ALP 11.2%
Incumbent MP
Clare O’Neil, since 2013.
- Geography
- Redistribution
- History
- Candidate summary
- Assessment
- 2019 results
- Booth breakdown
- Results maps
Geography
Southeastern Melbourne. Hotham covers the suburbs of Clarinda, Heatherton, Oakleigh, Huntingdale, Clayton, Mulgrave, Springvale and Noble Park. It covers parts of Kingston, Glen Eira, Greater Dandenong and Monash council areas.
Redistribution
Hotham stretched out further to the east and west, losing its northern fringe. Hotham lost Notting Hill, Wheelers Hill and the remainder of Chadstone to Chisholm, and a small area to Bruce. Hotham gained part of Hughesdale from Higgins, and also gained Springvale, Noble Park and part of Noble Park North from Bruce. These changes made Hotham a lot safer, increasing the Labor margin from 5.9% to 11.2%.
History
Hotham was originally created as a safe Liberal seat, but changes turned it into a safe Labor seat, and the ALP has held it continuously since 1980.
The seat was first won in 1969 by Liberal Party minister Don Chipp. Chipp had previously held the seat of Higinbotham since 1960, but the seat was abolished in 1969.
Chipp served as a minister in the Liberal government until the election of the Whitlam government in 1972. He was briefly included in Malcolm Fraser’s caretaker ministry after the dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975, but was not included in the ministry after the election.
Chipp resigned from the Liberal Party in 1977, and later that year became the leader of the newly-formed Australian Democrats. He was elected as a Senator for Victoria at the 1977 election, and remained in the Senate until his retirement in 1986.
The seat of Hotham was retained by the Liberal Party in 1977, with the seat won by Roger Johnston.
Johnston lost in 1980 to Labor candidate Lewis Kent. Kent held Hotham for the next decade. At the 1990 election, Kent moved to the new seat of Corinella, where he lost to Liberal candidate Russell Broadbent.
Hotham was won by former ACTU president Simon Crean. Crean has held the seat ever since.
Crean immediately entered the ministry upon his election in 1990, and served in the ministry until the Howard government won the 1996 election.
Crean served as a senior Labor frontbencher, and became the party’s deputy leader after the 1998 election. Following Kim Beazley’s defeat at the 2001 election, Crean was elected Leader of the Opposition.
Crean’s leadership was fraught, and he resigned from the leadership in late 2003 without leading the party to an election. He continued to serve in a senior frontbench role, and was appointed Minister for Trade after the election of the Rudd government in 2007.
Crean took on Education Minister when Gillard became Prime Minister in June 2010, and after the 2010 election shifted to take on Arts, Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government.
Simon Crean was sacked as a minister in March 2013 after calling for a leadership spill and calling on Kevin Rudd to challenge Gillard’s leadership. This is the first time in 23 years in Parliament that Crean has not held a frontbench position.
Simon Crean retired in 2013, and was succeeded by Clare O’Neil. O’Neil has been re-elected twice.
Assessment
Hotham is a safe Labor seat.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Clare O’Neil | Labor | 43,310 | 45.2 | +2.1 | 50.8 |
| George Hua | Liberal | 37,447 | 39.1 | -1.3 | 33.3 |
| Jess Gonsalvez | Greens | 8,722 | 9.1 | +0.0 | 8.9 |
| Jin Luan | United Australia Party | 3,483 | 3.6 | +3.6 | 3.7 |
| Dennis Bilic | Sustainable Australia | 1,772 | 1.8 | +1.9 | 1.2 |
| Peter Dorian | Rise Up Australia | 1,134 | 1.2 | -0.4 | 0.8 |
| Others | 1.2 | ||||
| Informal | 3,780 | 3.8 | -0.1 |
2019 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Clare O’Neil | Labor | 53,597 | 55.9 | +1.7 | 61.2 |
| George Hua | Liberal | 42,271 | 44.1 | -1.7 | 38.8 |
Booths have been divided into three areas: north-east, south-west and west.
Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 60.3% in the west to 71.7% in the south-west.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 6.9% in the south-east to 11.5% in the west.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| West | 11.5 | 60.3 | 25,335 | 25.2 |
| South-East | 6.9 | 71.7 | 13,475 | 13.4 |
| North-East | 7.1 | 64.4 | 8,211 | 8.2 |
| Pre-poll | 8.0 | 60.0 | 36,152 | 36.0 |
| Other votes | 9.5 | 55.5 | 17,178 | 17.1 |
Election results in Hotham at the 2019 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor and the Liberal Party.
A much more sensible arrangement than the 2019 version of Hotham, with nearly all of Oakleigh, Clayton, Springvale and Noble Park now consolidated in one seat.
If current growth patterns continue, it’s hard to see Hotham being anything other than a very safe Labor seat for the medium term.
Due to covid this seat looks to be abolished in the next redistributions, what will be interesting to see is if Labor wins Chisholm is what will happen to the two Labor MPs & will it make any other seats notionally Labor.
FYI Dr Savitri Bevinakoppa is the Liberal candidate. Professor of IT, PhD in Mathematics. Lives Heatherton. Wife of Liberal candidate in Clarinda in 2104 & 2018 State Elections. Has three adult children.
Clare O’Neil will hold on very easily regardless of who the Liberal candidate is. These boundaries are very favourable to Labor compared to the last election.
Agreed, this is the safest Labor seat now in SE Melbourne the only really middle class/affluent areas where the Libs have any kind of chance in East Bentleigh which IMHO should not be in a seat with Springvale or Noble Park rather it would fit better with Issacs or Goldstein.
given her performance clare oneil could find herself without a seat if hotham is abolished
I actually support Abolishing Hotham as it is a left over seat. I would prefer if Casey and Jagajaga are retained as there are more logical seats. Also the name Hotham does not need to preserved.
If Hotham is abolished, Claire O’Neill could transfer to the neighbouring seats of Bruce or Chisholm (replacing a Labor backbencher in the process)
@ Yoh Anh
I think Claire O’Neil will transfer to Chisholm and Carina Garland will content either Menzies or Deakin as one will likely be notionally Labor after the redistribution
Julian Hill in Bruce would be hard to dislodge. He is from the left and relatively well known and popular at least in certain areas of the seat. Also the area has been heavily stacked by the left at least since the demise of Adem Somyurek.
if rumors are true and Mark Dreyfus retires than Clare O’Neil will contest Issacs. if not than it could end up being Chisholm or a Senate seat.
@Nimalan
I suppose that works, although I can’t imagine Garland would be thrilled about that given she lives in Clayton.
@ Nicholas
Good point she may not be keen to move houses. I think the main thing to look out for will be where there Box Hill/Blackburn area goes into post-redistribution if Hotham is abolished it go either go into Deakin or Menzies if so one will flip notionally Labor and the other will likely be more pro-Liberal.
@nimalan I originally thought so too but decided against when doing the redistribution. By shifting it east it allows Brice to be centred solely on the division of Casey. In my opinion McEwen being the last seat to be drawn and the real leftover seat is abolished however to preserve the name of a pm Ive abolished jagajaga it isntnamed after a specific person tlrather three elders from that particular “tribe” and is literally the only one of its kindly in the country and oddly enough were the people who entered into a treaty with John batman who’s own division neighbouring division was renamed was
In my proposal which abolishes Hotham, I have Clayton (Monash LGA) in Chisholm and Clayton South (Kingston LGA) in Isaacs. So if Clare O’Neil lives in Clayton I think if those boundaries were adopted, she could get away with running in either seat without moving house. It’s close enough.
@Trent, it is Carina Garland that lives in Clayton, not Clare O’Neil. I believe she lives in East Melbourne, so it really doesn’t matter which seat she contests as she lives no where near the area anyway.
Ah I see, I misunderstood that!
Claire O’Neil relocated to Oakleigh a few years ago.
I’m pretty sure Mark Dreyfus lives in Malvern so whoever represents Isaacs lives in a suburb quite a bit away from it
I’ll be curious to see the comments on suggestions when they are published next week.
There were a few suggestions to abolish Hotham, and others that without specifically stating to abolish it mentioned that it wasn’t a cohesive seat. So I think there’s a good chance it will be on the chopping block.
@trent i thought so to originally however mcewen was the one that bugged me the most being the leftover seat that was made up of what was left. so i chose that instead and renamed jagajaga to preserve the name of a pm.
so if the aec decide to abolish hotham instead of higgins where then does Claire O’Neill go?
probably Chisholm and then Carina Garland will either contest Menzies or Deakin depending on which is better for Labor
@nimalan that would just be a giant finger towards th voters of Chisholm and she could lose the seat and Carina would be out of a job too given the redistribution.
given the new Chisholm is only on a 3.3% margin i reckon it will be a target for the libs and if claire o’neill runs shes toast. n fact shed be toast anywhere but a safe seat atm
The immigration/detainee issue will not be an issue on Chisholm or Hotham which have among the lowest % of Australian born residents in the country. It really depends where Box Hill goes and Carina will go with that. I dont think Libs can win Chisholm back until 2028 due to the Chinese community anyway.
@nimalan yes but they wil be pushing the incompetence issue
@ John
Even if Dutton wins a majority in 2025 he is more likely to win Hawke than Chisholm. Dutton is aiming to win white working class and outer suburban voters in the mortgage belt. Dutton does not really play well to demographics such as Chisholm these voters would fear Dutton being PM so if if they are annoyed will still vote Labor. If Libs are talking about seats such as Chisholm it means maybe they are less confident about the working class strategy.
If the AEC abolished Hotham than Chisholm wouldn’t go into Malvern and would be dragged south into parts of Monash and Dandenong currently in Hotham, and would become an unlose-able seat for Labor. Menzies would be dragged even further south into Burwood and would lose parts of Templestowe/Bulleen to Jagajaga making it a very likely Labor seat.
O’Neil lives in Oakleigh and Garland lives in Clayton. One of them is going to be redistributed out of their seat either way.
@Nimalan I wouldn’t think he’s more likely to win Hawke than Chisholm.
On the other hand, definitely more likely to win McEwen.
@ Scart
Totally Agree Libs have a much better chance in McEwen than Chisholm. McEwen has a lot of mortgage belt area and a younger demographic so inflation/interest rates are more of an acute issue than in Chisholm which is more established and has an older demographic. The reason i mentioned Hawke is that it a less diverse electorate and is very mortgage belt with rural areas as well so Dutton has an easier chance in that respect with more favourable demographics. Also there is a lot of infrastructure issues in Hawke. If the Libs dont want the Teal/Elite seats back they will need to win seats they either never held before or haven’t held in sometime. I think Drake is correct when he mentioned that if Chisholm moved South if Hotham was abolished it will be unwinnable for the Libs.
This seat had massive swings against the Liberals in suburbs like Box Hill that they normally do well in.
Bennelong had a retiring member and Labor barely won it, while this is a fairly safe Labor seat and the member didn’t retire (though I would argue that Gladys Liu wasn’t anywhere near as popular as John Alexander was, or as Victor Dominello and Dominic Perrottet were on the state level). Why was the swing so big here? It’s gotta be more than the Chinese community swinging against the Liberals since Bennelong has one of the highest Chinese populations in the country.
Also why did Oakleigh swing +9.2% TO the Liberals, and Mulgrave also swung +0.5% to the Liberals? The former is a big swing and when the swing against them in other booths was huge.
Interestingly even though the Liberals won this in 2016 and held it in 2019 they only won three booths on TPP in 2022 (the booths they won in 2022 were Jells Park with 50.8%, the Mulgrave PPVC with 52.4% and Wheelers Hill with 50.1%).
Wouldn’t say the immigration detainee issues won’t have an impact in Chisholm. Most migrants into Chisholm are middle to upper class, often immigrating from China, that came on skilled or business/investment visas. Crime is also increasingly an issue in parts of the seat such as Glen Waverley which the Libs can harness to their benefit. Hotham on the other hand which has more migrants from a refugee/working class background is a different story. The Libs seem to be trying hard in recent months to win back the Chinese community but it will be interesting to see whether they can reverse the huge 2022 swing.
@Dan M Bennelong and Tangney should come back to them. I wouldn’t rule them out in Chisholm. Reid is probably a bridge too far at least at this election anyway.
@ Dan M
Just a few days ago James Paterson called for sanctions on China so i dont think that issue is going away. Also areas like Glen Waverley have many South Asians who are very Pro-Voice etc. Labor can easily weaponise Dutton’s past comments so while Dutton is quiet on China at the moment his proxies are not.
Regarding the 2022 big swings against the Libs in the Chinese community, you also have to take into account that 2016-2019 were the Libs biggest inroads for the Chinese Community probably due to China Free Trade Agreement and upward mobility from house prices. If Lib/Lab support in the Chinese Community were pre-2016 years, the swings might been half of the big swing.
@ Marh
I also heard previously during the Howard era the Libs underperfomed among the Chinese Community due to changes to family reunion visas. Also by the 2010s the Chinese community had become more established and older so that trend probably helped the Libs as well compared to the late 90s and early 2000s.
Regarding Chisholm assuming it sticks to the current (or almost current) redistribution , even a correction vote in the Chinese Community might not be enough as the Western Part of the New Chisholm is subjected to anti-Peter Dutton sentiment given his right-wing populism
@NP, the huge Lib swing in Oakleigh can be distorted as it is small, alongside a redistributed border boundary (as it was part of Hotham in 2019 and the polling booths was at Hotham) and the Oakleigh part of 2022 Chisholm is upper middle class from bigger homes.
@nimalan the current redistributed chisholm is absolutely winnable for the libs. I reckon they will win Aston and likely McEwen with chisholm being a close one. Labor is gonna get punished in Vic