Bellarine – Victoria 2014

LIB 2.5%

Incumbent MP
Lisa Neville (ALP), since 2002.

Geography
Bellarine Peninsula and eastern suburbs of Geelong.

Map of Bellarine's 2010 and 2014 boundaries. 2010 boundaries marked as red lines, 2014 boundaries marked as white area. Click to enlarge.
Map of Bellarine’s 2010 and 2014 boundaries. 2010 boundaries marked as red lines, 2014 boundaries marked as white area. Click to enlarge.

Redistribution
Bellarine lost the suburbs of Newcomb and Whittington to Geelong, and gained Barwon Heads from South Barwon. These changes flipped Bellarine from a Labor seat with a 1.4% margin to a notional Liberal seat with a 2.5% margin.

History
Bellarine was first created as an electoral district at the 1967 election. The seat was abolished in 1976, but was restored in 1985. It has alternated between the Labor Party and the Liberal Party.

Bellarine was first won in 1967 by the Liberal Party’s Aurel Smith. He held the seat until its abolition in 1976, when he moved to the neighbouring seat of South Barwon, which he held until his retirement in 1982.

When Bellarine was restored in 1985, it was won by the ALP’s Graham Ernst. He had previously held the seat of Geelong East since 1979, but his original seat was abolished in the 1985 redistribution.

Ernst held Bellarine until his defeat in 1992, when the Liberal Party’s Garry Spry won the seat.

Spry retired in 2002, and his seat was won by the ALP’s Lisa Neville, with a swing of 9.8%. Her 8.3% margin was cut slightly in 2006, and she served as a minister in the Labor government from 2006 to 2010.

In 2010, Neville was narrowly re-elected to a third term.

Candidates

  1. Lisa Neville (Labor)
  2. Rhiannon Hunter (Sex Party)
  3. Brenton Peake (Greens)
  4. Ron Nelson (Liberal)
  5. Robert Keenan (Family First)
  6. Christopher Dawson (Rise Up Australia)
  7. Joshua Williams (Shooters and Fishers)
  8. John Irvine (Country Alliance)
  9. Gus Kacinskas (Independent)

Assessment
Bellarine is a very marginal electorate, and could swing either way.

2010 election result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Kurt Reiter Liberal 17,140 43.05 +5.85 46.54
Lisa Neville Labor 16,324 41.00 -7.49 37.54
Judy Baldacchino Greens 3,123 7.84 -1.75 8.82
Lara Duff Family First 944 2.37 -2.34 1.99
Klaus Clapinski Democratic Labor 831 2.09 +2.09 1.65
Nick McCallum Country Alliance 665 1.67 +1.67 1.40
Stephen Juhasz Independent 510 1.28 +1.28 1.21
Mitch Cherry Socialist Alliance 274 0.69 +0.69 0.54
Other independents 0.31

2010 two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Lisa Neville Labor 20,449 51.37 -6.59 47.50
Kurt Reiter Liberal 19,362 48.63 +6.59 52.50
Polling places in Bellarine at the 2010 Victorian state election. North East in green, North West in orange, South in blue. Click to enlarge.
Polling places in Bellarine at the 2010 Victorian state election. North East in green, North West in orange, South in blue. Click to enlarge.

Booth breakdown
Booths in Bellarine have been divided into three areas: south, north east and north west.

The Liberal Party won a 52.4% majority in the north-east, while Labor won majorities in the south (51.4%) and the north-west (50.3%).

Voter group GRN % LIB 2PP % Total % of votes
North East 6.64 52.40 9,047 26.03
South 12.59 48.56 7,691 22.13
North West 5.55 49.73 5,984 17.22
Other votes 9.66 53.64 12,036 34.63
Two-party-preferred votes in Bellarine at the 2010 Victorian state election.
Two-party-preferred votes in Bellarine at the 2010 Victorian state election.

9 COMMENTS

  1. Bellarine has had a history of big swings against second and third term incumbents. Labor lost this seat at the 1988 election with a +6.8% TPP towards the Liberals for a final margin of 7.9%. That margin was gradually eaten away at over the next three elections until Labor gained it on a big swing towards them for a final margin of 8.2%. Labor suffered a big swing here in 2010, but held onto the seat – and it shows that the area is gaining more of a working class constituency.

    Theoretically, a change of government should mean that Labor will increase its margin – but the redistribution means that a lot of the strong Labor voting suburbs in the west of the seat are lost so could potentially be the one seat that change hands to the Liberal Party on election night; given a likely Labor win statewide.

    The Coastal booths, consisting of a typical coastal profile of retirees and sea-change types, in Bellarine swung big time to the Liberals in 2010, and if there is a statewide swing to Labor, these booths would be more than likely to turn red then not and Labor should retain the seat.

  2. I’m not sure why you call it a ‘working class constituency’….if anything, losing Whittington and Newcomb has removed all of the working class areas. It’s a typical semi-rural coastal profile plus an outer suburban type demographic from commuters to Geelong. Any increased ALP vote is due to an increased Green sea/tree change demographic, not working class at all.

    I was down in Ocean Grove this weekend….you can’t move without falling over a gigantic Ron Nelson roadside sign……

  3. Oh yes, it is still definitely a coastal profile – but like South Barwon, with new suburban developments going on, the demographics are slowly shifting and will continue to do so. The fact that Labor held on to this seat in 2010 shows this.

    Losing the western most suburbs to Geelong (where the Libs are also doing a very visible campaign) makes the task for Labor in Bellarine pretty damn difficult – but with general state-wide swing to Labor – I think Labor should hold on.

  7. Really looks as though the bigger swings to labor are in the notional seats with sitting labor incumbents (Ripon probably liberal but Frankston strong for labor). Libs have wasted there time in Ballarat with little success in internal talk in the region. Even if you assume Eltham goes the libs can’t afford to lose any of their seats which have a sitting liberal. At the moment there just isn’t enough to suggest the liberals can get to 45

  8. New Fairfax poll of 56/44 to labor defiantly doesn’t help pointing out to the libs losing 15 seats if uniform. Even using preferences from last election, labor would still hold a majority 50 seats to the libs 38

  9. Independent Gus Kacinskas has some interesting answers to the Herald Sun’s candidate survey.

    What is the most important issue for regional Victoria?
    There are chicken sheds down here. If they get chicken flu, it could kill you in a few days. If the wind blows on Geelong it could wipe out half of Geelong.

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