Chisholm – Australia 2016

ALP 1.6%

Incumbent MP
Anna Burke, since 1998.

Geography
Eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Chisholm covers most of the western half of Monash council area and the western half of Whitehorse council area, along with a small part of Kingston council area. Suburbs include Burwood, Burwood East, Oakleigh, Chadstone, Mount Waverley, Box Hill and Mont Albert.

History
Chisholm was created for the expansion of the House of Representatives at the 1949 election. For the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, the seat was relatively safe for the Liberal Party. Boundary changes saw the seat become a marginal seat in the early 1980s, and in the last decade it has firmed up as a relatively safe seat for the ALP.

The seat was first won in Kent Hughes for the Liberal Party. Hughes was a former Deputy Premier of Victoria who had enlisted in the military at the outbreak of the Second World War, and ended up captured as part of the fall of Singapore and spent four years as a prisoner of war before returning to state politics, and moving to Canberra in 1949.

Hughes was chairman of the organising committee for the Melbourne Olympics in 1956, but after the Olympics was dropped from the ministry, and sat on the backbenches until his death in 1970.

Tony Staley won the 1970 by-election for the Liberal Party. He served as a junior minister in the Fraser government from 1976 until his retirement from politics in 1980. He went on to serve as Federal President of the Liberal Party.

The Liberal Party’s Graham Harris held on to Chisholm in 1980, but with a much smaller margin then those won by Hughes or Staley. He was defeated in 1983 by the ALP’s Helen Mayer.

Mayer was re-elected in 1984, but lost the seat in 1987 to the Liberal Party’s Michael Wooldridge. Wooldridge quickly became a senior Liberal frontbencher, and served as Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party from 1993 to 1994. Wooldridge was appointed Minister for Health upon the election of the Howard government in 1996. Wooldridge moved to the safer seat of Casey in 1998, and retired in 2001.

Chisholm was won in 1998 by the ALP’s Anna Burke, who has held the seat ever since. Anna Burke served as Speaker from 2012 to 2013.

Candidates
Sitting Labor MP Anna Burke is not running for re-election.

Assessment
Chisholm is very marginal, and Labor will be hurt by the loss of Anna Burke’s personal vote, but it seems unlikely that there will be a swing to the Coalition in Victoria.

2013 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
John Nguyen Liberal 37,990 44.1 +3.9
Anna Elizabeth Burke Labor 34,015 39.5 -4.8
Josh Fergeus Greens 8,133 9.5 -2.4
Luzio Grossi Sex Party 1,762 2.1 +2.1
Brian Clifford Woods Palmer United Party 1,405 1.6 +1.6
Martin Myszka Family First 949 1.1 -1.6
Pat Shea Democratic Labour Party 860 1.0 +1.0
Melanie Vassiliou Rise Up Australia 650 0.8 +0.8
Vidura Nalin Jayaratne Secular Party 345 0.4 -0.2
Informal 3,802 4.4

2013 two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Anna Elizabeth Burke Labor 44,431 51.6 -4.2
John Nguyen Liberal 41,678 48.4 +4.2
Polling places in Chisholm at the 2013 federal election. Box Hill in orange, Clayton-Oakleigh in red, Mount Waverley in green, North-East in blue. Click to enlarge.
Polling places in Chisholm at the 2013 federal election. Box Hill in orange, Clayton-Oakleigh in red, Mount Waverley in green, North-East in blue. Click to enlarge.

Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into four areas. Polling places in the City of Monash have been divided between Clayton-Oakleigh in the south and Mount Waverley in the north. Booths in the City of Whitehorse have been divided between Box Hill in the west, and “North-East”.

The ALP won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all four areas. Labor won a very slim 50.3% majority in Mount Waverley, slightly larger majorities of almost 52% in Box Hill and the north-east, and a large 60.7% majority in Clayton-Oakleigh.

Voter group GRN % ALP 2PP % Total votes % of votes
Box Hill 10.5 51.9 19,416 22.5
Mount Waverley 8.8 50.3 16,955 19.7
North-East 8.4 51.7 11,041 12.8
Clayton-Oakleigh 10.3 60.7 8,612 10.0
Other votes 9.3 49.5 30,085 34.9
Two-party-preferred votes in Chisholm at the 2013 federal election.
Two-party-preferred votes in Chisholm at the 2013 federal election.
Greens primary votes in Chisholm at the 2013 federal election.
Greens primary votes in Chisholm at the 2013 federal election.

49 COMMENTS

  1. Still a tossup, Burke had a large personal vote. Most of this electorate is Lib leaning in usual circumstances but then again Labor have a reasonable swing maturing and could gain a lot more momentum. The Libs have been working very hard here, so have Labor. Both look like reasonable candidates.

  2. I agree both candidates are very qualified and will do this seat justice. My feeling is that this is Liberal target # 1 and they will be pouring a lot of resources here in the hopes that it bucks the trend.

    We need to see how the statewide swing to Labor shapes up first. The Libs really need to confine the swing to 3 or 4% to keep this particular seat competitive, otherwise they risk being swamped by a statewide tide. Certainly achievable with the more moderate Turnbull at the helm, but we need to see how the election shapes up first.

    Too close to call at this stage but I would put the Libs a smidgen ahead at the moment.

  3. Chisholm overlaps with the state electorates of Box Hill (Lib), Burwood (Lib), Forest Hill (Lib), Mount Waverley (Lib), Oakleigh (ALP) and Clarinda (ALP). With Burwood having the largest overlap and Clarinda the smallest, I’m guessing this would probably have a Liberal majority based on 2014 state results.

  4. This one is far from certain, but I think Labor are ahead. Current polling isn’t looking great for Turnbull in Victoria.

  5. Although that being said Perri does at least have name recognition by being mayor or Monash Council in the southern half of the electorate. Also she did run for the state seat of Box Hill at the 2014 state election which is in the northern half of Chisholm, so she would have a tad more name recognition.

  6. Just on your point David Walsh, whilst Burwood is Liberal-held, it only sits on a ~ 3% or so margin so Labor are at least in theory, competitive there.

    Some additions to my earlier thoughts:

    My prediction is based mainly on the 1998 results with similar boundaries. Even with a dismal statewide vote of 46.5% combined with a messy and some might even say cowardly departure of a sitting MP, Burke only won with a 2.1% margin.

    Now she managed to mitigate future swings, most notably in 2004 when the Libs actually won the 2PP in Victoria but that was after she was already well-established. This is really indicative of just how strong a personal vote she has. I think Labor will find it difficult to overcome the loss of her personal vote.

    As I have said before, if there’s a blowout in Victoria, then it is extremely difficult to see the Libs picking this up. The Libs do not even need to keep the statewide result competitive, just limit it to 53 – 54% Labor’s way and I think they can win on that with a well-resourced, targeted and thoroughly local campaign, which by all indications is the one they are running.

  7. L96
    Mont Albert is in the northwest. From memory it is no less affluent than neighbouring Camberwell. Burke appears to have won this over, & over again.
    This would give even more credence to her personal vote being very high, even 5%. Am i missing something ??.

  8. @WD
    Mont Albert is probably the most affluent part of the seat and I would suggest it would it might swing to the Libs a bit more then they have in the past, if you look at the map the two neighbouring blue 55’s are Mont Albert and Surrey Hills, they are always solid Lib booths.

  9. L96
    Thanks for that. I thought Mont Albert was the 3 pink 52 -58 in the NW corner. Not my city.

  10. W of S
    The Victorian Libs reckon Chisholm is their best chance, so i’ll defer to them. end of story.
    My gut is telling me Mc Ewen still..

  11. L96
    Another question:
    I’d have expected that demographic change was happening quickly here.??
    Older residents moving out, being replaced by younger more affluent, & aspirational ones. ?? Burwood for example

  12. WD
    A lot of these suburbs are quite Asian nowadays. A lot of the suburbs had older whites who are moving on and are cashing in on Middle class asian investment and property prices are going through the roof in the eastern suburbs.
    The demographic change here is mostly due to migration.

  13. L96
    OK. the asians
    Do they vote??. Or is it their children who vote??. How do they vote ?? Do you have any ideas??

  14. It honestly depends on the specific country of origin and where they live, Burmese voters in the West vote Labor, so do Vietnamese in the South East, Chinese voters in the East tend to support the Libs.

  15. L96
    Thanks. Vey intriguing,& thorough response.
    Are the chinese mostly the new ones moving in,more numerously ?? I’D have guessed so.
    Also inSydney, & Brisbane, the ABVs vote very differently from their labor voting parents. Has this happened in Melbourne as well??

  16. @WD
    Chinese voters tend to be the ones moving in, Vietnamese voters are mostly 2nd gen. I suppose most Vietnamese voters came here with nothing and are now solidly Labor, whilst Chinese voters are coming here to expand on wealth opportunities. It’s a mixture of cultural views and economic situation

  17. L96
    So Victorian ABVs are different !!!. “Yankee” ABVs are generally somewhat embarrassed by their parents (as are we all !!!). Their political views usually diametrically opposed, to the point of not being able to have any political discussion with the oldies. No i can’t talk about anything like THAT with them !!
    The parents are quite often card carrying members of the ALP!!, & view their children’s views about politics ( & many other things) with complete horror !!!. Traitors to the cause , if not the country seems to be the position .
    I find this very funny, & hugely ironic

  18. Kroger was on PM live Sunday. PM asked him where the libs were spending the most money. Kroger answered Chisholm, & Bruce. This would indicate that the libs are very confident of 2 things
    1/ they are fairly secure in their own marginals
    2/ that they think these 2 are more than winnable.

  20. DW
    Do you really think Kroger lacks the hard headed pragmatism his position demands ??
    FWIW I don’t for a second.

  22. Yes he’s not going to give away the liberal party’s strategy on national TV. Its like when parties ‘leak’ polling to pretend they have a shot in a seat they definitely don’t

  23. Seats like this and Bruce are going to be what kills Labor if they give the Coalition a real fright on election night and start picking up seats in NSW and Qld and then inevitably WA. Labor realistically wouldn’t have held them both last election had it not been for the popularity of the sitting members so by default we can say it’s the Coalition defending a seat or with the upper hand anyway. There will probably be a small primary swing to the Coalition in these seats and that will be enough to hold them. Labor should stop wasting their time in seats that have bigger margins that they won’t win (like in Qld) and start focusing on these.

  24. F t Bern
    I just couldn’t agree with you more. Especially WRT Chisholm. The coalition really hasn’t done that well in Victoria, in recent elections . There is room for them to improve. Then there is the E-W debacle, which i think will really cut through here.

  25. Community angst about the E-W debacle as you call it is at least as focussed on the Libs as Labor. People remember that Napthine signed contracts locking in compensation just eight weeks ahead of an election he knew he’d lose.

    I reckon only rusted on Libs see it as a negative for Labor.

    Burke would have a personal vote of a few percent, but most expectations have a swing of a few percent to Labot, including in Victoria. I reckon Perri will hold with basically the same margin.

  26. I tend to agree with PJ about the EW Link. It doesn’t have the affect that some people think it will. The only people who care about it are rusted on Libs, most swinging voters couldn’t care less.

  29. My prediction: Anna Burke’s retirement has made an opportunity for the Liberals to get this marginal back. On state figures, this would be a marginal Liberal seat, although the trend is in Labor’s favour nationwide. Too early to call at this stage.

    Given that the Liberal focus is on retaining Dunkley, La Trobe, Deakin and Corangamite, I think Labor will hold here. Expect Chisholm to be a key target in future elections, particularly if the boundaries become more Liberal-friendly.

  30. Anton Kreitzer
    This seat is the only one so far, where i part company with you. I think there are just a couple too many circumstances going the way of the libs here. They have been very focused on retrieving Chisholm , & have according to them, devoted their resources to this objective
    my prediction the libs by a bee’s dick !!!. & a recount !!.

  31. WD:

    I think it will be close, although at this stage, I can’t see the Liberals taking Chisholm. As I said on my first prediction (Petrie), I’ll revise seats where I’ve changed my mind on Friday.

  32. Shorten apparently came here again yesterday, although most of his time was spent in Liberal marginals.

    One story I saw claimed the Victorian Liberals were asking Turnbull to come back and make another visit, both here and in Bruce…presumably because they felt they were still a chance. .

  33. With all the Vic Liberal marginals seemingly safe (according to the betting markets at least), I guess the Victorian Liberals need something to do, so the obvious next target would be a seat like Chisholm, even if it is unlikely to fall.

  34. MM
    I particularly agree with one of your previous comments WRT to Chisholm.
    That it all depends on whom best connects with the swinging asian voters here. Pretty much everything else cancels each other out.
    Even on a state wise swing of 1.8 % to labor this is line ball. Any tightening will advantage the libs.

  35. The Libs have the donkey vote this time (in Bruce as well).by the time you add on the retirements of the local members, the adjusted notional margin for the Libs is 1.1% in Chisholm and 0.7% in Bruce. Given how the CFA dispute planning out, these are now slipping from the ALP’s grasp.

    I’m of the view that Chisholm, Batman, JagaJaga, Bruce, Bendigo and Melbourne Ports are now all in play. Something I never would have thought (except Melbourne Ports and Batman) two weeks ago.

  36. @Sandbelter are you a Melbournian yourself? If so, give us your perspective on the ground game for both parties in Melbourne. Are the Libs really *that* competitive in some of those seats?

  37. The problem the Libs have is their Victorian breach is so neglected they don’t have the resources to throw at these seats, this the big thing going for the the ALP here. If it was NSW or Qld I’d be more confident about predicting the swing being translated into seats being gained. Here the Libs will simply have rely on the tide doing it for them, they simply don’t have the resources to do it for them. BTW can you actually name a nationally know LNP cabinet members that’s Victorian…that’s how thin the talent is on the ground.

    I sense listening to by contacts that Victorians have had a gutful of both political parties, and have done so since the mid 1990’s. This is compounded by electoral boundaries that marginalise Victoria in a federal election. The truest words ‘I’ve ever heard was a one liner from the state government that the Federal government doesn’t know where Victoria is. Hence were seeing in Vic safe ALP and LNP seats being hollowed out by the Greens and independents as cynicism toward the two major parties grows, which makes for quite “interesting” outcomes in Vic…especially in the Senate.

    I was educated in Victoria, but spent a long time in Sydney (Bronte to be precise) returned to Vic, travel a lot to WA and Qld and Sydney with my business where your more likely to find me than in Vic, so another move is in the offing.

  38. Labor will hold this, they’ve even moved some resources away from here. Labor are pretty confident of retaining here, Bruce, Jagajaga, McEwen and Bendigo. Many in Labor think Batman is a coin toss. They are worried about Melbourne Ports, and aren’t too happy with Danby over his personal how to vote card. Labor are also confident in La Trobe and are optimistic about Corangamite.
    In regards to the CFA dispute, it is starting to backfire for the Libs, it isn’t biting with voters.

  39. L96, you are clearly some sort of Labor insider. Does your polling in Bruce, McEwen and Melbourne Ports match the publicly released polls? Just curious.

  41. Today at the National Press Club, Turnbull gave a shoutout to Banks in this seat. I think this is a subtle indication that the Libs believe that this is truly a winnable seat for them – you don’t draw attention to a candidate and seat you think your going to lose, that would be a terrible look and embarrassment afterwards.

    Interestingly, the other shoutout he gave was to Ned Mannoun in Werriwa.

    Thoughts?

  43. “It’s going to be so tight, don’t risk a protest vote……but yeah nah, we’re totally going to win seats of Labor”

    Not sure this is the right message for Turnbull to be sending at this stage.

  45. In Vic Labor will hold their current marginals….. the question is can they win any of the 4 marginal lib held seats……. expect at least 1 of 4

  46. Anna Burke only won this seat in the last election due to preferences! There was a 4.6% swing against her and almost 4000 people voted for the Liberal candidate rather than her/Labor. Crazy system.

    Ask people if they want their first preference or 5/6 preference to decide who gets in and I know what they’ll say.

  47. The swing to the Liberals here was generally in the better Liberal areas, reflecting the loss of Anna Burke’s personal vote. Areas like Surrey Hills, Elgar Park, and Mont Albert now have 2PP margins around where you’d expect them to be (60% ish), while most of the Waverley booths are now on the Liberal side of the ledger.

    I’d expect postals to flip this back to the Liberals, making this their only gain from Labor (unless Melbourne Ports pulls something funny).

  49. l found your comments interesting, just to give you some incite as a voter in Chisholm (mt waverley).up to the election l was unaware the seat was targeted by libs or was so close ? yes we did get several recorded phone calls from Malcolm which became annoying towards the end and just the odd flyer from labor.
    Yes agree big influx over last 5 years of rich conservative chinese has helped libs.
    retirement of anna is a big negative for labor as she was well known and liked . Also the new labor candidate Perri was former council Mayor and not that popular with some voters for this reason. The Lib candidate was unknown and had little presence.

    just for the record, l voted other (protest vote) while my wife voted Lib

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here