ALP 0.2%
Incumbent MP
David Southwick, since 2010.
Geography
Southeastern Melbourne. Caulfield covers the suburbs of Balaclava, Caulfield, Elsternwick, Gardenvale, Glenhuntly and Ripponlea and parts of the suburbs of Ormond, St Kilda and St Kilda East. Caulfield covers northwestern parts of the City of Glen Eira and small parts of the City of Port Phillip to the east of St Kilda.
Redistribution
Minor changes were made to Caulfield’s north-western corner, gaining part of St Kilda East from Prahran and losing a smaller area to Prahran. These changes flipped the seat from a very slim Liberal margin to a very slim Labor margin.
History
Caulfield was first created in 1927. In that time it has never been won by the ALP, and has always been won by conservative candidates, except one election when the seat was won by an independent socialist, in 1943.
The seat was first won in 1927 by the Liberal Party’s Frederick Forrest. He was re-elected in 1929, but died in office in October 1930.
The ensuing by-election was won by Harold Luxton. He held the seat for two terms, retiring in 1935. He was replaced in 1935 by Harold Cohen. He had been an MLC representing Melbourne South since 1929, and held Caulfield until 1943.
In 1943, Cohen was defeated by Andrew Hughes, an independent socialist candidate. Hughes only held the seat for one term, losing to the Liberal Party’s Alexander Dennett.
Dennett ran as a candidate for the Electoral Reform party in 1955, and lost his seat to the Liberal Party’s Joseph Rafferty. Rafferty moved to the seat of Caulfield in 1958, which he held until 1967, when he moved again to Glenhuntly, which he held until his retirement in 1979.
In 1958, Caulfield was won by Alexander Fraser. He had previously held the seat of Grant from 1950 until his defeat in 1952, and then Caulfield East from 1955 to 1958. Fraser held the seat until his death in 1965.
The 1965 by-election was won by Ian McLaren. He had previously held the seat of Glen Iris for one term from 1945 to 1947. After one term in Caulfield, he moved to Bennettswood in 1967 and held it until his retirement in 1979.
In 1967, Caulfield was won by Edgar Tanner, who had previously been the Liberal Member for Ripponlea since 1955. He held Caulfield until his retirement in 1976.
Charles Francis won Caulfield in 1976. The next year he was expelled from the Liberal Party after abstaining on a no-confidence motion against the Liberal government, and he lost his seat in 1979 to Ted Turner, son of the former member.
The younger Turner served as a shadow minister in the 1980s and as Government Whip in the first term of the Kennett government, retiring at the 1996 election.
Caulfield was won in 1996 by the Liberal Party’s Helen Shardey. Helen Shardey was re-elected in 1999, 2002 and 2006, and served on the frontbench when the Liberal Party was in opposition.
Shardey retired in 2010, and Caulfield was won by Liberal candidate David Southwick. Southwick was re-elected in 2014 and 2018.
- Nomi Kaltmann (Independent)
- Lynne Edwell (Family First)
- Rachel Iampolski (Greens)
- Asher Myerson (Animal Justice)
- David Southwick (Liberal)
- Lior Harel (Labor)
- Michael Abelman (Liberal Democrats)
Assessment
Caulfield is a very marginal seat. The Liberal Party usually has a stronger hold on the seat but it has rarely been particularly safe over the last few decades. Most likely the Liberal Party will retain this seat but if Labor has a good night they could win here.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| David Southwick | Liberal | 17,861 | 46.9 | -4.8 | 46.1 |
| Sorina Grasso | Labor | 13,054 | 34.2 | +4.5 | 34.0 |
| Dinesh Mathew | Greens | 5,387 | 14.1 | -2.2 | 14.8 |
| Troy Evans | Animal Justice | 1,153 | 3.0 | +3.0 | 3.0 |
| Aviya Bavati | Sustainable Australia | 665 | 1.7 | +1.7 | 1.7 |
| Others | 0.5 | ||||
| Informal | 1,735 | 4.4 | +0.2 |
2018 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| David Southwick | Liberal | 19,162 | 50.3 | -4.6 | 50.1 |
| Sorina Grasso | Labor | 18,958 | 49.7 | +4.6 | 49.9 |
Booths have been divided into three areas: east, north-west and south-west.
Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas on election day, ranging from 53.9% in the east to 57.8% in the north-west. About 60% of the vote was cast through other categories of the vote, and the Liberal Party won those votes sufficiently to hold on to the seat.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 10.7% in the east to 18.2% in the north-west.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | LIB 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| North-West | 18.2 | 42.2 | 6,664 | 16.6 |
| South-West | 14.4 | 42.9 | 4,285 | 10.7 |
| East | 10.7 | 46.1 | 4,209 | 10.5 |
| Pre-poll | 14.0 | 54.4 | 13,186 | 32.9 |
| Other votes | 15.4 | 53.9 | 11,711 | 29.2 |
Election results in Caulfield at the 2018 Victorian state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, Labor and the Greens.
I disagree Mark, I think Caulfield includes more areas that are more natural Labor & Greens strongholds which Hawthorn doesn’t.
The western part of Hawthorn, especially around Swinburne, is certainly more progressive than most of the inner east, but it’s still very much a demographic that can get behind a teal, and the Liberal still get a strong primary vote and can get 40-45% of the 2PP. I consider it comparable to what South Yarra is like now.
Whereas the Balaclava & St Kilda East area which makes up about 25% of Caulfield’s voters is a genuine Greens heartland with a strong ALP vote and the Liberals distant third (20% primary vote, under 30% 2CP), more similar to Windsor & St Kilda.
I’ll note that all the vox pops for Caulfield have occurred further east in the seat, around Caulfield itself, which is where the Liberals are the strongest, so it’s natural that they would indicate more of a Southwick lean. They don’t account for the western, and to a lesser extent southeastern (Ormond, Glenhuntly) vote balancing it out. Do a series of vox pops on Carlisle St, Balaclava and the responses will be very different to those in Caulfield Park.
Labor are a much stronger chance in Caulfield than in Hawthorn this time I think.
That internal polling, if true, also appears to be consistent with Redbridge’s Caulfield poll. Remember that Redbridge polled Caulfield and found the following results:
– Liberal 34%
– Labor 31%
– Greens 16%
– Independent 8%
That would result in an easy Labor win and didn’t really indicate that the independent ever had much of a chance of making the 2CP.
He was heckled in the Labor part of Caufield, Trent. That’s where Dan’s visit was just an hour ago.
Additionally, there has been no internal published apart from Redbridge, which skews results for Lab/Teal by asking leading questions such as “would you support a candidate like Monique Ryan?”. Multiple people have discussed Redbridge polling on this site, with the consensus that it’s not credible at all.
The “internal polling” that Ham mentioned doesn’t exist. It was a tweet from a journalist (Paul Sakkal) that mentioned nothing about polling, and only mentioned Dan visiting Caufield and that “might be a sign”, which I already countered in my prior comment. I can’t link the tweet here to show you, butI’d be more inclined to believe it if more substantive info was offered.
In fact, the 2018 booth right next to Pawfield Dog Park had a 57% 2PP for Labor, and he was heckled there.
I was making a reference to the fact he said “Labor’s primary vote is holding up in the inner suburbs” and “both parties believe it will be a LIB v ALP contest with the teals third”, which I assumed could only come from polling.
Surely we aren’t judging an election outcome based on a single heckler…
Judging an outcome on a single heckler is about as reliable as portraying those remarks are “internal polling”, Ham.
“Inner suburbs” is far too general.
@Mark, the main problem with the Redbridge polling is specifically that it push-polls for independents. The point I am making here is that even the Redbridge polling showed the independent in an unwinnable position.
By you saying the Redbridge polling can’t be trusted because it asks leading questions to support the independent, you’re actually just reinforcing the view that the independent isn’t in a winnable position.
However, the results I quoted were actually the first voting intention question in the poll, prior to the leading question about Monique Ryan which increased the independent response. However, even the follow up question after the Monique Ryan spiel still had Labor comfortably ahead of the independent too. All of which supports the fact that this looks like a LIB v ALP race.
Also, agree with Ham about the heckling comment. You could get heckled in a seat where you have 80-20 2PP results, if one of those 20% happens to be lurking around. It’s totally meaningless. And also that dog park is absolutely nowhere near the area I was talking about, it’s actually the complete opposite end of the seat. 57% is nothing when there are 70-78% results at the western end and 64-69% results in the southeastern corner.
The point I was making is that Caulfield is not a seat whose boundaries, and the mix of demographics in its suburbs, make it very easy for a “teal” to beat Labor into a 2CP count because the seats that teals won in May didn’t include any areas as strong for Labor as Balaclava & St Kilda East, let alone that area comprising a quarter of the voters. And a pollster who you say yourself push-polls for teals didn’t even indicate any sign of the independent making the top two either before or after its leading question.
There are major problems with using vox pops as any sort of predictor. At best they only tell you what local issues may be on people’s minds. Firstly, the sample size is SO small compared to a poll. Secondly, there is selective editing to put together the final compilation of responses and obviously the responses which create the more interesting narrative will “make the cut”. Thirdly, this is a huge one, location. Seats are not homogenous and the views in one pocket of a seat may be completely different to another pocket. Caulfield Park where the vox pops were conducted is in Caulfield North which along with Caulfield South is the Liberals’ best suburb in the seat. If the vox pops were conducted in Balaclava, the responses would have been very different. Josh Burns & Albo were in Balaclava earlier this week and got a great response.
Put it this way, to overcome expected 70-80% Labor 2PPs in Balaclava & St Kilda East and 60-70% Labor 2PPs around Elsternwick, Ormond & Glenhuntly, the Liberals really need to dominate the ‘Caulfield’ proper suburbs in the middle where they do best; that area though also tends to be where most of the focus on the seat is which often makes the more ALP/Greens strongholds a bit overlooked in discussions of the seat.
Daniel Andrews posted some photos spruiking the construction of more dog parks to his Instagram story around half an hour ago. I recognised Lior Harel behind him.
How many hecklers were there?
It sounded like two. The article said he was heckled “twice”, and one of the times at least – the only one they described – was by “one man”.
It could have been a group of 2-3 people in the park together who yelled things out twice, or it could have been two separate people who walked past and said something.
There were 3 hecklers. One was a dog owner at the start of the press conference.
Then there were 2 guys at the end. Not related as far as I can tell. The first bloke just yelled as he was heaving the park.
Hate to tell you this Mark, but no seat or even suburb votes 100% one way.
Hell, even Collingwood polling booths had around 80 Liberal voters in them!
So 3 Liberal voters in a park, in a Liberal-leaning suburb of a mixed seat, doesn’t really mean much.
I mean it demonstrates the reason why Andrews has been so reluctant to make public appearances.
This was his first one outside a controlled public service environment for well over a year.
I never said it meant anything. A couple of comments ago, I literally said that it doesn’t mean much. You seem to be insistent on sticking up for Dan lmao
Fun fact – all six candidates are Jewish.
Antony Green puts the Liberal margin at 0.04% whilst VEC has it at 0.2%. I’m not exactly sure how Mr Green’s calculation is different to VEC’s. There may be tweaks in the methodology. Methinks that one used an electorate-wide 2PP count and then extrapolated to all polling booths and the other used a booth by booth 2PP count and both VEC and ABC included prepoll and postals.
38% voted on polling day last time. I expect this figure to be lower this year. Methinks Labor will be ahead on election night as they were last time.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/vic/2022/guide/caul
I read that Anthony Green just omitted a small change to keep the seat as Liberal held, making it easier to classify swings and seat changes on election night.
That’s right, he said there were 3 seats (Caulfield included) that the redistribution flipped by less than 70 votes so the ABC opted to keep them with the incumbent party.
Votante, I explain a little bit of the difference between my methodology (which I think is similar to Antony’s) compared to the VEC’s in this blog post. Note that I had Caulfield as LIB 0.1% but I am now using the VEC’s calculations as ALP 0.2%.
The process is pretty similar but the difference is they have access to data on how many people from each SA1 utilised each method of voting (including individual booths). The AEC publishes the equivalent data for federal elections but at state elections it’s not generally available.
Has anyone noticed? Climate 200 isn’t channeling as much attention nor donations towards Nomi. For example, Climate 200 posted the campaign videos for their Mornington, hawthorn and Kew candidates and gave their websites for donations.
A later post included all 4 teal candidates asking voters to donate money to help overthrow the funding wall. They tagged all THREE candidates and did not mention Nomi, nor her website, nor even mention who she was as a candidate. This was in contrast to the other three as climate 200 had tagged them all. This is also really confusing because Nomi has an Instagram account, has a campaign video and if I’m not mistaken was endorsed by the Climate 200 group.
Overall too, another observation is that Labor is spending alot here and trying. Noticed a lot of Labor Placards with Josh Burns being seen on the campaign trail.
Predication – Liberal Hold (Only because Labor started too late) (teal isn’t strong enough)
Bingo, Southwick has no chance, try again.
Why would the Liberals do several points better than the federal election here? I feel it is just wishful thinking for the Liberal side and that you simply “want” the liberals to win here.
Even some conservatives concede this is probably a likely loss.
I think the overlapping federalresult would have been around 57-43 to Labor so I’m guessing the result will be somewhere between that and the notional 2018 result of effectively 50-50.
Normally when someone leaves the ALP and runs for office they have the blowtorch turned on them. Is there any evidence of this with Nomi Kaltmann or is she only there as a means of diverting soft votes away from the Libs?
@Redistributed
To what extent did that happen to Monique Ryan or Ali Cupper?
It’s not wishful thinking because I’m wishing that Labor wins. I just believe it might be a bit late for Labor to be spending all this money now. And also the Liberals will probably do better than federally around Victoria because their brand isn’t as weakened as the federal counterpart.
Also again I’m not sure about Nomi, but have a look at climate 200’s Instagram and try find one mention of her @ or website or her campaign video.
The only way I can see Southwick hanging on is through his personal vote, and through a very large campaign (which I think he’s running). Even then, these will need to be large factors for this to remain in Liberal hands. I firmly expect Labor to win, with Kaltmann’s preferences flowing towards them.
Kaltmann has drawn first place on the ballot.
This is a major boost to her and I think Southwick is in the fight of his life after the PR disaster from his supporter videos (who ended up being a member of his staff).
Going to say this is possible IND gain as momentum seems to be shifting towards Kaltmann.
Labor will likely outpoll Kaltmann here and win off her preferences.
Wouldn’t a solution be to the order of candidates on the ballot simply be printing them in random orders so every ballot has a different order? This would equalise any unfair advantage the ballot paper drawing may give to the lucky major party candidate who is the highest.
Yes, that’s called Robson Rotation and is common in some electoral systems.
I think in Australia it’s only done in Tasmanian state elections?
Actually thinking more, I think it’s also in the ACT. But I retract the “common” part, I’m not sure that anywhere else at all does it.
@Daniel I’d imagine most candidates and parties, including the major parties, would vehemently oppose that since it means the HTV card would become pretty much useless.
This is a seat where Greens preferences could decide the winner between ALP and Nomi. If the race between those two is close, Greens preferences could decide who makes the 2CP and I think Southwick will lose to either.
I’m still tipping an ALP gain.
The other (perhaps more legitimate) objection to randomised ballot order is the difficulty it introduces in counting the vote.
I wonder which party will suffer the biggest primary vote swing with Nomi (IND) in the race.
Methinks that Liberal will lose, not because the electorate loves Dan Andrews or loathes Matthew Guy, but because this area is trending teal or green. This is not the Liberal heartland seat that it used to be.
@Nicholas and Dan
Yes, the main arguments I’ve seen against it are cost-based (printing) and how much it would slow the counting.
Voted at the Caulfield EVC this morning near the racecourse – no other presence there except for the Liberals, with basically everyone taking the Liberal HVC cards. Not sure if this is an early indication of the trend in this area of the seat, but you’d expect if Labor or the Independent were looking to gain this seat they’d staff the EVC. Interesting to hear what the presence is like at the other EVC on the Nepean Highway.
@Young Independent
Interesting. The Racecourse booth in Caufield went Labor in 2018.
I’ve noticed things are similar at the EVC in Werribee with the Liberals having a high presence. Will be voting in my own electorate later today as well.
@Mark, you absolutely correct that the Caulfield East booth went Labor in 2018. 57% (election day booth). That area tend to better for Labor as it is less Jewish and close to the University and a major rail station, more apartments etc a bit like the Glenferrie booth in Hawthorn. I am trying to find the Caulfield EVC results to compare? Do you know what the EVC result in 2018 was
I noticed that is it true that Australian Conservatives (LNP) seem to mix both moderate and conservative in policymaking regardless of who is the leader due to their “broad church” principles? It seems this is different in the USA and Canada where their conservatives are based on the views of their leader which allowed Right-wing populist leaders to not just lead but decides its policies.
EVC polling places are not comparable with election day polling places, because there are only about 2 EVCs in each seat as opposed to about 15-20 election day polling places.
You may have small differences – for example in the federal election in Macnamara, the Malvern PPVC (out of electorate but serviced Macnamara) was friendlier for the Liberals than the St Kilda Road PPVC – but they are generally closer to the overall result than the localised results.
In the case of the Caulfield Racecourse EVC, that is the only EVC in the entire Caulfield area (the other one is closer to Ripponlea & Balaclava) so would be servicing voters who on polling day would otherwise vote in Caulfield North, Caulfield South, etc. In other words, the Caulfield Racecourse EVC would be servicing the most Liberal-leaning suburbs in the electorate, and would also skew more towards Jewish voters who don’t vote on Saturdays.
I don’t know the results of the Caulfield East EVC in 2018 because the results per EVC aren’t published (that I can find), but the Liberals did overperform in EVC results overall by around 5% compared to their final result, and by around 12% compared to their election day results.
Liberal 2PPs in Caulfield in 2018:
– Total: 50.2%
– EVC Votes: 55.3%
– Ordinary Votes: 43.8%
@Nimalan
Sorry mate, no idea about the EVC for that booth. Would have to go digging but I’m tired after work
AJP will preference Teal second then Greens like they did in Hawthorn. This is the case in other Climate 200 endorsed Teals such as Kew and Mornington as well but not Sandringham and Brighton. I am trying to find the FFP and LDP preferences to see if they will preference Teal or Labor first.
If ALP aren’t running dead here then I don’t see how the teal can win.
@ Entrepreneur, i agree with you i think it is unlikely that the Teal will win here. However, i expect the Teal to peel some of the Labor vote. In 2014, Labor got 29.4% of the PV here i think Labor’s primary vote could drop to that level. I expect the Teal to at least get a 10% if the Teal outpolls the Greens then there is a chance they could reach second place through Green preference leapfrogging Labor. If the the Teal comes close to the Greens then AJP preferences could allow the Teal to leapfrog the Greens then Labor if HTV recommendations are strongly. If the Teals still fail to do this then it is interesting if Labor or Libs will win because some of the Teal preferences could leak to Libs. I am not predicting the result here. I actually think Labor has a better chance to win Bayswater than Caulfield. Keen to here your thoughts.
A lot of otherwise Lib voters are unlikely to support a teal candidate who was a member of the Labor party a month ago. It’s a different story in Brighton where the teal candidate is a failed but more moderate Lib preselection candidate. I’d expect teal preferences in Caulfield will be weaker to the Libs than in Brighton or even Kew and Hawthorn if they fail to make it to the TPP.
Judging solely based off of how many yard signs & billboards are in the area for each candidate, this seat will most likely come down to Liberal v Labor. There seems to be a David Southwick sign/billboard on at least a couple of houses every block or so, Labor significantly less so but still more than the handful I’ve seen for the teal or greens. I think the Liberals will definitely finish first here, but it will be interesting to see how much their first preference has dropped and what the preference flows are from the other candidates to Labor & Liberal.
@Marh in the UK and Canada the Conservative party membership is now well to the right of the general public and this is causing problems for those parties becoming or remaining in government. Unlike Australia the First Past The Post voting system requires creation of big tent parties. In the 1990’s in Canada the split between fiscal and social conservatives lead to the Liberals being in power from 1993 to 2006. On the other hand the election of Liz Truss to lead the Conservatives in the UK, lead to the collapse of Conservative support in the polls, which is now around 21% to 25%.
This is one of those seats which
Has a margin of less than 2%. This is the real battle ground.. will be of course very close. A alp win is not out of the question..I guess uncertainty but some here say the liberals are gone
https://www.crikey.com.au/2022/11/22/victorian-liberals-nazi-labor-anti-semitic/
Oh dear this is not going to help David Southwick here.
Yet another example of why running a blanket “put X last” campaign is such a silly idea.
Libs did surprisingly well here. David Southwick looks set to retain.
Yeah Southwick has this. Labor were leading at this point in 2018.
I don’t think Labor have lead at any point in Caulfield tonight (If I’m mistaken and they did, it was very briefly) and The Age called it for Lior Harel hours ago. Postals will likely increase the margin for Southwick yet again.