Maribyrnong – Australia 2025

ALP 13.0%

Incumbent MP
Vacant.

Geography
Western Melbourne. Maribyrnong covers suburbs near the Maribyrnong River, including the entire Moonee Valley council area and small parts of the City of Melbourne and the Brimbank, Hume and Merri-bek council areas. Suburbs include Essendon, Aberfeldie, Moonee Ponds, Niddrie, Gowanbrae, Essendon Fields, Ascot Vale, Kensington, Tullamarine, Gladstone and Flemington.

Redistribution
Maribyrnong lost Melbourne Airport and Keilor Park to Hawke, and gained the western edge of Wills (those areas west of Citylink and Pascoe Vale Road). These changes increased the Labor margin from 12.4% to 13.0%.

History
Maribyrnong was created for the 1906 election. Apart from a few early wins by conservative parties, the seat has almost always been won by the ALP.

The seat was first won in 1906 by Samuel Mauger, a member of the Anti-Socialist party. Mauger had previously held Melbourne Ports since Federation. He joined the Commonwealth Liberal Party on its formation in 1909, but lost Maribyrnong in 1910 to Labor candidate James Fenton.

Fenton held the seat continuously for the next two decades, and became Minister for Trade in the Scullin government in 1929. He served as Acting Prime Minister in 1930 when Scullin was travelling, and during this period he breached with the majority of the Labor caucus, and in 1931 he followed Joseph Lyons out of the ALP and joined the new United Australia Party.

Fenton won re-election in 1931 as a UAP candidate, and served as a minister for the first year of the Lyons government, but fell out with the government and served out his term as a backbencher, losing the seat in 1934 to the ALP’s Arthur Drakeford.

Drakeford served as Minister for the Air and Minister for Civil Aviation for the entirety of the Labor government from 1941 to 1949, and held his seat until his defeat at the 1955 election, when preferences from anti-communist Labor rebels (who later formed the Democratic Labor Party) delivered the seat to Liberal candidate Philip Stokes.

Stokes managed to hold on to the seat for the next decade as Maribyrnong saw a high vote for the DLP. Stokes held the seat until his defeat in 1969.

Maribyrnong was won in 1969 by the ALP’s Moss Cass. Cass served as Minister for the Environment in the Whitlam government, and retired from Parliament in 1983.

The seat was won in 1983 by Alan Griffiths. Griffiths joined the ministry after the 1990 election, and served as a minister until he was forced to resign from the ministry in 1994 due to allegations that he used his electoral office resources to bail out a failed sandwich shop venture. He retired from Parliament in 1996.

Maribyrnong was won in 1996 by Bob Sercombe, a former Victorian state MP. Sercombe had served as Deputy Leader of the ALP before attempting a leadership coup against John Brumby, Leader of the Opposition. Sercombe briefly served as a junior shadow minister after the 2004 election. He was challenged for preselection in 2005 by AWU National Secretary Bill Shorten, and he withdrew.

Shorten won the seat in 2007, and has been re-elected five times.

Shorten was appointed as a Parliamentary Secretary after the 2007 election. He was appointed as a minister in 2010 and joined cabinet in 2011. He was elected leader of the opposition following the 2013 election, and led Labor to the 2016 and 2019 elections. He stepped down from the leadership after the 2019 election, and returned to a shadow ministerial role. He has served as Minister for Government Services and the NDIS since the 2022 election.

Candidates
Sitting Labor MP Bill Shorten retired from parliament in January 2025.

Assessment
Maribyrnong is a safe Labor seat.

2022 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Bill Shorten Labor 39,792 42.3 -2.4 42.2
Mira D’Silva Liberal 25,493 27.1 -7.6 26.8
Rhonda Pryor Greens 15,278 16.3 +0.6 16.7
Darren Besanko United Australia 3,433 3.7 +0.3 3.7
Cameron Smith Liberal Democrats 3,577 3.8 +3.8 3.5
Jodie Tindal One Nation 2,227 2.4 +2.4 2.4
Daniel Nair Dadich Victorian Socialists 1,837 2.0 +1.6 2.0
Mark Hobart Great Australian Party 1,741 1.9 +1.9 1.7
Alexander Ansalone Federation Party 590 0.6 +0.6 0.6
Others 0.3
Informal 4,917 5.0 +1.4

2022 two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Bill Shorten Labor 58,679 62.4 +2.1 63.0
Mira D’Silva Liberal 35,289 37.6 -2.1 37.0

Booth breakdown

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

The ALP won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 58.4% in the north-west to 77.7% in the south-east.

The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 10.7% in the north-west to 29.3% in the south-east.

Voter group GRN prim ALP 2PP Total votes % of votes
North-West 10.7 58.4 15,612 15.4
North-East 16.8 59.0 15,324 15.1
South-East 29.3 77.7 10,938 10.8
Pre-poll 15.7 61.6 37,106 36.6
Other votes 16.4 64.2 22,462 22.1

Election results in Maribyrnong 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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6 COMMENTS

  1. The absence of Shorten here will certainly cause a large swing against Labor here, Labor hold with Greens and Liberals increasing their primary vote.

  2. Labor has endorsed Jo Briskey (who ran for Labor in Bonner, QLD, in the 2019 federal election, and failed to defeat Liberal/LNP Ross Vasta when Bill Shorten was leader) to replace Bill Shorten here. Leaving aside whether she would otherwise be a good candidate, doesn’t the move look like carpetbagging?

  4. Who has paid for the ‘Farewell from Bill’ billboards around that part of town – including the big one on the Tulla Freeway?

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