Lalor – Australia 2025

ALP 12.8%

Incumbent MP
Joanne Ryan, since 2013.

Geography
Lalor covers areas on the western fringe of Melbourne. The seat covers Werribee and surrounding areas. The seat covers central parts of the Wyndham council area.

Redistribution
Lalor contracted in size, losing the south-western edge of the Wyndham council area to Corio, and also lost Williams Landing to Gellibrand.

History
Lalor was created in 1949 as part of the expansion of the House of Representatives. It has been won by the ALP at all but one election since then, and has usually been held by prominent Labor figures. The first four Labor MPs for the seat have held ministerial office, including two Deputy Prime Ministers and a Prime Minister.

The seat was first won in 1949 by the ALP’s Reg Pollard. Pollard had previously held the federal seat of Ballarat since 1937, and had served as a minister in the Chifley government between the 1946 and 1949 elections. He held Lalor until his defeat in 1966.

Pollard lost his seat to Liberal candidate Mervyn Lee in 1966. Lee attempted to move to the neighbouring seat of Bendigo in 1969, but failed to win the seat.

Lalor was won in 1969 by the ALP’s Jim Cairns. He had previously held the seat of Yarra since 1955, but the seat was abolished at the 1969 election. Cairns was a leading light of the Labor Left and was a leader of the movement against the Vietnam War.

Cairns was appointed to Gough Whitlam’s ministry after the 1972 election. He was elected Deputy Leader of the ALP, and thus Deputy Prime Minister, after the 1974 election, and later was appointed Treasurer. Cairns, however, was caught up in a sex scandal and the ‘Loans Affair’, and Whitlam sacked Cairns from the ministry in July 1975. Cairns retired from the Parliament in 1977.

Lalor was won in 1977 by state Labor MP and former radio host Barry Jones. Jones served as Minister for Science in the Hawke government from 1983 to 1990, when he failed to retain factional support for his ministerial position. He went on to serve as National President of the ALP from 1992 to 2000 and again in 2005-6. Jones retired in 1998.

Lalor was won in 1998 by Julia Gillard, who had most recently been chief of staff to Victorian Labor leader John Brumby. Gillard was promoted to the Labor frontbench, first as Shadow Minister for Immigration then Shadow Minister for Health.

In late 2006 Gillard joined with Kevin Rudd on a Labor leadership ticket, and she was elected Deputy Leader of the ALP, and Gillard took on the Workplace Relations portfolio. She became Deputy Prime Minister after the election of the Rudd government in 2007. In June 2010 she became Prime Minister after she was elected as Labor leader. She served as Prime Minister until June 2013, when she was replaced as Labor leader by her predecessor Kevin Rudd, and she announced her retirement from politics.

Lalor was won in 2013 by Joanne Ryan, and she has been re-elected three times.

Candidates

Assessment
Lalor is a safe Labor seat.

2022 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Joanne Ryan Labor 39,047 44.1 -7.5 44.1
Ravi Gaddipati Liberal 22,083 24.9 -5.1 24.9
Jack Boddeke Greens 9,192 10.4 +2.4 10.3
Juanita Coral Paterson United Australia 6,340 7.2 +2.3 7.2
James Ingarfill One Nation 3,489 3.9 +3.9 4.0
Patrizia Barcatta Liberal Democrats 3,403 3.8 +3.8 3.9
Aijaz Moinuddin Independent 2,535 2.9 +1.7 2.8
Claudio Uribe Victorian Socialists 1,482 1.7 +1.7 1.7
Peter Malliaros Federation Party 951 1.1 +1.1 1.1
Informal 5,752 6.1 +1.6

2022 two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Joanne Ryan Labor 55,613 62.8 +0.4 62.8
Ravi Gaddipati Liberal 32,909 37.2 -0.4 37.2

Booth breakdown

Polling places in Lalor have been divided into three parts: central, north-east and west.

Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 61.3% in the centre to 65% in the west.

Voter group GRN prim ALP 2PP Total votes % of votes
North-East 11.0 62.3 15,692 19.5
West 13.2 65.0 9,777 12.2
Central 12.0 61.3 7,008 8.7
Pre-poll 8.9 62.0 33,219 41.4
Other votes 10.2 64.2 14,632 18.2

Election results in Lalor at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, the Liberal Party and the Greens.

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13 COMMENTS

  1. Population has exploded in this part Melbourne. It will be interesting to see how well Liberals do in the by-election as it might indicate how well the Labor is fairing this part of Melbourne.

  3. @spacefish federaly this is safe labor territory while they may make inroads at a state level they wont even get close federally.

  4. There probably will be a swing to Libs here and may go do 57% TPP for Libs. There is less Muslims here and more Hindus so Palestine will be less of a factor compared to Calwell. in 2022, there was no real anti-lockdown swing here.

  5. There probably will be a swing to Libs here and may go do 57% TPP for Libs. There is less Muslims here and more Hindus so Palestine will be less of a factor compared to Calwell. in 2022, there was no real anti-lockdown swing here.

  8. What is the local assessment following the Werribee by election.
    Logically the swing required to unseat Labor is too much,but we are now in uncertain times ( ps iI don’t live anywhere near this seat-I am looking to the views of others).

  9. Not a local but my assessment is the ALP will lose most of their margin here but retain the seat, especially since the Lalor margin is higher than the Werribee margin was.

  12. There’s also a Mira D’Silva who’s a Police Officer in Goa. Anyway, if Zaneta Mascarenhas holds on and Mira wins Lalor, there’ll be [at least] 2 Goans in Federal Parliament, plus Malcolm Roberts was born in India, not sure if it was Goa, though?

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