauger, a member of the Anti-Socialist party. Mauger had previously held Melbourne Ports since Federation. He joined the Commonwealth Liberal Party on its formation in 1909, but lost Maribyrnong in 1910 to Labor candidate James Fenton.
Fenton held the seat continuously for the next two decades, and became Minister for Trade in the Scullin government in 1929. He served as Acting Prime Minister in 1930 when Scullin was travelling, and during this period he breached with the majority of the Labor caucus, and in 1931 he followed Joseph Lyons out of the ALP and joined the new United Australia Party.
Fenton won re-election in 1931 as a UAP candidate, and served as a minister for the first year of the Lyons government, but fell out with the government and served out his term as a backbencher, losing the seat in 1934 to the ALP’s Arthur Drakeford.
Drakeford served as Minister for the Air and Minister for Civil Aviation for the entirety of the Labor government from 1941 to 1949, and held his seat until his defeat at the 1955 election, when preferences from anti-communist Labor rebels (who later formed the Democratic Labor Party) delivered the seat to Liberal candidate Philip Stokes.
Stokes managed to hold on to the seat for the next decade as Maribyrnong saw a high vote for the DLP. Stokes held the seat until his defeat in 1969.
Maribyrnong was won in 1969 by the ALP’s Moss Cass. Cass served as Minister for the Environment in the Whitlam government, and retired from Parliament in 1983.
The seat was won in 1983 by Alan Griffiths. Griffiths joined the ministry after the 1990 election, and served as a minister until he was forced to resign from the ministry in 1994 due to allegations that he used his electoral office resources to bail out a failed sandwich shop venture. He retired from Parliament in 1996.
Maribyrnong was won in 1996 by Bob Sercombe, a former Victorian state MP. Sercombe had served as Deputy Leader of the ALP before attempting a leadership coup against John Brumby, Leader of the Opposition. Sercombe briefly served as a junior shadow minister after the 2004 election. He was challenged for preselection in 2005 by AWU National Secretary Bill Shorten, and he withdrew.
Shorten won the seat in 2007, and has been re-elected four times.
Shorten was appointed as a Parliamentary Secretary after the 2007 election. He was appointed as a minister in 2010 and joined cabinet in 2011. He was elected leader of the opposition following the 2013 election, and led Labor to the 2016 and 2019 elections. He stepped down from the leadership after the 2019 election, and returned to a shadow ministerial role.
Assessment
Maribyrnong is a safe Labor seat.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Bill Shorten | Labor | 47,487 | 47.1 | +5.0 | 44.7 |
| Christine Stow | Liberal | 34,877 | 34.6 | +0.8 | 34.8 |
| James Williams | Greens | 14,943 | 14.8 | -2.4 | 15.7 |
| MD Sarwar Hasan | United Australia Party | 3,617 | 3.6 | +3.6 | 3.4 |
| Others | 1.5 | ||||
| Informal | 3,014 | 2.9 | -1.1 |
2019 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Bill Shorten | Labor | 61,767 | 61.2 | +0.8 | 60.3 |
| Christine Stow | Liberal | 39,157 | 38.8 | -0.8 | 39.7 |
Polling places have been divided into three parts: north-east, north-west and south-east.
The ALP won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 54.4% in the north-east to 74.7% in the south-east.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 8.1% in the north-west to 31.2% in the south-east.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| North-West | 8.1 | 59.2 | 17,471 | 17.9 |
| North-East | 13.5 | 54.4 | 14,063 | 14.4 |
| South-East | 31.2 | 74.7 | 13,184 | 13.5 |
| Pre-poll | 13.6 | 57.0 | 35,716 | 36.7 |
| Other votes | 17.7 | 61.9 | 16,900 | 17.4 |
Election results in Maribyrnong at the 2019 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, the Liberal Party and the Greens.
why doesnt she just transfer to neighbouring MeLbourne, Menzies or Deakin?
@John/Wilson
I have seen it reported that she is running advertising in Menzies and Deakin, Gorton was mentioned as well.
@douglas tbh i think menzies and deakin wil be won by the libs 2022 was a low point in those seats so youd imagine with all the govts problems they wont win those seats
Daniel Mulino was a City of Casey councillor and then an MLC for Eastern Metropolitan before he was elected in neighbouring Fraser. I don’t recall there being much discussion about that move. Perhaps it was easy to hide because of Mulino’s low profile and that he wasn’t previously in federal politics.
The issue for Michelle Anada-Rajah is that she will face more competition for preselection in a seat like Gorton. I dont think people expect Michelle Ananda-Rajah to have been a MP for very long even if Higgins was retained as it could well become a LIB V GRN seat by 2028. A more prized seat for Labor will attract more people who are interested in becoming a minister/future leader of the party.
@nimalan i said it before when her and her collegaues started complaining about the census the most if not all of those people will be out of a job at the next election my prediction is M A-R to lose her bid for reelection unless its a safe labor seat. if Higgins were retaned she would have lost
@ John
I respect your passion for the Liberals. Howver, I am not a member of a political party and my interest is demographics. I dont know what is truly in M A-R heart so my commentary about the Census was a demographic one not whether she is was morally right or wrong. I never expected her to be long term MP anyway this is not a personal criticism of her it is more a reality that even if Higgins was retained in the redistribution the Greens may eventually eclipse the Labor as the challenging party to the Libs. If she wanted to be a long term MP she would not run in a seat like Higgins. Plus i am told that her children attend Scotch College anyway so i dont think she will move to Western Suburbs to run for a seat there. She is a Doctor anyway so if she does not get a seat will go back to her highly paid profession. With respect to Census Dutton now says she is fine with the question so i think Dutton sees a risk of focusing on LGBT issues and wants to move on from this debate.
@nicholas: “Daniel Mulino was a City of Casey councillor and then an MLC for Eastern Metropolitan before he was elected in neighbouring Fraser.” Mulino was a City of Casey Councillor before being elected as the Victorian MLC for Eastern Victoria (not Eastern Metropolitan) Region in 2014. In 2018 he won preselection for the new federal seat of Fraser. I wasn’t aware of any controversy of parachuting him probably 100 km away from somewhere in Eastern Victoria to Melbourne’s Inner West.
“Perhaps it was easy to hide because of Mulino’s low profile and that he wasn’t previously in federal politics”. I agree. If Michelle Anada-Rajah wins preselection for Maribyrnong or Gorton that could be a fair bit of controversy considering the profile she has gathered for being the first Labor MP for Higgins and the unsuccessful campaign to save her seat of Higgins.
@nimalan i also dont care either way i just stated that the people complaining would likely not be in parliament or facing strong challenges from the Greens with the except of Jerome Laxale in Bennelong whose seat isnt under threat from the Greens altough hes moving into teal territory so those 6 were just worried about their own political fortunes. the divisions in question were Bennelong, Higgins, Wills, Cooper, Macnamara and Canberra. 4 of which are under threat from the Greens and 2 from the Liberals with higgins being a greens and liberal target. i think Macnamara, Wills will likely be lost or face strong challenges in 2025 with Cooper and Canberra being targets in 2028 as i dont think he greens have that big of a foothold there yet and the libreal wont preference the greens so they should be safe. Bennelong will be lost and Higgins is gone. yea Dutton wont likely be PM in 2026 so he’ll just wave it through since it wont matter what he says and has better things to campaign on
I doubt Michelle Ananda-Rajah would move to this seat as it would be a worse parachute than contesting for Melbourne or somewhere south or east of the Yarra.
Parachuting her into Maribyrnong is not as bad as parachuting Kristina Keneally into Fowler. About the latter, she was seen as part of the Labor establishment and was a captain’s pick. Not to mention she had a ton of baggage and she also had an ethnic Vietnamese, ex-refugee challenger. It was also just after the lockdowns had ended and so there was a level of angst. It was a perfect storm. Andrew Charlton got parachuted into Parramatta but Labor held on nonetheless.
Isaacs is a possibility but I don’t believe Mark Dreyfus is retiring. I think Labor will want to keep Mark Dreyfus in cabinet so to maintain links with the Jewish community and minimise losses in seats like Macnamara.
As to why Ananda-Rajah wouldn’t transfer to a closer electorate, if she doesn’t it would because she knows she can’t win any of them. Bandt holds Melbourne by a double-digit margin. 2022 was a high point for Labor and they’re much lower in the polls now, so if they couldn’t win Menzies or Deakin then, it’s not going to happen in 2025.
@wilson i woud be willing to wager labor will not win any seats in 2025 that it did not win in 2022. Bill Shortens retirement announcement was forced by the fact he was about to announced as Vice-Chancellor but theyve held off his retirement until February officially because “its the start of the academic year” but in reality Albo wants to keep people guessing as to when the election is going to held because if its in May havng him leave in February is just close enough to the election as to not have the need for a by election.
Jo Briskey will be Labor’s candidate here. It hands the Liberals a potent campaign issue, considering she was Labor’s candidate for Bonner (QLD) in 2019.
Would not write Bennelong off. A local mp can improve their position. The factor in the alp win was John Alexander was popular and with him no longer being the candidate the liberal position was much weaker
@mick there was also the anti Morrison vote especially among local Chinese voters. I am putting bennelong in the “likely liberal gain” column
@ John
from the Boothby thread. I think you have asked an excellent question, I actually think Peter Khalil should move to contest this seat and let the left faction contest Wills instead. In this seat his Pro-Aukus and Pro-Israel views will not be an issue since it is a more centrist seat, very few Muslims. Jo Briskey maybe be more liked if she was the member for Wills. This seat unlike Wills does have a decent Liberal vote but it still hard for Libs to win and the Greens cannot win this seat either
@nimalan i think khalil may hold wills now given the greens deflation nationally. also labors stance to reconise a palestinian state
@ John
Greens maybe be going backwards nationally but may increase their vote in certain seats. I think they may go backwards in Macnamara more than here. The South of this seat is radical left around Brunswick also their vote was not to recognize a Palestinian state but to recognize Palestinian ownership over natural resources. However, even without the Israel-Palestine conflict. Wills is Ultra Left like Cooper or Grayndler while Macnnamara is more Tealish so a left faction MP is more suitable.
Another difference between Wills & Macnamara is that the Greens can only win Wills by increasing their vote; they can win Macnamara even if they go backwards (as long as they go less backwards than Labor).
Say Macnamara has a -3% Greens swing and a -4% Labor swing, that’s likely a Greens win.
So in Macnamara all they really need to do is marginally close the gap between their vote & Labor’s, even if both of them go backwards.
@ Trent
I agree with you the only point i think is that Macnamara has a lot more centrist voters especially outside St Kilda. So the Green voter in Albert Park/St Kilda Road is quite different from a green voter in Brunswick or Coburg. I also think Josh Burns is more liked in Macnamara than Peter Khalil is in Wills so that makes a difference. There is a lot more wealth in Macnamara so housing policy/CFMEU will be viewed differently.
I think the Greens want to focus on seats like Wills and potentially Fraser in the future when the redistribution cuts out all the ethnic areas. They’ve fumbled in Brisbane where Palestine isn’t an issue on anyone’s mind.