ALP 9.6%
Incumbent MP
Michaela Settle, member for Buninyong since 2018.
Geography
Western Victoria. Eureka covers southeastern parts of the City of Ballarat and most of Moorabool Shire and Golden Plains Shire. In addition to Ballarat, the electorate covers Bacchus Marsh, Buninyong, Ballan, Haddon, Meredith and Mount Clear.
Redistribution
Eureka has replaced Buninyong. The electorate took in Bacchus Marsh from Melton and expanded to the south-west into Polwarth. Eureka lost Scarsdale, Sebastopol and surrounding areas to Ripon. These changes cut the Labor margin from 12.2% to 9.6%.
Eureka is a new name for the electorate covering eastern Ballarat, replacing Buninyong, which replaced Ballarat East in 2014.
Ballarat East first existed as a Victorian Legislative Assembly district from 1859 until 1927. It elected two members from 1859 until 1889, when it became a single-member district. The single member district was held by Liberal and Nationalist members from 1889 until 1924, when it was won by the ALP. The seat was abolished in 1927.
Ballarat East was recreated in 1992, and won by the Liberal Party’s Barry Traynor. He won with a slim 1.6% margin in 1992, which was cut to 1% in 1996, before he lost to the ALP’s Geoff Howard in 1999.
Howard increased his margin to 7.6% in 2002 before it was cut to 6.6% in 2006, and cut further to 1.5% in 2010. Howard was re-elected with an increased margin to the renamed seat of Buninyong in 2014.
Howard retired in 2018, and Labor’s Michaela Settle won the seat.
- Paul Tatchell (Liberal)
- Anthony Joseph Giampaolo (Freedom Party)
- Sam McColl (Greens)
- Adrian Garcia (Family First)
- Tabitha Rickard (Democratic Labour)
- Wendy Morrison (Animal Justice)
- Michael Ray (Independent)
- Nicola Reid (Independent)
- Mark William Banwell (Independent)
- Michaela Settle (Labor)
Assessment
Eureka is a safe Labor seat.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Michaela Settle | Labor | 18,965 | 49.1 | +5.6 | 45.0 |
| Andrew Kilmartin | Liberal | 11,921 | 30.9 | -4.1 | 31.3 |
| Linda Zibell | Greens | 3,542 | 9.2 | -1.8 | 9.3 |
| Wendy Morrison | Animal Justice | 1,581 | 4.1 | +4.1 | 3.9 |
| Dianne Colbert | Independent | 1,285 | 3.3 | +3.3 | 2.0 |
| Jane McKendrick | Socialists | 397 | 1.0 | +1.0 | 1.0 |
| Lindsay Watters | Independent | 436 | 1.1 | +1.1 | 0.8 |
| Brendan Eckel | Independent | 467 | 1.2 | +1.2 | 0.7 |
| Others | 6.0 | ||||
| Informal | 3,160 | 7.6 | +2.8 |
2018 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Michaela Settle | Labor | 24,108 | 62.2 | +5.9 | 59.6 |
| Andrew Kilmartin | Liberal | 14,627 | 37.8 | -5.9 | 40.4 |
Booths have been divided into four areas: Ballarat, north-east, south-east and west. Most of the population lies in Ballarat or Bacchus Marsh (in the north-east).
Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all four areas, ranging from 55.7% in the south-east to 65.4% in Ballarat.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 6.0% in the west to 12.5% in Ballarat.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| North-East | 6.1 | 57.5 | 10,097 | 24.0 |
| Ballarat | 12.5 | 65.4 | 8,782 | 20.9 |
| South-East | 9.3 | 55.7 | 3,129 | 7.4 |
| West | 6.0 | 55.1 | 584 | 1.4 |
| Pre-poll | 9.1 | 58.2 | 14,426 | 34.3 |
| Other votes | 10.9 | 61.2 | 5,044 | 12.0 |
Election results in Eureka at the 2018 Victorian state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, the Liberal Party and the Greens.
The redistribution shrunk the margin a far bit here, thoughts on whether or not this seat will be in play?
Also weird how this electorate has changed names at every election since 2014, Ballarat East, then Buninyong and now Eureka…
I think Eureka district overlaps with both Ballarat and Hawke federal seats. Hawke did see a swing against Labor both Primary and 2PP vote, so Eureka could potentially be in play especially given Labor’s weakness in west suburbs of Melbourne.
Renaming this district to “Eureka” is one of the silliest name changes I have ever seen in any redistribution. What was wrong with “Buninyong”? Eureka is a tiny locality in the electorate no more central to it than Buninyong is.
I’m not sure whether Eureka is named after a tiny suburb in Ballarat or after the exclamation on the goldfields back in the 19th century. I agree that there have been too many constant name changes.
Once again, this ridiculous pushing of trying to name all things Ballarat related “Eureka” is so stupid.
They planned to rename the Ballarat Line to the “Eureka Line” at one point, luckily it fell through.
Neither Geelong or Bendigo have had these name change issues, and have maintained their city name in their state electorates, why the obsession with changing Ballarat’s, I don’t know.
Driving through Bacchus Marsh today, it seems the use of a former local mine as a site to dump ‘toxic’ soil from the West Gate Tunnel project has aroused a lot of ire.
I doubt Labor will lose the seat, but it will be interesting to see if at least those booths see a sizeable swing.
Yes, it has got people angry in Bacchus Marsh. I know people who are pretty anti-Labor because of it – but tbh I couldn’t tell you where their votes are likely to go, as they’ll spray a bit all over the place.
One of the Bacchus Marsh protesters told me (when it was still in the seat of Melton) that has we trying to get an independent candidate to go hard on it and try and unite the protest vote. But that was probably easier in Melton where there was already the 2018 experience of having indies do relatively well (albeit splitting the vote 6 ways to Sunday).
It occurs to me that moving Bacchus Marsh into Eureka may actually have made Melton a safer Labor seat, after all that speculation.
The mine in question is already a toxic waste site – it’s the old Maddingley brown coal mine. AFAIK it’s now run commercially as a special waste dump.
This was a good value bet earlier in the campaign when it had Labor to win at $1.20.
Yep, I managed to get that. One of very few bets I’ve placed on Labor winning a safe Labor seat.
I got it at $1.22. And right now it’s still $1.18 at TAB (not betting on it because I think there’s better value elsewhere).
@Adda what else do you like the look of?
Mulgrave. Getting odds of $1.2+ when I think it’s totally safe. Mentioned my thoughts on that contest in the corresponding page.
@Connor It’s especially silly when you consider that the suburb of Eureka is on the border of this electorate so could easily be redistributed to Wendouree next election, therefore having to change the name again.
Interesting there was very little swing in Bacchus Marsh after all….most of the big swings were in the communities between Bacchus Marsh and Ballarat (Ballan, Gordon, etc).
Bacchus Marsh Central did swing to the ALP but it was in Melton last time, where and when it swung about the same amount the the Liberals on 2PP.
The other Bacchus Marsh booth did swing to the Liberals by above the seat average, having swung to the ALP last time.
Darley swung to the Liberals but by bellow the seat average, having been swingless last time.
(All above swings 2PP.)