Dunkley by-election, 2024

Cause of by-election
Sitting Labor MP Peta Murphy died on 4 December 2023.

Margin – ALP 6.3%

• Geography
• History
• Candidates
• Assessment
• 2022 results
• Booth breakdown
• Results maps

Geography
South-Eastern Melbourne. Dunkley covers all of the City of Frankston and part of the Shire of Mornington Peninsula. Main suburbs include Frankston, Sandhurst, Skye, Carrum Downs, Langwarrin and Seaford.

History
Dunkley was created in 1984 as part of the expansion of the House of Representatives. It has almost always been a marginal electorate, and swung back and forth regularly in the 1980s. The Liberal Party held the seat continuously from 1996 to 2019, if only by slim margins at time.

The seat was first won in 1984 by Labor’s Bob Chynoweth. Chynoweth had won Flinders at the 1983 election, defeating new MP Peter Reith, who had won a by-election for the seat four months earlier. Chynoweth moved to Dunkley following the redistribution.

He held the seat in 1987 before losing to Liberal candidate Frank Ford in 1990. Chynoweth won the seat back in 1993.

A redistribution before the 1996 election saw Dunkley become a notional Liberal seat, and Chynoweth was defeated by Liberal candidate Bruce Billson. Billson held Dunkley for twenty years until his retirement in 2016, and was succeeded by Liberal candidate Chris Crewther.

The electoral boundaries were redrawn prior to the 2019 election, and the seat became a notional Labor seat. Crewther lost his bid for re-election to Labor candidate Peta Murphy. Murphy was re-elected with a greater margin in 2022, but died of cancer in December 2023.

Candidates

• Nathan Conroy (Liberal)
• Bronwyn Currie (Animal Justice)
• Chrysten Abraham (Libertarian)
• Reem Yunis (Victorian Socialists)
• Darren Bergwerf (Independent)
• Alex Breskin (Greens)
• Heath McKenzie (Democrats)
• Jodie Belyea (Labor)

Assessment
Dunkley is not a safe seat and could be in play. It seems likely that Labor will retain the seat, both because of their strong position in Victoria and potentially because of sympathy due to the circumstances leading to the by-election, but a Liberal win cannot be ruled out.

2022 result

2022 two-party-preferred result

Booth breakdown

Polling places in Dunkley have been divided into three parts: central, north and south.

Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in two out of three areas, with 57.6% in the centre and 60.6% in the north. The Liberal Party polled 52.8% in the south.

About one third of votes were cast as pre-poll votes, with another 22% cast through other methods. Labor won a smaller majority in these vote categories.

The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 10.9% in the south to 17.3% in the north-east.

Election results in Dunkley at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, the Liberal Party and the Greens.

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