LIB 8.2%
Incumbent MP
Alan Tudge, since 2010.
Geography
Eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Aston lies entirely within Knox local government areas, covering all of Knox council with the exception of some parts in the north east. Suburbs include Bayswater, Boronia, Knoxfield, Scoresby, Wantirna and Rowville.
History
Aston was first created as part of the expansion of the House of Representatives in 1984, and has always been a marginal seat, although the seat has been consistently held by the Liberal Party for the last two decade and the Liberals pushed the seat out of ‘marginal seat’ territory at the 2004 election.
Aston was first won in 1984 by ALP candidate John Saunderson, who had previously been elected to Deakin at the 1983 election. Saunderson held on with a smaller margin in 1987 before losing with a 7% swing at the 1990 election.
The seat was won in 1990 by Peter Nugent (LIB). Nugent was known as a moderate Liberal who supported human rights issues. He was reelected with a slim margin in 1993 and pushed his margin out to almost 6% in 1996, and was re-elected again in 1998. Nugent died in April 2001 of a heart attack, triggering the Aston by-election.
The Howard government was not performing strongly in the first half of 2001, having seen disastrous results in state elections in Queensland and Western Australia and the loss of the blue-ribbon Brisbane seat of Ryan in another federal by-election.
The Liberal Party’s candidate, Chris Pearce, managed to hold on with 50.6% of the vote, limiting the anti-Liberal swing to 3.7%, which was seen as a strong result for the government, and the beginning of the turnaround which saw the Howard government returned at the 2001 election.
Pearce was reelected with just over 56% in 2001, and pushed his margin to over 63% in 2004, the largest victory margin in Aston’s history. Pearce was again re-elected in 2007, although his margin was cut to 5%.
In 2010, Pearce retired and the Liberal Party’s Alan Tudge won the seat with a reduced margin. The ALP gained a 3.3% swing, reducing the margin to 1.8%. Tudge was re-elected in 2013, increasing his margin with a 7.5% swing.
Candidates
- Steve Raymond (Greens)
- Daniel Martin (Family First)
- Daniel Huppert (Independent)
- Joel Moore (Liberal Democrats)
- Rosemary Lavin (Animal Justice)
- Alan Tudge (Liberal)
- Paul Klisaris (Labor)
Assessment
The Liberal Party is unlikely to be in serious trouble in Aston.
2013 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Alan Tudge | Liberal | 44,030 | 51.6 | +6.0 |
| Rupert Evans | Labor | 27,850 | 32.6 | -6.7 |
| Steve Raymond | Greens | 5,017 | 5.9 | -3.9 |
| Bradley Walter Watt | Palmer United Party | 3,206 | 3.8 | +3.8 |
| Tony Foster | Family First | 2,362 | 2.8 | -1.9 |
| Charity Jenkins | Sex Party | 2,295 | 2.7 | +2.2 |
| Jennifer Speer | Rise Up Australia | 581 | 0.7 | +0.7 |
| Informal | 4,047 | 4.7 |
2013 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Alan Tudge | Liberal | 49,672 | 58.2 | +7.5 |
| Rupert Evans | Labor | 35,669 | 41.8 | -7.5 |
Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into four areas: Central, South, North East and North West.
The Liberal Party won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all four areas, ranging from 51.5% in the north-east to 60.1% in the north-west.
| Voter group | GRN % | LIB 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| South | 4.1 | 59.9 | 18,517 | 21.7 |
| North-East | 7.8 | 51.5 | 15,130 | 17.7 |
| Central | 5.8 | 55.9 | 13,674 | 16.0 |
| North-West | 5.9 | 60.1 | 9,794 | 11.5 |
| Other votes | 6.0 | 61.2 | 28,226 | 33.1 |
I grew up in this seat..the area certainly has changed a fair bit since I was kid. This used to a typical mortgage belt type seat, but it has become much more established and affluent over the last decade or two. Parts of Wantirna, Rowville and Lysterfield are almost comparable to Wheelers Hill these days.
Areas in the north-east like Bayswater and Boronia have always been less affluent than other parts of Knox, and the Green vote begins to increase as you get closer to the mountains. If the next redistribution pushes Aston further east (as it probably will), the seat would become more competitive for Labor.
It’s true Mark, this is now my current electorate, moving from bayside Issacs a few years ago. Further, Alan Tudge is my current boss, the current occupant of the revolving door of Human Services ministers since 2004.
The area has become the overflow from Glen Waverley and Wheelers Hill, with Wantirna, Scoresby and Rowville all becoming less affordable and more affluent. As Mark says, there is a small pocket to the north which is more industrial and Labor leaning. It would be interesting to see what happens in the next redistribution, although more interesting would be to see what happens to Latrobe when Aston moves into the same areas.
Despite his lack of presence in the electorate, I suspect Tudge will still do well, although the sophomore surge in 2013 probably over represents the vote by a few percentage points.
Where do you live Darren, just out of interest? Like Jeff and Martin, your contributions to redistributions are always a valuable and interesting read.
I think it’s extremely likely that Aston will just gain the rest of Boronia and FTG at the redistribution (or as much of those suburbs as will fit). Both McMillan is well over quota, so I’d suggest Latrobe will simply take in more of Pakenham/Officer if it needed to make any gains.
Mark, I’m in the part of Rowville they now call Lysterfield. Except Google, it’s still Rowville on Google maps.
I haven’t looked at the Vic enrollment figures that closely since the state redivision in 2013, but I imagined that Aston would take up some of the misplaced parts currently in Latrobe. If McMillan needs to lose some, then I would hope Latrobe can drift south to be more Cardinia based.
Please add Daniel Huppert – Independent candidate for the 2016 election for Aston
My prediction: Liberal hold.
Liberals got a swing to them here, continuing the area’s long slow drift to them.
My old booth of Knox Gardens has a margin of 62% Liberal, the equivalent of somewhere like Balwyn or Canterbury. That’s really quite extraordinary.