Morwell – Victoria 2022

ALP 4.0%

Incumbent MP
Russell Northe (Independent), since 2006.

Geography
Latrobe Valley. Morwell covers most of the City of Latrobe, specifically the towns of Morwell, Moe and Traralgon. Morwell electoral district also covers the towns of Boolarra, Churchill, Newborough, Tyers and Yallourn North.

Redistribution
Morwell expanded to the west to take in the town of Moe, while losing its north-eastern corner. Moe is very strong for Labor, and this flipped the margin from 1.8% for the sitting independent MP to 1.1% for Labor, but on a two-party-preferred basis it is 4.0% for Labor.

History
Morwell has existed as an electoral district since 1955. It was first held by the Liberal Party until 1970, and by the Labor Party from 1970 until the 2006 election, when it was won by the Nationals.

Morwell was first won in 1955 by Liberal candidate Jim Balfour. He became a cabinet minister in 1964, and in 1967 moved to the new seat of Narracan. He held Narracan until his retirement in 1982, serving as a cabinet minister until 1977.

Balfour was succeeded in Morwell by fellow Liberal Archie Tanner. A former amateur boxing champion, Tanner held the seat for one term, losing Morwell in 1970 to the 27-year-old Derek Amos of the ALP.

Amos held the seat until his resignation in 1981, when he was succeeded at a by-election by the 31-year-old Valerie Callister, also of the ALP.

Callister retired in 1988, and was succeeded by Keith Hamilton, who served as Minister for Agriculture and Minister for Aboriginal Affairs.

Hamilton retired at the 2002 election, and was succeeded by Brendan Jenkins. He held the seat with a 4.9% margin. In 2002, the Liberal Party polled 19% of the primary vote, with the Nationals polling 12%. The Nationals had been the primary opposition to the ALP in Morwell as recently as 1996, but in 1999 the Liberals had become the main opposition, with the Nationals not contesting the seat.

In 2006, the Nationals polled almost 28% of the primary vote, with the Liberals on 14%. After preferences, the Nationals’ Russell Northe won the seat with a 2.2% margin. Northe was re-elected much more comfortably in 2010, with no Liberal opponent. He narrowly won a third term in 2014.

Northe resigned from the Nationals in 2017 to sit as an independent, and narrowly retained his seat as an independent in 2018.

Candidates
Sitting independent MP Russell Northe is not running for re-election.

Assessment
With the sitting independent MP retiring, this seat is in play. Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in 2018, but the margin is not great.

2018 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Mark Richards Labor 13,725 34.2 -1.4 38.5
Russell Northe Independent 7,851 19.6 +19.6 16.5
Dale Harriman Liberal 4,955 12.3 +12.3 14.1
Sheridan Bond Nationals 4,283 10.7 -33.8 9.0
Ricky Muir Shooters, Fishers & Farmers 2,856 7.1 +7.1 5.9
Ray Burgess Independent 2,388 5.9 +6.0 5.2
Daniel Caffrey Greens 1,460 3.6 -1.1 3.8
Reece Diggins Aussie Battler Party 892 2.2 +2.2 2.0
Tracie Lund Independent 841 2.1 -8.8 1.8
Nathan Keen Democratic Labour 654 1.6 +1.6 1.5
Christine Sindt Independent 237 0.6 +0.6 0.6
Others 1.2
Informal 3,436 7.9 +2.5

2018 two-candidate-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Mark Richards Labor 19,334 48.2 -0.2 51.1
Russell Northe Independent 20,808 51.8 +51.8 48.9

2018 two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Mark Richards Labor 21,037 52.4 +4.2 54.0
Sheridan Bond Nationals 19,105 47.6 -4.2 46.0

Booth breakdown

Booths have been divided into five areas: Moe, Traralgon, Morwell and the rural remainder split into north and south.

The vote for independents was much lower in Moe due to the redistribution bringing in areas from Narracan, but otherwise the independent vote ranged from 22.1% in the north to 29.3% in Morwell.

The Labor vote ranged from 33% in the north to 53% in Moe.

Voter group ALP prim % IND prim % Total votes % of votes
Moe 53.4 12.6 6,652 15.6
Traralgon 33.0 26.2 5,877 13.8
Morwell 40.6 32.6 4,100 9.6
South 37.3 26.7 2,669 6.3
North 32.3 24.0 1,447 3.4
Pre-poll 35.4 28.4 18,356 43.2
Other votes 36.7 22.7 3,423 8.0

Election results in Morwell at the 2018 Victorian state election
Toggle between two-candidate-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, independent candidate Russell Northe and the Liberal Party.

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94 COMMENTS

  2. Missed read the redistribution, understand that it’s now notionally Labor now.
    On these boundaries & if Russell Northe retires Labor should gain this seat. If Russell Northe runs again this seat he could hold on.

  3. Nationals have preselected Martin Cameron, a former teammate of Russell Northe according to the Herald Sun. There appears to be a degree of uncertainty as to whether he will actually run again this time. If he doesn’t run Labor should have a big advantage, especially considering the redistribution to include strong Labor areas in Moe

  4. If the LNP want to get back into office they will win here as the redistributions & demographic changes have not benefited them in metropolitan Melbourne so they will need to win here.

  5. This maybe the final chance for Labor to regain this seat. For the first time all of the Labor voting best areas in the La Trobe valley are in one seat. However, demographic change has not been favourable for Labor with decline of Coal industry. The remaining Coal Fired power stations in Loy Yang and Yallourn are scheduled for closure in coming years and here the Coal mining is not export oriented.

  6. I personally don’t see Labor picking up here as they are perceived as anti coal government plus the lockdowns through this area won’t play into Labor’s favour, however Labor did improve through this area federally I believe but that doesn’t really mean a lot. There was once a time I would of said that on these boundaries Labor would have had this in the bag but the margin is easy to overcome & these type of coal miner votes seem to be going to the ON with the presences finding their way to the LNP.

  8. This seat with now all i think of the Latrobe Valley in one seat… minus a sitting mp is borderline.as the margin suggests… I suspect

  10. Every election since 2002 has had a very large independent vote – Brad Platschinda on timber issues in 2002, Lisa Proctor as an independent ALP candidate in 2006 complaining about local factionalism and the ineptitude of the hack that Labor put into the seat at the time, Tracy Lund in 2014 on a ‘Voices of the Valley’ copycat campaign from Indi, then in 2018 you had Northe (independent ex-Nat incumbent), Ricky Muir (Shooters), and Ray Burgess (independent advocating for Morwell small business and the coal sector). Only in 2010 was there a lack of a big independent vote but there was Country Alliance and tow indies who between them got just over 10%. Will be interesting to see if another local independent emerges.

  11. Traditionally would be a Labor seat on these boundaries, but with Dan Andrews being unpopular in this area and a strong ON vote, this could end up helping the Nats. Still hard to tell at this point

  12. Zac, Morwell has already been becoming more conservative voting compare to its safe Labor voting past even before Daniel Andrews. The decline of Coal Mining is a factor and the reason Labor fell is due to the decline of Coal Mining and 2018 was just a fluke due to lack certainy of Vic Libs policies

  13. Look at the results except for 2010.. 66% nat all contests were marginal.in this seat. The Latrobe Valley has of course lost coal mining jobs.. and power generation jobs but is close to Melbourne within 100.kms I think.

  14. Mick, I believe Moe is around 140kms from Melbourne, but is still part of the commuter belt for some travelling to Dandenong and Melbourne for work each day. Still isn’t attracting commuters moving further out in the same way that Warragul/Drouin areas would, but is a cheaper option for some

  16. Nationals outperformed Labor in Morwell and Traralgon in the federal seat of Gippsland, but the state district contains Moe in it which heavily leans towards Labor. In 2002 and in previous elections this was a Liberal v Labor contest but only when Northe ran did the Nationals win this seat.

    I’m genuinely not sure who will win this, the redistribution heavily favours Labor but the Nationals or Liberals are in with a chance here. Another Independent could also snatch this seat if preferences work in their favour.

  17. Russell Broadbent won Moe in the 2019 election. And in the 2008 byelection the Liberals outpolled Chester in Morwell, but Chester won in Traralgon.

  18. The National vote in Morwell and Traralgon is probably overstated as the ALP most likely put no money and no resources into the Gippsland campaign. Moe and Newborough are in Monash where Labor were potentially competitive. It will probably end up being very close. Of note, is that in the federal election, there were a huge number of prepolls in this electorate – lots of resources will need to be put in there.

  20. Conservatives will hold this (If you count the sitting MP as National aligned) This seat has moved away from Labor since they lost it in 2006 and despite the favorable redistribution this isn’t an area you’d expect to swing to Labor.

  21. Dan I would not be sure of national liberal hold esp minus a sitting mp who was popular enough to be elected as an independent. This implies he had a personal vote of maybe a couple of per cent
    I would expect Labor to hold seats with a plus 3% margin. This seat has been marginal except once.

  22. I agree more with daniel, Russell Northe achieved a 10%+ swing in 2010 which was a time when Labor was on the decline.

    Even though 2018 is probably going to see a better labor result than 2010, I believe the overlapping federal seat of Monash swung to the Liberals agajnst the national trend.

  23. Correction, I looked at the federal results and Monash did swing 3% to Labor so it was only Latrobe that recorded a swing to the coalition.

  24. Most of Morwell is in Gippsland. Mr Chester gets a personal vote.. I think minus personal votes this seat which now includes nearly all the la trobe Valley is naturally marginal.. look who too is the Alp candidate..

  25. https://www.tallyroom.com.au/vic2022/morwell2022/comment-page-1#comment-776176

    The ALP narrowly lost Morwell in 2006 was probably due to the freshly ex-ALP independent. Russel Northe seems to have been personally popular as well, significantly increasing the Nationals` vote compared with 2002 in 2006 and getting a big swing in 2010. Northe only narrowly won in 2014 as a Nat and in 2018 as an independent. The Coalition actually lost the 2PP in Morwell to the ALP in 2018, so they already had to make up ground before the redivision favoured the ALP and the polls are not showing the kind of swing the Coalition need to regain Morwell.

  26. Russel Northe won Morwell in 2018 with only 19.56% of the primary vote. I wonder if this is the lowest primary vote to win a seat.

  27. In 1972 federal election, Arthur Hewson (Country Party) won McMillan with 16.6% of the primary vote.

  28. Morwell seems to be a seat that moves to the beat of its own drum, suggesting local issues are much more important than the overall swing.

    It swung TO Labor in 1992 during the Kennett landslide, then had a big swing away from Labor in 2002 when the rest of the state went strongly the other way.

    The closure of Loy Yang will be a hard sell locally and will hurt Labor IMHO. Could be another election where the swing in Morwell is out of step with the result overall.

  29. James,
    Ricky Muir must still be scratching his head, after seeing the seat go to a bloke with a piddling 19.56% vote.

  30. Phil/James, in line with what Watson has mentioned – this issue of candidates winning with low votes only happens when at least 2 or more candidates from the same side of the political spectrum run and split the vote. Effectively Northe as a conservative independent was also competing with both Liberal and National opponents who also polled 15-20%.

    Like Arthur Hewson in McMillan, the preferential voting system ensured the seat remained in conservative hands as the right side of the political spectrum polled >45% combined in comparison to Labor who only won <40% vote. This is also true for seats like Richmond where it is the left vote that is split.

  32. Labor might be able to get one or two more wins here but after that I would expect the electorate to stay with the LNP.

  33. That a candidate wins a HOR/LA seat with a low primary is not an “issue”. Morwell 2018 and McMillan 1972 were the system working as intended, and electing the candidate that best fit the vote.

  35. James, watson watch
    the lowest primary vote to win a seat in a single member electorate is Councillor Malcolm Ritchie Domain Ward Melbourne City Council 1996. Something in the order of 12- 13%%.

  36. ABC is reporting that the incumbent Independent MP has been charged by IBAC for a number of corruption offences including falsification of records and misconduct in public office, what it exactly involves isn’t really clear.

    Not sure what impact this would have on the results – if any – considering he isn’t running again. This seat, like a few others in regional Vic seems to swing to its own rhythm, often totally contradictory to the rest of the state, so I assume local issues will play a big influence here.

  37. I’m guessing this is more likely to be a Labor hold now after the announcement of re-establishing the SEC and basing it in Morwell to counter the job losses from AGL’s plant closure?

  38. I am confident of an alp win here because. Moe has been moved into this seat and improves the alp vote. The alp candidate is Christine Maxfield who is related(wife?) To the previous alp member for the adjoining seat of Nacarran. She has also contested the Federal seat of Gippsland so she is known in the area

  39. State Libs have been Quiet about the announcement saying they will announce their plan soon probably don’t want to been as climate sceptics.

  41. The big question in this electorate is what minor right wing parties run. Should ON and the UAP run they will probably direct their preferences to the Coalition in some form. This is prime ON territory and if they had the right candidate they could be in the running. With the SEC announcement, Daniel Andrews is basically terminating a lot of power station workers a few years earlier than they had anticipated and replacing them with office workers. It is all so transparently cynical.

  44. The SEC proposal is a public/private partnership that has never worked in the civil space. It’s a proposal that will age quite poorly as journalists and energy experts start picking it apart.

    It also won’t result in lower costs. Queensland is a perfect example of that.

  45. @Redistributed Agreed.

    With the Libs proposal for a new Ballarat hospital as well, this could be shaping up to be similar to the 1999 election in some ways.

    Daniel Andrews has been an incredibly mediocre premier, and I’m putting that lightly.

  47. Entrepreneur, Mick appears to be a registered Labor Party member and advocates for the ALP side frequently – hence he appears to say that many Labor candidates are ‘excellent’ without much research.

  48. @Yoh An

    Yeah I’ve noticed that with a couple of commenters on here. They’re aggressively pro-Andrews/Labor without much reasoning behind it.

    Most Victorian Labor MPs are far from excellent and have only really held positions in unions. They’re not qualified to be dealing with portfolios in health or small business.

  49. @Mark take a trip to parliament and watch the speeches. Such a low standard of public speaking its embarassing.

    Meanwhile this seat gets more interesting with Tracie Lund now running as an independent. She is the 4th viable candidate in the race alongside ALP, Nats, Libs.

  50. @Entrepreneur : Tracey Lund also ran in 2014 and 2018. She polled 10% in 2014, then 2% in 2018. Not too sure how she’ll make such an improvement?

    Just looking at the candidates who have already announced they’re running, looks like an increasingly crowded field once again in Morwell.

    I honestly have no clue who will win this seat, it swings to its own beat – often completely contradictory to the rest of the state.

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