ALP 5.8% vs GRN
Incumbent MP
Richard Wynne, since 1999.
Geography
Inner Melbourne. Richmond covers most of the City of Yarra, covering the suburbs of Abbotsford, Burnley, Clifton Hill, Collingwood, Fitzroy and Richmond.
Redistribution
Richmond lost Fitzroy North to Brunswick. This increased the Labor margin from 5.5% to 5.8%.
History
Richmond was first created as a two-member district in the first Victorian Legislative Assembly in 1856. Both seats were held by unaligned members until 1889, when one of the two seats was won by the ALP.
In 1904, Richmond became a single-member district. It was first won by unaligned member George Bennett, who had been one of the two members for Richmond since 1889.
In 1908, the ALP’s Edmond Cotter won Richmond. He held it continuously from 1908 until 1945. In 1945, Richmond was won by Stan Keon, who left in 1949 to take the federal electorate of Yarra. He went on to be expelled from the Labor Party in 1955 and helped found the Democratic Labor Party.
In 1949, Richmond was won by Frank Scully, also of the ALP. He served as an assistant minister in the Cain government until 1955, when he left the ALP as part of the split that saw the creation of the Democratic Labor Party. He won re-election in Richmond in 1955 and became leader of the DLP in the Victorian Parliament from 1955 to 1958, when he lost the seat to the ALP’s Bill Towers. The ALP has held the seat ever since.
Towers held the seat until 1962, when he was succeeded by Clyde Holding. Holding became leader of the Victorian ALP from 1967, losing the 1970, 1973 and 1976 elections. In 1977 he moved to the federal seat of Melbourne Ports, and served as a minister in the Hawke government, and retired in 1998.
Richmond was held from 1977 to 1988 by Theo Sidiropoulos, and was won in 1988 by Demetri Dollis. In 1999, Dollis was disendorsed by Labor leader Steve Bracks, and was replaced by former Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Richard Wynne.
Wynne served in a variety of frontbench roles in the Bracks and Brumby governments.
Wynne has faced numerous serious challenges for his seat from the Greens over the last two decades. In 2010, Wynne’s primary vote dropped by 9%, and would have likely lost the seat to the Greens barring a decision by the Liberal Party to preference Labor over the Greens. Wynne suffered a further swing in 2014, but managed to win a fifth term. Wynne strengthened his margin in 2018, when the Liberal Party decided to not contest the seat.
Candidates
Sitting Labor MP Richard Wynne is not running for re-election.
- Lis Viggers (Animal Justice)
- Roz Ward (Victorian Socialists)
- Meca Ho (Independent)
- Jeremy Cowen (Reason)
- Gabrielle de Vietri (Greens)
- Lucas Moon (Liberal)
- Markus Freiverts (Family First)
- Lauren O’Dwyer (Labor)
Assessment
The Greens have made serious challenges for Richmond multiple times over the last two decades. The retirement of the sitting member may open up another opportunity for a Greens challenge.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Richard Wynne | Labor | 19,705 | 44.4 | +11.1 | 44.2 |
| Kathleen Maltzahn | Greens | 15,197 | 34.2 | +2.8 | 33.6 |
| Kevin Quoc Tran | Independent | 2,698 | 6.1 | +6.1 | 6.7 |
| Judy Ryan | Reason | 2,916 | 6.6 | +3.2 | 6.5 |
| Herschel Landes | Independent | 1,340 | 3.0 | +3.0 | 3.2 |
| Craig Kealy | Animal Justice | 1,268 | 2.9 | +1.4 | 2.9 |
| Emma Manning | Independent | 811 | 1.8 | +1.8 | 2.0 |
| Adrian Whitehead | Independent | 459 | 1.0 | +1.0 | 1.0 |
| Informal | 2,783 | 5.9 | +2.2 |
2018 two-candidate-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Richard Wynne | Labor | 24,620 | 55.5 | +3.6 | 55.8 |
| Kathleen Maltzahn | Greens | 19,774 | 44.5 | -3.6 | 44.2 |
Booths have been divided into three areas: central, north and south.
Labor won a majority of the two-candidate-preferred vote (vs the Greens) in all three areas, ranging from 52.4% in the centre to 62.2% in the south.
| Voter group | IND prim % | ALP 2CP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| South | 14.7 | 62.2 | 8,537 | 22.0 |
| Central | 8.0 | 52.4 | 5,982 | 15.4 |
| North | 6.5 | 56.9 | 3,154 | 8.1 |
| Pre-poll | 14.4 | 55.3 | 13,999 | 36.1 |
| Other votes | 14.6 | 51.3 | 7,140 | 18.4 |
Election results in Richmond at the 2018 Victorian state election
Toggle between two-candidate-preferred votes (Labor vs Greens) and primary votes for Labor, the Greens and independent candidates.
We just don’t know..last election
Labor was going to lose her up to the last minute
The Lydia Thorpe controversy may hurt they greens.. will liberal voters ignore the office htv and vote on the basis of their ideology
Liberal HTV has them preferencing Labor above the Greens. Can’t post the link but look at Simon Love from sky news twitter account.
Woah! Perhaps not so surprising in hindsight. Makes me wonder if they’ll go back on their word in Prahran, Northcote, etc.
Lib Richmond Candidate’s HTV on the website has GRN 6, LAB 8.https://vic.liberal.org.au/team/lucas-moon
Fake news from Twitter or did the Liberals change their HTV card?
There was a statement released by the Liberals regarding it so definitely real.
Lib candidate went back to preferencing Greens higher
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/liberal-candidate-preferences-labor-over-greens-in-key-seat-before-backflip-20221114-p5bxyh.html
There were news reports last weeks that the Lib candidate was being harassed by the Council (Greens controlled) for campaigning outside a market. Both the ALP and Reason came to the Libs defence saying they had campaigned at the same place with no issue. Payback perhaps …
You know what’s weirder than the Liberals putting the Greens above Labor? The Liberals putting the Victorian Socialists above Labor.
Labor’s candidate Lauren O’Dwyer is in the news again. This time ABC’s Indigenous Affairs Reporter Jeddh Costa reporting that relatives of O’Dwyer “their family has no Indigenous ancestry and has never identified as Aboriginal”
Yorta Yorta Nation Aboriginal Corporation saying they looked at her genealogy and there is nobody of the Berry family group within the Yorta Yorta genealogical line
Considering this has been an issue since the start of the campaign, one would have expected O’Dwyer and Victorian Labor to have put this issue to bed long ago.
Well, claiming you’re indigenous when you aren’t really is obviously not ok. Though in O’Dwyer’s defence there’s also the valid point that proving someone’s indigenous heritage via a paper trail can be misleading – there are plenty of families who get into fights with the local land council about whether they are really indigenous or not.
Also worth a mention that no one in Jacqui Lambie’s family is indigenous either if you ask the Tasmanian Aboriginal community, and they get pretty pissed off when she claims it regardless… Yet it doesn’t seem to have hurt her career.
At any rate, this seat is a Greens pickup no matter whether O’Dwyer shoots herself in the foot or not.
This seat is currently not held by the greens so they need to win it off Labor. Suspect alp hold.
Liberal preferences an issue here
The Labor vote surged in 2018 because Liberal voters had no Liberal candidate to vote for. I suspect that many Liberal voters are used to putting Labor ahead of the Greens and will do so at this election.
The Greens primary vote in Richmond has been going up and up since 2006. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Greens beat Labor on primaries like in Brunswick and Melbourne.
Surly how O’Dwyer identifies is a matter for her?
What right does her family or a corporation have to say whether or not someone is indigenous? Many families have “hidden the taint” or made up stories about a “Spanish Sailer” impregnating a local girl to “explain” the dark skin and curly hair. Hence there is no historic paper work and no historic identification as aboriginal. We haven’t always been as enlightened as we are as today.
On a similar vein, who is the “Tasmanian Aboriginal community”?
Suspect what drives them crazy is that JL has been elected and they haven’t……
@Pollster sorry but this whole “identify how you wish” has to go.
Lauren is faking her aboriginal status for votes. I’d believe the Yorta Yorta Nation Aboriginal Corporation, who says she has no link to the tribe, over her.
I hope this costs her the seat, and I hope Dan is grilled on it just as much as Matthew Guy has been.
The issue is surely is the alp or
The green party candidate the best candidate. What positive
Policies can each bring to the parliament. The question of her
Possible aboriginal inheritance
Based on her great great grandfather is not a major issue but a beat up
I was born 1955 my great grandfather in 1864..we never met as he died in 1947.. a tenuous link. Indeed
@Pollster
The Tasmanian Aboriginal Community (actually I think the C is officially Corporation), usually called the TAC, are the indigenous land council for Tasmania and represent the community as a whole on an official level, as do the various land councils in Victoria.
Labor have shot themselves in the foot here, I expect this not play in their favour at all.
@Pollster, no, how O’Dwyer identifies ethnically is not simply a matter for her. We should all respect how people identify in terms of sexuality and gender, but race and ethnicity are things that people cannot just decide for themselves, and they should not be inauthentically appropriated for political gain.
O’Dwyer has presented a particular identity to the electorate, having described herself as being a proud Yorta Yorta woman multiple times in political ads. If she is mistaken, then why should people trust someone who gave them falsehoods to make decisions on their behalf? If she is telling the truth, why does she stress her identity when campaigning when she has so little connection to the culture that the community don’t know her? It comes across as more of a sales tactic than a heartfelt connection to a culture.
Fraudulently claiming indigenous status to collect politically correct brownie points is a matter that deserves media investigation. 60 Minutes and The Age should be doing an expose of this sort of thing rather than bullying obscure rural churches.
The takeover of one of Australia’s major parties by fundamentalists is a bit more severe than “bullying obscure rural churches”.
Based on the comments above, nobody has addressed the fundamental point I was trying to make: Who decides “aboriginality” and more importantly, on what basis?
My view is very much the same as MQ’s. Doesn’t matter about her background – you can’t decide your parents – what are her policies?
Having lived in Fitzroy / Collingwood through its gentrification I suspect that the voters will elect a green over labor as the greens reflect the values of the voters more adequately than labor.
We will see on Saturday.
Cheers,
Pollster
@Expat how does 1 candidate equal a takeover? Not to mention that the word “fundamentalist” is a loaded and hateful term.
It’s not just one candidate – it’s a very well-documented movement that has been discussed widely in the media, where the “dominion theology” churches are attempting a concerted takeover of mainstream conservative parties. Mornington candidate Chris Crewther is another potentially problem waiting to happen in this regard.
But also, I know the Heath family personally (or at least, I used to), being originally from Sale myself. I had a bit to do with Brian Heath back in the late 90s.
The reason Guy ultimately had no choice but to disendorse her, is that their church undertake “pray away the gay” sessions, which are illegal under Victorian law.
In their church, they also (as part of the de-gayification efforts) force gay men to marry women etc – including Brian Heath’s daughter Claire and former son-in-law. In what was an extremely painful experience for them, Claire and her husband eventually cut ties with the church, and she helped him come out of the closet.
Does anybody know why Clifton Hill is so strong for Labor relative to the Greens, compared to nearby areas like Fitzroy North? Yes, there was a big swing to the Greens at the election last year, but it is still one of Labor’s strongest areas, and even in the seat of Richmond, in the state election, Clifton Hill was the strongest Labor booth I believe.
Adam. Clifton Hill is older than the electorate as a whole and has a much proportion of owner occupiers. Possibly that might be the reason. Looking at the Richmond results, it is interesting to see that the Greens outpoll Labor in the areas with high public housing numbers – these used to be rock solid for Labor and helped them hold on.
Adam
Clifton Hill booth is indeed an outlier.
The comparator you offer of North Fitzroy is in another District and has had Bandt as the local member for thirteen years, as well as a popular sophomore member for Brunswick District.
The suburb of Clifton Hill has changed Division federally at just about every federal election since 2007, and Clifton Hill, East of Hoddle street has usually been, both;- outside the ambit of Adam BANDT, and, – exposed to the Darebin Greens branch candidates for the Division of Batman, and since 2019, Cooper. ( & by osmosis, exposed to the neighbouring Northcote ). These have not been happy hunting grounds for Greens
The booth called Collingwood North @ the Clifton Hill primary school has been in Division of Melbourne for ages albeit slipping into Batman on one occasion, & hence didn’t change federal Division this time.
One nearby area, the “Richmond North 110” booth, is almost equally strong for Labor as Clifton Hill with the following Green 2CP; – R.N. 52.6% to C.H. 52.5%. Granted this area doesn’t have the large blocks with established/older families of Clifton Hill
Examining booths to the east of Clifton Hill, the two largest being Alphington and Northcote South. Both seats in this doublet resemble demographics of Clifton Hill, and both are Labor booths with slight swings for and against Labor respectively in 2022.
Alphington Grammar is a “Greek school” with strong attraction in these areas, and Greek heritage was an issue during COVID @ St Basil’s Nursing Home/Aged Care – doubtless Greeks are represented in Clifton Hill which also has proximity to this school.
Long term local Member Richard Wynne lived north of the city and may have built a stronger personal following in the more “far-flung” parts of the District. The Greens candidates have in turn been an unsuccessful MCC lord mayoral 9ticket) candidate, and half-term representative for Langridge ward on the Yarra council
So incumbency, legacy overlapping representatives, candidate residential status, & local issues feed into Clifton Hill warming the hearts of local ALP supporters despite being a Green booth, – but mostly it’s what redistributed said – ironically, as the habit of being continually redistributed is what Clifton Hill is famous for, and keeps it somewhat aloof from the charms of Adam BANDT.
If the Liberals preferenced Labor ahead of the Greens last time, then Labor would have held this seat. Despite retiring member, the Greens Primary increased only be 1.2, the Labor primary in this seat fell by -11.6%, however, in 2018 the Libs did not run a candidate so part of the Labor primary decrease can be explained by that. In many ways, Richmond is similar to South Brisbane both were once DLP strongholds and had a very Irish Catholic influence on the seat which is long gone. If the Libs reverse their preference decision then this seat could be in jeopardy. The liberal primary could go up to around 22% so the Greens need to increase their primary vote to around 41% and the Labor primary needs to fall to around 25% for the Greens to retain this seat without Liberal preferences.