Macnamara – Australia 2025

ALP 12.2%

Incumbent MP
Josh Burns, since 2019.

• Geography
• Redistribution
• History
• Candidates
• Assessment
• 2022 results
• Booth breakdown
• Results maps

Geography

Inner south of Melbourne. Macnamara covers the port of Melbourne, St Kilda and Caulfield. Other suburbs include Elwood, Balaclava, Elsternwick, Ripponlea, Middle Park, Albert Park, Windsor and South Melbourne.

Redistribution
Macnamara lost South Yarra to Melbourne, and gained Windsor from Higgins. This change did not affect the two-party-preferred Labor margin, but it slightly weakened Labor and slightly strengthened the Greens and Liberal on the three-candidate-preferred count.

History
Melbourne Ports was an original Federation electorate. After originally being won by the Protectionist party, it has been held by the ALP consistently since 1906, although it has rarely been held by large margins. The seat was renamed “Macnamara” in 2019.

Melbourne Ports was first won in 1901 by Protectionist candidate Samuel Mauger, who had been a state MP for one year before moving into federal politics. Mauger was re-elected in 1903 but in 1906 moved to the new seat of Maribyrnong, which he held until his defeat in 1910.

Melbourne Ports was won in 1906 by Labor candidates James Mathews. Mathews held Melbourne Ports for a quarter of a century, retiring in 1931.

Mathews was succeeded in 1931 by Jack Holloway. Holloway had won a shock victory over Prime Minister Stanley Bruce in the seat of Flinders in 1929, before moving to the much-safer Melbourne Ports in 1931. Holloway had served as a junior minister in the Scullin government, and served in the Cabinet of John Curtin and Ben Chifley throughout the 1940s. He retired at the 1951 election and was succeeded by state MP Frank Crean.

Crean quickly rose through the Labor ranks and was effectively the Shadow Treasurer from the mid-1950s until the election of the Whitlam government in 1972. Crean served as Treasurer for the first two years of the Whitlam government, but was pushed aside in late 1974 in the midst of difficult economic times, and moved to the Trade portfolio. He served as Deputy Prime Minister for the last four months of the Whitlam government, and retired in 1977.

Crean was replaced by Clyde Holding, who had served as Leader of the Victorian Labor Party from 1967 until 1976. He won preselection against Simon Crean, son of Frank. Holding served in the Hawke ministry from 1983 until the 1990 election, and served as a backbencher until his retirement in 1998.

Holding was replaced by Michael Danby in 1998, and Danby held the seat for the next two decades, retiring in 2019. Labor candidate Josh Burns won Macnamara in 2019, and Burns was re-elected in 2022.

Candidates

Assessment
Macnamara was a very close and complex count in 2022, which is not at all reflected in the safe Labor two-party-preferred margin. The more important point in the count was the three-candidate-preferred count, which determined who out of Labor, Liberal or Greens would be excluded from the final count. That count has been included in the below results tables.

If Labor made it into the top two, they were expected to easily win on preferences of whichever candidate came third – Liberal or Greens – but if Labor dropped into third their preferences would elect the Greens.

This likely will still be the case in 2025. The parties were extremely close to a three-way tie in 2022. A swing away from Labor would likely see the Greens win, but it’s entirely possible that the Greens could lose ground and remain in third place.

2022 result

2022 three-candidate-preferred result

2022 two-party-preferred result

Booth breakdown

Booths have been divided into three areas: Port Melbourne, St Kilda and Caulfield.

The Greens topped the primary vote in St Kilda, with a vote ranging from 29.4% in Caulfield to 40.7% in St Kilda.

Labor’s vote was much more consistent, ranging from 31.6% in Caulfield to 32.5% in St Kilda.

The Liberal vote ranged from 17.4% in St Kilda to 30.8% in Caulfield.

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

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