ALP 4.8%
Incumbent MP
Lisa Neville, since 2002.
Geography
Bellarine Peninsula and eastern suburbs of Geelong.
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%. Neville has been re-elected three times.
Candidates
- Naomi Adams (Animal Justice)
- Lisa Neville (Labor)
- Rachel Semmens (Greens)
- Brian McKiterick (Liberal)
- Jackie Kriz (Socialists)
Assessment
Bellarine is a marginal Labor seat.
2014 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Lisa Neville | Labor | 16,818 | 43.6 | +6.1 |
| Ron Nelson | Liberal | 15,678 | 40.6 | -6.0 |
| Brenton Peake | Greens | 3,639 | 9.4 | +0.6 |
| Rhiannon Hunter | Sex Party | 631 | 1.6 | +1.6 |
| Robert Keenan | Family First | 572 | 1.5 | -0.5 |
| Joshua Williams | Shooters And Fishers | 490 | 1.3 | +1.3 |
| John Irvine | Country Alliance | 436 | 1.1 | -0.3 |
| Christopher Dawson | Rise Up Australia | 178 | 0.5 | +0.5 |
| Gus Kacinskas | Independent | 169 | 0.4 | +0.4 |
| Informal | 1,964 | 4.8 |
2014 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Lisa Neville | Labor | 21,174 | 54.8 | +7.3 |
| Ron Nelson | Liberal | 17,437 | 45.2 | -7.3 |
Booth breakdown
Booths in Bellarine have been divided into three areas: south, north east and north west.
Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 5.9% in the south to 8.1% in the north-west.
| Voter group | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| South | 55.9 | 8,573 | 22.2 |
| North-East | 57.5 | 8,492 | 22.0 |
| North-West | 58.1 | 4,373 | 11.3 |
| Other votes | 52.4 | 6,990 | 18.1 |
| Pre-poll | 55.7 | 10,183 | 26.4 |
Two-party-preferred votes in Bellarine at the 2014 Victorian state election
These numbers either reflect a strong personal vote for Lisa Neville, or a lacklustre Liberal campaign in 2014 (or maybe both). They’re all about 5-10% better for Labor than the corresponding federal results.
A 7.3% swing is hard to fathom.
Remember that the last redistribution abolished two coalition seats; their paper majority rested upon five Labor seats redrawn with notional Liberal majorities.
With a margin of 2.5%, Bellarine was by far the best of these. (For comparison, that was a larger margin than any of the four “sand belt” seats.)
A lacklustre Liberal campaign? Surely it would have been nothing short of vigorous.
Mark is this part of a trend ?
This seat is a real outlier as the federal liberal figures are up to 10% higher than the state figures. In almost every case, the state figures are higher than the federal – Frankston/ Dunkley being a good case in point. As discussed above, either Lisa Neville’s campaign was good or the Libs was a stinker – or Sarah Henderson’s local campaign was particularly good.
The result here in 2014 is a reflection on the poor Liberal campaign and the utterly dud choice of candidate.
This is also an area with a lot of swing voters who tend to vote on personality rather than along party lines. If a candidate is particularly bad or if the incumbent is doing a poor job, voters will let them know about it at the ballot box.
Labour hold probably 5% is hard to overturn unless the polling does bad, Plus the Incumbent is benefited as well as the act the liberals have failed to preselect a candidate yet
Liberals have a candidate preselected – them being Brian McKiterick, a Surf Coast Shire Councillor.
Given he’s not even from the Bellarine area, another factor that dogs the Libs chances in this seat (the 2014 Lib candidate also wasn’t a Bellarine local though at least lived in the LGA). If the Libs can’t even find a local to contest a marginal seat such as this, then they are truly in dire straits and have no chance of taking it.
Liberals need to win 7 seats (8 if they can’t negotiate with Sheed). I am having a lot of trouble seeing the Liberal path to victory considering their other options around this margin are even less likely propositions like Daniel Andrews’ seat, or Yan Yean where Labor just built Mernda rail. Labor are also looking competitive in more than a few Liberal held seats right now.
They really can’t afford to drop the ball on Bellarine, and same goes for this area in federal government, but looking at Matt’s post, seems like they’ve done exactly that.
My prediction: Labor hold.