Ivanhoe – Victoria 2014

ALP 1.8%

Incumbent MP
Anthony Carbines, since 2010.

Geography
Northern Melbourne. Ivanhoe covers southern parts of the City of Banyule. Ivanhoe covers the suburbs of Eaglemont, Heidelberg, Ivanhoe, Rosanna, View Bank and parts of Macleod and Yallambie.

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

Redistribution
No changes were made to Ivanhoe’s eastern, western or southern boundaries. Ivanhoe expanded to the north gaining parts of Macleod and Yallambie from Bundoora. Ivanhoe’s boundary with Preston was aligned with the council boundary. These changes slightly increased the ALP’s margin from 1.7% to 1.8%. The redistribution also shifted Ivanhoe from the Northern Metropolitan region to the Eastern Metropolitan region.

History
Ivanhoe was first created for the 1945 Victorian state election. In that time, it has alternated between the major parties, although it was predominantly held by the Liberal Party before the ALP gained it most recently in 1996.

Ivanhoe was first won in 1945 by independent candidate Robert Gardner, who was a journalist and community organiser. He held the seat for one term, losing in 1947 to the Liberal Party’s Rupert Curnow.

Curnow died in December 1950, and the 1951 by-election was won by Liberal candidate Frank Block.

Block was defeated by the ALP’s Michael Lucy in 1952. Lucy left the ALP in 1955 to join the Anti-Communist ALP, which became the Democratic Labor Party. He lost his seat at the 1955 election to the Liberal Party’s Vernon Christie.

Christie held the seat for eighteen years, retiring in 1973. The seat was won by race-caller Bruce Skeggs for the Liberal Party. He lost the seat in 1982 to the ALP’s Tony Sheehan, although later won the Legislative Council province of Templestowe in 1988, holding it until 1996.

Sheehan lost Ivanhoe in 1985, but later held the neighbouring seat of Northcote from 1988 to 1998.

In 1985, Ivanhoe was won by Vin Heffernan of the Liberal Party. He held Ivanhoe until his defeat in 1996. The seat had long been a solidly Liberal seat, but the 1992 redistribution made the seat notionally Labor. Heffernan managed to hold on in 1992, but in 1996 he lost to the ALP’s Craig Langdon.

Langdon held the seat for the next fourteen years, but in 2009 was defeated for Labor preselection, and then resigned from Parliament in August 2010, predicting that his successor would fail to hold the seat.

Langdon’s prediction was proven untrue, and Anthony Carbines won the seat as the Labor candidate in 2010.

Candidates

  1. Gurmender Grewal (Australian Christians)
  2. Paul Kennedy (Greens)
  3. Jesse Boer (Family First)
  4. Carl Ziebell (Liberal)
  5. Craig Langdon (Independent)
  6. Abdirizak Mohamed (Independent)
  7. Anthony Carbines (Labor)

Assessment
Ivanhoe is a very marginal seat, and could swing either way. Having said that, the ALP in 2010 would have suffered from running a new candidate who did not have the support of the incumbent Labor MP. In 2014, this will have changed and Anthony Carbines will benefit from a personal vote that previously did not exist, which should help him.

2010 election result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Carl Ziebell Liberal 14,413 41.98 +10.17 41.81
Anthony Carbines Labor 12,140 35.36 -6.43 35.99
Paul Kennedy Greens 6,240 18.18 +3.69 17.57
Stephen Smith Democratic Labor 1,185 3.45 +3.45 3.23
Gerrit Schorel-Hlavka Independent 351 1.02 +1.02 0.90
Family First 0.27
Other independents 0.22

2010 two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Anthony Carbines Labor 17,739 51.67 -8.77 51.80
Carl Ziebell Liberal 16,590 48.33 +8.77 48.20
Polling places in Ivanhoe at the 2010 Victorian state election. Central in green, North in blue, South in orange. Click to enlarge.
Polling places in Ivanhoe at the 2010 Victorian state election. Central in green, North in blue, South in orange. Click to enlarge.

Booth breakdown
Booths in Ivanhoe have been divided into three areas: north, south and central. The ALP won a large 60.9% in the centre of the electorate, and a smaller majority of 50.8% in the north of the seat. The Liberal Party won 52.6% of the two-party-preferred vote in the south.

The Greens polled very highly in Ivanhoe, with a vote ranging from 16.5% in the centre of the seat to 19.3% in the south.

Voter group GRN % ALP 2PP % Total % of votes
North 16.62 50.82 10,141 26.01
South 19.30 47.37 8,734 22.41
Central 16.47 60.89 7,038 18.05
Other votes 17.76 51.17 13,069 33.53
Two-party-preferred votes in Ivanhoe at the 2010 Victorian state election.
Two-party-preferred votes in Ivanhoe at the 2010 Victorian state election.
Greens primary votes in Ivanhoe at the 2010 Victorian state election.
Greens primary votes in Ivanhoe at the 2010 Victorian state election.

4 COMMENTS

  1. Labor will hold this quite comfortably I’d imagine. Anthony Carbines has been a strong performer in his first term and would have established a personal vote in that time. A decent Liberal candidate, but would expect a safe Labor retain.

  3. The guy who resigned just to cause an inconvenient by-election (which didn’t end up happening)? I can’t see too many people wanting to give him another go.

  4. Was originally confident of a safe Labor retain, now not so much. I think Langdon could snag 10% of the vote which would be weak Labor voters. I’d imagine though those people voting for Langdon wouldn’t be inclined to follow his how-to-vote card and preference the Liberals above Labor but its hard to tell. It has certainly made the contest more interesting.

Comments are closed.