ALP 3.2%
Incumbent MP
Dustin Halse, since 2018.
Geography
Eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Ringwood takes in the suburbs of Heathmont, Mitcham, Ringwood, Ringwood East and parts of Blackburn, Blackburn North, Croydon, Donvale and Nunawading.
Redistribution
Ringwood shifted south, losing Ringwood North to X and gaining part of Blackburn from Box Hill, Heathmont from Bayswater and a small area from Forest Hill. These changes increased the Labor margin from 2.8% to 3.2%.
History
Ringwood was a new name for the seat of Mitcham when it was restored in 2014.
Ringwood previously existed from 1958 to 1992. It was held by the Liberal Party from 1958 to 1982, and by Labor for a decade before its abolition.
Mitcham existed from 1967 until 2014. It was a marginal electorate for most of that time, alternating between the Labor Party and Liberal Party.
Mitcham was first won in 1967 by the Liberal Party’s Dorothy Goble. She held the seat until her retirement in 1976.
Mitcham was won in 1976 by George Cox, also of the Liberal Party. He held the seat for two terms, but was defeated in 1982. He later went on to hold the seat of Nunawading from 1988 to 1996.
Cox was defeated in 1982 by John Harrowfield. He served as a minister in the Kirner government from 1991 to 1992, when he lost his seat, and the government lost power.
Harrowfield was defeated in 1992 by Roger Pescott. He had previously served as Member for Bennettswood since 1985.
Pescott was re-elected in 1996, but in 1997 he resigned from Parliament, triggering a by-election. The ensuing by-election was won by the ALP’s Tony Robinson with a 16% swing.
Robinson was re-elected narrowly in 1999 with a 0.5% margin. He increased that to a 7.8% margin in 2002, before it was reduced to a 2% margin in 2006. In 2010, Mitcham was won by Liberal candidate Dee Ryall, with a 4.7% swing. Ryall was re-elected as member for Ringwood in 2014.
Ryall was defeated in 2018 by Labor candidate Dustin Halse.
Candidates
Sitting Labor MP Dustin Halse is not running for re-election.
- Gary Ryan (Democratic Labour)
- Will Fowles (Labor)
- Robyn M. Siemer (Freedom Party)
- Cynthia Watson (Liberal)
- Reuben Steen (Greens)
- Richard Griffith-Jones (Family First)
- Nick Rowe (Animal Justice)
Assessment
Ringwood is a marginal seat and is the kind of seat Labor will need to hold if they are to retain their majority.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Dee Ryall | Liberal | 15,883 | 44.2 | -3.9 | 43.6 |
| Dustin Halse | Labor | 15,121 | 42.1 | +9.6 | 42.6 |
| Robert Humphreys | Greens | 4,926 | 13.7 | +3.0 | 13.4 |
| Others | 0.5 | ||||
| Informal | 1,958 | 5.2 | +0.8 |
2018 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Dustin Halse | Labor | 18,978 | 52.8 | +7.9 | 53.2 |
| Dee Ryall | Liberal | 16,952 | 47.2 | -7.9 | 46.8 |
Booths have been divided into four areas: central, north-east, south-east and west.
Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all four areas, ranging from 54.7% in the south-east to 57.2% in the west. Labor won the special votes more narrowly.
The Greens came third, with a consistent vote across the seat between 12.8% and 13.5%.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| West | 13.5 | 57.2 | 8,912 | 20.0 |
| South-East | 12.8 | 54.7 | 8,604 | 19.3 |
| Central | 13.1 | 55.4 | 5,287 | 11.9 |
| North-East | 13.2 | 55.0 | 2,538 | 5.7 |
| Pre-poll | 13.2 | 51.0 | 12,272 | 27.5 |
| Other votes | 14.5 | 51.0 | 6,939 | 15.6 |
Election results in Ringwood at the 2018 Victorian state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, Labor and the Greens.
Dustin Halse is retiring so with the lack of his personally vote the LNP could gain this seat, however the margin is big enough for ALP to have a bit of a swing against them so there is a real possibility of them holding on.
Bob
Not sure how much personal vote that Dustin Halse has built up in one term. Will Fowles the current member for Burwood has been dropped in by the ALP.
This is now my seat – I am not called Redistributed for nothing!! – both sides have been very quiet since the redistribution.
There have been some ructions on the Liberal side. See link below.
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/unelectable-victorian-liberals-seek-to-dump-mormon-candidate-20220110-p59n1g.html
The Liberal candidate is not particularly great, however Will Fowles doesn’t have the best reputation after the Canberra incident. Parachuting someone from outside the electorate won’t look good but the Liberal candidate also isn’t a local which will hurt them. Still possible Liberal gain.
Both parties preselected parachuted duds here. Goes to show how both parties really need to improve their preselection process. I doubt this will be a Lib gain though since the Labor margin here is higher than other nearby Eastern suburb seats so the Libs would likely be focusing on those with Ringwood being a bonus if things are going their way. The federal election results here also weren’t pretty for the Libs.
There are some real dud candidates here, the Labor and Liberal candidates both don’t even live in this electorate. The Labor MP (from Burwood) has a patchy record after a previous incident and the Liberal candidate is a right-wing religious conservative who is originally a councillor from Boroondara. There’s an interesting read on The Age about her connections to the far-right extremist Neil Erikson too.
Possible Liberal gain but I’d say this leans Labor considering the federal results around the Ringwood area which almost every booth was won by Labor.
Given the “dud candidates”, is there a place for an independent to run here?
I would say no as Ringwood is a mid ring suburb where independents usually run dead. Both candidates are uninspiring but the liberal one more so, Labor will mostly like hold on here.
Depending on who the Greens field they could get quite a big swing towards them as they did very well through here federally.
Labor have announced a huge expansion (basically a total rebuild) of the Maroondah Hospital. It will be renamed the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital, which will be very popular in this electorate. Roy Mogan poll shows 60-40 support for monarchy – Ringwood is not Brunswick. This move will be extremely popular.
The Maroondah Hospital rebuild will certainly be popular. However, the renaming would be controversial but it’s not going to be something the Libs can capitalise on since they are a lot more pro-monarchist.
I now live in Ringwood but Labor have not cottoned on that we have been redistributed from Box Hill. We have had two pieces of ‘campaign’ literature both featuring Paul Hamer from Box Hill. At least the one piece of Liberal literature was for Ringwood. A bigger Maroondah hospital will be close to Box Hill. In the next term, a downgrading or closure of the William Angliss at Ferntree Gully might be announced.
Labor are just reacting to the Libs focus on health. Dan refused to touch health with a 10-foot pole only a couple months ago.
I think there will be more than enough people that will reach the conclusion of Labor having been in for 17 of the last 21 years, and ask the question as to why health keeps getting worse.
Andrews himself was health secretary from 2002-06 and health minister from 2007-10.
Finally, his Maroondah hospital promise was made at the 2018 election and he did nothing (like with many other promises he made 4/8 years ago).
Really cannot see how Labor’s vote grows, especially when health is considered.
Will be interesting to see if Labor manages to hold this seat… both parties desperately want to hold this seat. Any thoughts?
I would say due to the retributions and demographic changes through Labor will hold with a swing towards them.
What demographic changes are occurring here? @Bob
This seat is a certain one that won’t leave Labor’s fold. If the Libs can’t win Box Hill, they won’t win this. Their candidate is too much of a dud and has too much baggage on top of being parachuted in and admitting she won’t move in even if she gets elected even though the Labor candidate isn’t great either.
I would have thought Ringwood would fall before Box Hill, particularly given the enormous swings in Box Hill proper at the federal election.
@Nicholas a lot of the swing in Box Hill proper I would say is due to federal factors (i.e. the Coalition’s China stance and rhetoric) that may not necessarily completely flow on through at the state level. I still don’t think the Libs will win Box Hill and will likely do even worse than in 2018 there but I would say Ringwood is even more unlikely for the Libs.
Ben, Could you considering releasing the guide on the 1st? We are less than a month away from the election.
As someone who grew up out this way, I’d strongly agree with Nicholas. The Liberals are more likely demographically to win Ringwood before Box Hill.
Nicholas,
Through out Ringwood all the big properties are being turned into apartments and units with the area having a much younger population.
Labor are putting a lot of effort into the Box Hill campaign as are the Libs. The same can’t be said about Ringwood where both campaigns are pretty lacklustre. There is also no incumbent so Labor have no advantage there. The housing replacement in Ringwood seems to be more on the southside which was more Labor territory anyway.
Dan M, I think Libs have a better chance of campaigning in Ringwood rather than Box Hill due to various factors;
– Ringwood is more Anglo and has more of the outer suburbs demographics of Tradies in contrast to Box Hill which is more Chinese (more on that later) and is more educated with a higher rate of Bachelor Degrees
– Chinese voters would still likely swing to Labor (maybe slightly less than the federal results) due to the Vic Libs’ opposition to Belt and Road, anti-China rhetoric still remains, Chinese opposition to the anti-vax movement (can be seen by many Chinese still wear a mask until recently), Labor making some inroads to Chinese voters, Safe Schools no longer being an issue unlike 2018 and SRL (more on that later)
– Libs shelving Suburban Rail Loop could make winning Box Hill even less likely due to effect that might have on House Prices. SRL obviously doesn’t touch Ringwood.
Agree, with comments above. Just a few points below
1. Agree Maroondah is generally a outer suburban demographic of tradies etc. However, half of the seat is in Whitehorse which tends to be more white collar/ethnically diverse especially around Blackburn Lake
2. This has the better Labor parts of Maroondah including Ringwood itself which is a bit more socially mixed and along with Box Hill tends generally to be the strongest parts of the Eastern Suburbs. In Maroondah the strongest areas for the Libs tend to be on the Northern Fringe such as Ringwood North, Warranwood, Croydon Hills etc close to Manningham LGA border. Ringwood North has been removed from the seat.
3. One general exception is that Heathmont is quite affluent and better for the Libs a bit similar to the Vermont area in Whitehorse as it is quite leafy/good views etc
4. I agree Box Hill as a whole will likely swing to Labor. However, along the Western Fringe they maybe a backlash due to the Level crossing removal and the merger of Mont Albert/Surrey Hills station. Although this is the Liberal party and bring an elite area quite different from the rest of the electorate.
@Daniel T, the guide is unlocked now. Will have a blog post in the morning.
Merger of Mont Albert and Surrey Hills stations? Yikes, had not heard about that.
Merger of Mont Albert / Surrey Hills stations (the new Union station) was announced a couple of years ago. That particular job is a case of a job that should have been done probably 30 or 40 years ago, but no one wanted to spend the money. Two fairly dangerous crossings in close proximity, and two stations only about 600m or so apart from platform to platform.
Works are well underway anyway, so doubt it’ll actually generate much backlash beyond what’s already there. Plus, the rail’s going in a trench, so the local Libs can’t even run an anti-skyrail campaign…
Look at map sea of red. 2.8% margin expect 3 % alp seats to stay Labor a swing could come from an increase of green preferences percentage seems lower than I would expect all in.. Labor hold.
Huge monarch following here? Pretty sure the labour candidate led the charge for the republic referendum back in the day…..
Interested, personally i feel the Outer Eastern Suburbs along with some of the Bayside suburbs/Mornington Peninsula would be some of the strongest areas with support for the monarchy. Evelyn for example will be more pro-monarchy than Ringwood. These days there is more support for the monarchy than in 1999 so the renaming of the hospital will be popular in all the seats surrounding here even if it causes a backlash in Inner Melbourne.
Labor hold. This will be one of the Liberal’s pre-2018 election seats that won’t go back. Methinks the anti-Dan sentiment isn’t strong in the eastern suburbs. Also, Labor almost won Deakin at the federal election (mainly due to a surge in the Greens vote).
The Lib candidate’s ties to the religious and far right may come back into the spotlight given what has been revealed about some of the other candidates.
The LNP candidate for this seat was extremely poor choice, ALP hold with a increased margin.
LNP did extremely poorly here which has resulted in this seat being safe now
Will Fowles has resigned from the ALP over assault allegations. Interesting if he ends up resigning as an MP and there’s a by-election here. That would truly be the test of whether the Libs can recover in the east. The 7.5% margin is not as safe as it seems.
@Dan M
That’s big news; Fowles (my former Burwood MP) has been controversial in the past with that 2019 Canberra hotel incident.
Labor have lost a second first term MP for Ringwood in a row. Definitely competitive if the Libs can find a decent candidate.
I was surprised that they chose Will in the first place as he was riddle with problems in the first place, unlike Jackson Taylor where he holds his seat purely on personally vote I don’t believe Will has that here. I do believe this electorate is trending Labor but I would say the margin here is rubbery and shouldn’t be taken for granted. Labor’s only hope is that the LNP keep infighting.
It is hard to say if Ringwood is trending Labor or not. In the old seat of Mitcham that covered much of Ringwood, the Labor 2pp vote was just higher in 2002 than now. Compared to 2002, there is a lot more higher density housing and the non Anglo population is much bigger, but there have also been lots of knock downs and rebuilds of bigger houses so that may balance the demographics out. It is a classic marginal seat without much community of interest from one end to the other. In a byelection, I think both Liberals and Greens could feast on the Labor vote with the right candidates.
From what we can see, Will Fowles has been hung out to dry by Daniel Andrews and won’t be the Labor candidate in 2026. Unless it does get criminal and there is a forced resignation, something tells me that Will Fowles will not spit the dummy and walk out and cause a by election. Though if I was the Libs, I would be scouting around and looking for the right candidate.
Can a by-election be triggered if Will Fowles gets charged or convicted?
Dan, a similar situation occurred in NSW with embattled ex Liberal MP for Kiama Gareth Ward. He was charged with sexual assault offences but was never convicted. Applying that principle will mean Will Fowles should be ok to stay on as MP unless he is actually convicted of the crimes/offences that he has been charged with.
Dan he would need to be convicted
I’m surprised how little public attention this has received but regardless Will has had all charges dropped. I suspect he’ll retire at the next state election with Labor holding here.
Will Fowles is my local MP. He is totally invisible. His web site calls him an independent – I suppose he has no choice – but there is nothing to suggest that he is anything but a supporter of the Allan government. Maybe he hopes that he still might be let back in. He is basically warming the seat until 2026. There is no doubt he was badly treated by both Andrews and Allan but even so – as a local I feel bereft of representaion.