ALP 12.5%
Incumbent MP
Richard Marles, since 2007.
Geography
Geelong and surrounding areas. Corio covers most of the Geelong urban area and those parts of the City of Greater Geelong north of the centre of Geelong, as well as rural parts of the Golden Plains and Wyndham council areas.
Redistribution
Corio expanded to take in more rural areas to the east and west of the Greater Geelong council area, taking in parts of the Wyndham council area from Lalor and parts of the Golden Plains council area from Ballarat and Corangamite. These changes cut the Labor margin from 12.8% to 12.5%.
History
The seat of Corio is an original federation seat. It was originally a marginal seat, switching between conservative parties and the ALP, but since the 1970s it has become a relatively safe Labor seat.
Corio was first won in 1901 by Richard Crouch, a Protectionist candidate and the youngest member of the first Parliament. He was re-elected in 1903 and 1906 before losing in 1910. He later returned at a much older age to hold the neighbouring seat of Corangamite for the ALP from 1929 to 1931.
Corio was won in 1910 by the ALP’s Alfred Ozanne. He lost in 1913 to Liberal candidate William Kendell, but won the seat back in 1914. Ozanne lost again in 1917.
The seat was won in 1917 by Nationalist candidate John Lister. He held the seat for the next decade, losing in 1929.
The seat of Corio was won by Labor candidate Arthur Lewis in 1929, but he only held it for one term before losing to the United Australia Party’s Richard Casey.
Casey joined the Lyons ministry in 1933, and became Treasurer in 1935. When Robert Menzies became Prime Minister in 1939, he saw Casey as a rival for the leadership, and moved him into a lesser role, before appointing him as Ambassador to the United States. Casey played a key role in cementing Australia’s alliance with the United States in the Second World War.
He returned to Parliament as Member for La Trobe in 1949, and served as a key minister in the Menzies government until his appointment as a member of the House of Lords in 1960. He also served as Governor-General from 1965 to 1969.
The 1940 Corio by-election was won by the ALP’s John Dedman. He was appointed to the ministry upon the formation of the Curtin Labor government in 1941, and served in a key role in the War Cabinet. He was particularly responsible for war production, post-war reconstruction and the creation of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). He lost Corio in 1949 to Liberal candidate Hubert Opperman.
Opperman had been a prominent Australian cyclist, and had rode in the Tour de France on a number of occasions. He served as a Cabinet minister from 1960 to late 1966, before leaving Parliament in 1967 to serve as High Commissioner to Malta.
The 1967 Corio by-election was won by the ALP’s Gordon Scholes. Scholes was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives in early 1975 after the resignation of his predecessor after a disagreement with the Whitlam government. Scholes served in the role for the remainder of the Whitlam government. He served as a minister in the Hawke government from its election in 1983 until 1987, and retired in 1993.
Corio was won in 1993 by Gavan O’Connor. He joined the Labor frontbench in 1998 and served on the role until 2007. In 2006 he was challenged for preselection by ACTU Assistant Secretary Richard Marles, who won. O’Connor ran as an independent for Corio in 2007, but polled a distant third.
Richard Marles has been re-elected five times since his first win in 2007. Marles became deputy leader of the Labor Party after the 2019 election, and deputy prime minister following the 2022 election.
- Darren Buller (Liberal)
- Emilie Flynn (Greens)
- Sarah Hathway (Socialist Alliance)
- Richard Marles (Labor)
Assessment
Corio is a safe Labor seat.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Richard Marles | Labor | 40,846 | 42.1 | -5.5 | 41.9 |
| Manish Patel | Liberal | 23,822 | 24.6 | -9.3 | 25.0 |
| Simon Northeast | Greens | 14,450 | 14.9 | +1.8 | 14.7 |
| Shane Murdock | United Australia | 4,781 | 4.9 | -0.6 | 4.9 |
| Robert Jones | One Nation | 3,788 | 3.9 | +3.9 | 3.9 |
| Max Payne | Liberal Democrats | 3,383 | 3.5 | +3.5 | 3.5 |
| Sue Bull | Socialist Alliance | 2,444 | 2.5 | +2.5 | 2.3 |
| Naomi Adams | Animal Justice | 2,350 | 2.4 | +2.4 | 2.3 |
| Jessica Taylor | Federation Party | 1,080 | 1.1 | +1.1 | 1.1 |
| Others | 0.2 | ||||
| Informal | 5,341 | 5.2 | +1.7 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Richard Marles | Labor | 60,919 | 62.8 | +2.5 | 62.5 |
| Manish Patel | Liberal | 36,025 | 37.2 | -2.5 | 37.5 |
Polling places in Corio have been divided into five parts. Polling places in the sparsely populated northern half of the electorate have been grouped as “Outer North”. The urban core of Geelong was split into central, east, north and south.
Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all five areas, ranging from 60.9% in the outer north to 70.1% in the north.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 9.2% in the north to 18.9% in the south.
| Voter group | GRN prim | ALP 2PP | Total votes | % of votes |
| Central | 18.3 | 62.6 | 12,737 | 12.2 |
| South | 18.9 | 61.5 | 9,503 | 9.1 |
| Outer North | 11.8 | 60.9 | 7,892 | 7.6 |
| East | 16.1 | 68.3 | 7,258 | 7.0 |
| North | 9.2 | 70.1 | 7,180 | 6.9 |
| Pre-poll | 14.5 | 61.3 | 38,127 | 36.6 |
| Other votes | 13.6 | 61.1 | 21,391 | 20.6 |
Election results in Corio at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, the Liberal Party and the Greens.
https://vic.liberal.org.au/team/darren-buller
No question that Labor will retain the seat but: does it have the potential to become marginal (within 5%) on paper this year?
Suburban seats have been swinging hard against the Labor Party, though the Liberal Party’s choice of candidate being a former Family First member might not wash over well.
I wish the Greens would put more effort into this seat as I believe they could quite easily, with a proactive campaign, shift votes away from Marles given his lacklustre public presence. A 10% shift in the vote going from Labor to the Greens based on the last election results, would be enough for them to make the TPP which that in itself would be huge (noting of course the Liberals performed particularly dismally in 2022 and will likely rebound)
I’m not sure Corio fits that pattern, though. I wouldn’t describe it as outer suburban, moreso the centre of a separate city. Corangamite fits that pattern better now. The graph in this post shows that the current boundaries of Corio were just 4.7% better for Labor than Victoria in 2004 and 3.1% better in 2007, but 6.8% in 2019 and 7.7% in 2022. It’s becoming more favourable for Labor. And yeah Victoria is looking bad this year but I’m not sure it’s the best fit for that trend.