LIB 10.0%
Incumbent MP
Gary Blackwood, since 2006.
Geography
Eastern Victoria. Narracan covers the Shire of Baw Baw and north-eastern parts of the Cardinia council area. Narracan covers the towns of Warragul, Narracan, and a number of smaller rural towns between Melbourne and the Latrobe Valley.
Redistribution
Narracan lost Moe to Morwell, and gained an unpopulated part of Gembrook. This change increased the Liberal margin from 7.3% to 10.0%.
History
Narracan was first created at the 1967 election. It has been held by the Liberal Party for most of that time, except for the period from 1999 to 2006.
Narracan was first won in 1967 by Liberal minister Jim Balfour, who had previously held the seat of Morwell from 1955 to 1967. He held Narracan until his retirement in 1982, serving as a minister in the Liberal state government until 1977.
Narracan was won in 1982 by John Delzoppo of the Liberal Party. He served in a variety of Opposition frontbench positions during the 1980s, and when the Liberal Party won power in 1992, he was elected Speaker, serving in the role until his retirement in 1996.
In 1996, Narracan was won by Florian Andrighetto, also a Liberal. Andrighetto held the seat for one term, losing Narracan to the ALP’s Ian Maxfield in 1999.
Maxfield held the seat for two terms. He increased his margin to 6.8% in 2002, but a swing of over 9% in 2006 saw him lose to the Liberal Party’s Gary Blackwood.
Gary Blackwood has been re-elected three times.
Candidates
Sitting Liberal MP Gary Blackwood is not running for re-election.
- Michael Abelman (Liberal Democrats)
- Tony Wolfe (Independent)
- Alyssa Weaver (Greens)
- Austin Cram (Animal Justice)
- Sophia De Witt (Democratic Labour)
- Casey Murphy (One Nation)
- Ian Honey (Independent)
- Brendan Clarke (Family First)
- Leonie Blackwell (Freedom Party)
- Wayne Farnham (Liberal)
- Annemarie McCabe (Independent)
Assessment
Narracan is a safe Liberal seat.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Gary Blackwood | Liberal | 23,207 | 51.7 | -3.5 | 55.7 |
| Christine Maxfield | Labor | 15,946 | 35.5 | +6.1 | 31.9 |
| William Hornstra | Greens | 2,679 | 6.0 | -3.0 | 6.0 |
| Carlo Ierfone | Independent | 1,613 | 3.6 | +3.6 | 3.7 |
| Guss Lambden | Independent | 1,425 | 3.2 | +3.2 | 2.8 |
| Informal | 2,559 | 5.4 | +1.2 |
2018 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Gary Blackwood | Liberal | 25,724 | 57.3 | -4.0 | 60.0 |
| Christine Maxfield | Labor | 19,203 | 42.7 | +4.0 | 40.0 |
Booths have been divided into four areas: Warragul, central, north and west.
The Liberal Party won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all four areas, ranging from 55.5% in Warragul to 62.8% in the north.
| Voter group | LIB 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| Central | 58.3 | 10,398 | 26.6 |
| West | 58.6 | 3,601 | 9.2 |
| Warragul | 55.5 | 3,380 | 8.6 |
| North | 62.8 | 2,138 | 5.5 |
| Pre-poll | 64.9 | 15,661 | 40.0 |
| Other votes | 59.0 | 3,954 | 10.1 |
Election results in Narracan at the 2018 Victorian state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party and Labor.
Dan, Perrottet is not winning the state election simple as that. What has this man got to offer NSW? Absolutely nothing and the reason I wouldn’t ever consider moving to NSW is because of the appalling record of the coalition there.
Labor is winning NSW. it doesn’t matter about the low primary vote. Labor had a low federal primary vote but still won. Coalition could theoretically win if they narrowly lose the TPP but losing it by a landslide. Don’t try to say they can win while down 54-46
Sportsbet is putting the coalition at like 4$ to Labors 1.50. Are these odds enough for any of you? People don’t think the coalition will win.
The Liberal’s holding this seat with 62.75% 2PP of the provisional result.
Up from 10% margin before the 2022 election.
Can’t be said to be “up” on the margin when Labor simply didn’t contest this time. It’s an entirely new margin against an independent.
Will it be independent? Pollbludger thinks it will be the marxist Greens. I still don’t get why people will vote for a party that had someone named Lidia Thrope in it. Who hates european migrants and calls our head of state a coloniser.
I don’t buy that having too many candidates weakens independents because if Victoria has CPV then if you don’t number all the boxes it will he an invalid vote. It would only be NSW where having too many candidates would be an issue. And most of the voters who backed the minors backed the candidate that isn’t the Liberal.
What @Adda said. Margin is meaningless at this by-election.
The 2CP looks like it will be Lib vs Wolfe. He’s narrowly ahead of the Greens on primaries according to the VEC provisional count. Don’t know if they’ll do a full pref throw.
I don’t think the Greens has anyone named “Lidia Thrope” in it, let alone the Marxist Greens. I wonder if she’s related to Lidia Thorpe.
The poor result for the Greens shows that there is no appetite for them even when there is an absence of Labor. They cannot be taken seriously to form a true opposition to the Liberals (let alone be a governing party).
Agree with Daniel T’s sentiment even with Daniel’s poor rebuttals.
Agree with Adda there are some people voting who would have picked labor if they had contested.. This margin is meaningless.. if Labor had contested expect 55/45 against them or better. I am still of the opinion that a good Labor candidate could have won
I too think the Greens result is underwhelming for them, for the record.
Austi Aussie, given you believe a Liberal win in Balmain is quote ‘not out of question,’ the party having preselected a first-year law/comm student at Usyd, I don’t take your opinion with much weight 😉
This seat meets very few of the Greens’ target demographics, being in a regional area and older, whiter, less tertiary educated and with fewer renters than the rest of the state. I don’t understand what expectations people had for the Greens vote here, because simply clearing the percentage required to get their deposit back was probably their measure of success.
The Greens ran second on primary votes at Drouin College, Drouin South, Ellinbank, Garfield, Maryknoll, Nar Nar Goon, Neerim Junction, Neerim South, Trafalgar, Tynong, Warragul, Warragul East and ran third on primary votes in a further 9 booths. I think for Tony & Greens getting above 10% was seen as a marker of success. Neither had the funds to compete with the Liberals and demographics of the seat helped ensure a Greens candidate couldn’t win. There were a lot of white, older voters who were looking for the Liberals or if they were Labor voters they didn’t feel confident about who their next best choice was. If Labor can recruit a well known and well regarded individual from Drouin or Warragul, I can see Labor using those two towns as their base of support and win the seat, despite the inevitable losses in smaller rural booths. Liberals should be very concerned that Wayne got 30% & 32% in the two main Drouin booths and 35%, 36% & 33% in the three main Warragul booths. Liberals primary vote for prepoll was 46%, down by nearly 14%.
E23 you are saying the seat is potentially competitive in the right circumstances with the right candidate. This seats result Was meaningless as Labor did not contest. The demographic changes in country areas of Victoria except the la trobe Valley are all in Labor direction
The la trobe Valley is nearly all in the adjoining seat of Morwell