ALP 0.4%
Incumbent MP
Keith Wolahan (Liberal), since 2022.
Eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Menzies covers most of the Manningham council area, north-western parts of the Whitehorse council area and a small sliver of the Boroondara council area. Suburbs include Blackburn North, Box Hill, Bulleen, Doncaster, Templestowe and Warrandyte.
Redistribution
Menzies shifted west, losing Wonga Park to Casey, North Warrandyte to Jagajaga and Donvale and Park Orchards to Deakin. Menzies took in parts of Kooyong and Chisholm at the south-western corner of the electorate, including the area around Box Hill. These changes flipped the seat from a 0.7% Liberal margin to a 0.4% Labor margin.
History
Menzies was created as part of the expansion of the House of Representatives at the 1984 election. It has always been held by the Liberal Party for its short history.
The seat was first won in 1984 by Liberal candidate Neil Brown. Brown had previously held the marginal seat of Diamond Valley on two occasions, holding it from 1969 to 1972 and 1975 to 1983. He had served as a minister in the Fraser government from 1981 to 1983. Brown was Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party from 1985 to 1987, and retired in 1991.
The Menzies by-election in 1991 was easily won by Liberal candidate Kevin Andrews, with no Labor candidate standing. Andrews was a strongly conservative backbencher, and pushed through a private members’ bill in 1996 overturning the Northern Territory’s euthanasia laws. Andrews has been re-elected ten times.
Andrews was appointed as a junior minister in 2001 and was promoted to Cabinet in 2003. He was originally responsible for implementing the Workchoices policy after the 2004 election, and then served as Minister for Immigration.
Andrews moved to the backbench after the 2007 election, but returned to the frontbench after Tony Abbott was elected leader in late 2009. He served as a minister in the Abbott government, but was sacked after Malcolm Turnbull replaced Abbott as Prime Minister in 2015.
Andrews was defeated for Liberal preselection by Keith Wolahan in 2021, and Wolahan narrowly won the seat in 2022.
Assessment
While it was dramatic to see Menzies flip from the Liberal side to Labor for the first time due to the redistribution, this is merely the culmination of other changes over recent years. The seat became substantially more progressive in the redistribution prior to the 2019 election, and then there was quite a large swing against Wolahan in his first election in 2022.
Menzies has never been as close to the statewide average 2PP since 1984. The change of 1.1% towards Labor in the recent redistribution is relatively small compared to those changes. The big question is how much of that swing in 2022 was due to the new Liberal candidate, and whether he can recover territory now that he’s been an incumbent for three years. An expected swing to the Liberal Party in Victoria should boost Wolahan.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Keith Wolahan | Liberal | 42,526 | 42.1 | -8.8 | 41.0 |
| Naomi Oakley | Labor | 33,635 | 33.3 | +2.8 | 31.8 |
| Bill Pheasant | Greens | 14,289 | 14.1 | +4.0 | 12.9 |
| Independent | 4.9 | ||||
| Nathan Scaglione | United Australia | 3,643 | 3.6 | +1.2 | 3.1 |
| Greg Cheesman | Liberal Democrats | 3,646 | 3.6 | +3.6 | 3.1 |
| John Hayes | One Nation | 2,312 | 2.3 | +2.3 | 2.0 |
| Sanjeev Sabhlok | Federation Party | 968 | 1.0 | +1.0 | 0.8 |
| Others | 0.5 | ||||
| Informal | 3,355 | 3.2 | -0.4 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Naomi Oakley | Labor | 49,821 | 49.3 | +6.3 | 50.4 |
| Keith Wolahan | Liberal | 51,198 | 50.7 | -6.3 | 49.6 |
Booths in Menzies have been divided into three parts: north-east, north-west and south. The two northern areas covers those booths in the Manningham area, with those in Whitehorse and Boroondara in the south.
The ALP won a clear 57.2% majority of the two-party-preferred vote in the south, polling particularly strongly in the Box Hill area.
The Liberal Party narrowly won the north-east and north-west with 50.9% and 50.5% respectively.
Monique Ryan also polled strongly in the small part of Menzies moved in from Kooyong, such that her vote across the south was 13.3%.
The Greens had a primary vote ranging from 13.8% in the north-west to 15.1% in the south.
| Voter group | GRN prim | IND prim | ALP 2PP | Total votes | % of votes |
| South | 15.1 | 13.3 | 57.2 | 17,598 | 16.4 |
| North-East | 14.0 | 0.0 | 49.1 | 15,086 | 14.0 |
| North-West | 13.8 | 0.0 | 49.5 | 10,306 | 9.6 |
| Pre-poll | 12.1 | 4.3 | 50.5 | 39,142 | 36.4 |
| Other votes | 11.6 | 4.7 | 46.8 | 25,413 | 23.6 |
Election results in Menzies at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, Labor, the Greens and independent candidate for Kooyong Monique Ryan.
Joe Rogan’s ideology is largely nodding along with whoever his guest is. But absent other things he has a clear bias to the right. I remember when he mocked Biden for making an error, then did an about face when he was told it was actually Trump (who he endorsed for president) that made the gaffe
Both Rogan and Tate have come up as influential voices to Gen Z men driving them rightward. You may have heard of the “alt right pipeline” or earlier the “pewdiepipeline” -they’re both on it.
Some parts of Melbourne and the regions are socially progressive, but I wouldn’t say Victoria as a whole is that. For instance, regional Vic had an identical no vote % to regional NSW.
Joe Rogan doesn’t lean to the right. His interviews do, but that is due to the weird thing leftists have where if you interview someone to the right of Lenin you are far right and should be ignored.
Big reporting fail from The Age today. Albo and Dutton both in Box Hill for Lunar New Year. Whole story was about Box Hill being Chisholm. For some journalists, redistributions are things that happen to someone else ….
im putting Chisholm in te tossup box i think Allen has a real good chance of winning that seat too
@ john -1
Here toss up liberal advantage
Chisholm alp retain
Probably the redistribution does not change the outcome in either seat
@WL
“I don’t think there’s animosity towards Albo like say Keating ’96 voters with “baseball bats”,”
I think that was accurate last year,but I am not sure it is accurate now.
The Newspoll in today’s Australian concerning the ALP vote in WA is not good news for Labor.Victoria,thanks to its state ALP government is more likely to be worse than WA rather than better.
@mick Menzies Liberal retain
Chisholm tossup leaning lib
Menzies will be a future target as it trands Labor due to moving further into whitehorse. the flip side of that coin is Jagajaga will eventually cross the yarra and become more marginal and winnable for the libs.
labor will not gain any seats in vic and will be lucky to gain anywhere nationwide.
@sabena yep labor s state primary is about 22% less then a half that of WA about 2/5 actually.
Not surprised with the polling here as Keith Wolahan is quite well liked and has worked hard here to win this back.
The contest here seems to be heating up with signs all over local shops from the Liberals, Labor and Stella Yee
Liberals will be in deep s**t if Keith Wholohan loses as he is one of the better performers coming through.
I think Wolahan will be fine. Comes across as competent, well-spoken, sensible and likeable. I’d be more worried about Michael Sukkar and Deakin, given he’s the complete opposite of Wolahan and he’s been there long enough to create that impression.
Correct me if I’m wrong, Stella Yee was the Labor candidate here in 2019?
Did she fall out with the party or something?
@James I also wondered the same question.
@James and The Sheriff
Yes, Stella Yee moved Independent earlier this year
Either couldn’t get labor preselection or trying a stealth candidacy labor candidates have done this before in the Victorian state election because they couldn’t get elected under the labor banner. See Mildura.
Stella Yee has an open ticket so I think there’s some drama with her and the Labor Party
I read/watched that Stella Yee believe was told by a lot community members to run as an independent, I don’t believe that there was any falling out as per say. I think most independent do open tickets to look as like they aren’t favouring a particular party.
Penny Wong visited this seat to campaign with Gabriel Ng. She’d be better off instead visiting Glen Waverley to help Carina Garland sandbag Chisholm. Labor is definitely putting in more effort here than previous elections but I do think Wolahan should have no troubles holding on. This seat will only be in play if the state-wide swing to Victoria is less than 1% and even then Labor will have to fight against Wolahan’s personal vote.
@John Smith Wong was actually in Chisholm with Garland sometime last week or early this week. Definitely been around marginal seats.
Both the Prime Minster and Penny Wong have visited this seat, clearly Labor hasn’t given up on here yet.
Redbridge found the state Liberals polling at 51% primary in ‘Eastern Melbourne’ and 65% of respondents said the state government will ‘influence’ their vote, doubt with a strong member here that the Liberals have much to worry about.
It’s to be expected that they would tour this seat along with Chisholm, considering they are neighbours, and especially if it’s the Burwood area near the border of both. As long as they consider this to be a winnable seat it’s not much more of a commitment.
I agree Labor will need to sandbag what they already have in Victoria first before they go Hunting for gains
I cant see labor making any gains in Vic and they will certainly lose seats. Libs have opened up a wide front in both the east and west.
According to Fairfax, Antony Green reckons Labor will lose seats in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. He didn’t specifically mention any other at-risk areas for Labor.
I agree with the above commentary – Labor would need to sandbag seats in Victoria. It’s better to write off Menzies.
The seats at risk for labor are Aston – a write off in my opinion. Chisholm, Bruce, Dunkley and Holt in the east. McEwen in the north. Hawke, Gorton and Corangamite in the West. While holding menzies long term is gonna be trouble for the liberals as it gets dragged down firther Jagajaga would become vunerable for labor. Melbourne growth is in the west so we will see an eastwards shift. And i dare say Bendigo could also be lost if the nats have a good day.
We may see a 2022 state election style result in VIC, overall net swing of 3% to the Libs with substantial swings in safe Labor seats and subudued swings or even pro-Labor swings in the more marginal key Eastern Melbourne seats. Seats like Menzies, Deakin and Chisholm will very likely swing much less to the Libs than a seat like Gorton or Lalor where cost of living and interest rate rises bite a lot more and Dutton is more polarising. A result where the Libs only manage to pick up Aston and nothing else is something that won’t surprise me. Wolahan definitely has the upper hand but can’t be complacent. Even with a victory this time around, this seat can very easily fall to Labor if the Labor votes recovers in the future.
I meant Dutton is more polarising in seats like Menzies, Deakin and Chisholm
@Darth, if Melbourne’s growth is in the west wont we see a Westwards shift in the Electorate Boundaries?
Also there is a big drop off in Northern Victoria enrollments
The overall effect is mreo likely to see the seat of Melbourne returning north of the Yarra and Mezies possbile heading north as well by taking some or all of the Sugarloaf Ward of Nilumbik
The Prime Minster visited here again yesterday I believe or the day before. Anyone on the ground here able to. get a feel here?
I live in the Manningham part of the seat and i havnt been in the Whitehorse part. i did see a Liberal volunteer on King street while i was driving, not much in my part of the seat
I have just returned from voting early at a shared Menzies and Deakin Pre Poll centre. And it was most interesting.
There was quite a long queue so there was a reasonable sample of what HTV cards they had in their hand. Quite a few people either had no HTV or the full range or two – sometimes Liberal and Labor, Greens and Labor etc. Stella Yee and someone else.
There was a high proportion with only one HTV card. All the people with only Greens were young and there were quite a few. There were lots with only Liberal HTV cards and a high proportion of Asian Australians with only a Liberal how to vote and some young people. What was noticeable was that I did not see a single person with just a Labor HTV.
Labor also seemed to be only handing out for Menzies and not for Deakin. There was a Jess Ness HTV person but not a single person in the queue had her HTV card.
The Liberal volunteers must have outnumbered Labor by possibly 10 to 1.
A small sample nonethless but in an area which voted Labor last time. It would seem from that observation that Keith Wolohan might do OK and that Labor might underperform.I got the impression that the Greens might even be close to outpolling Labor. Even though it is also a Deakin booth, hard to get a handle except there were people with Michael Sukkar HTVs only.
So much for all the talk about Wolahan holding on. This seat will have a Labor member for the first time in its history.
Wolahan is a great loss for the Parliament and Australia. Tragic
It’s almost as if the voters despise Liberal Moderates.
Not to worry, run him again in 2028, perhaps voters weren’t told he is a Moderate?
@Gympie Your question can be answered with another question:
What good is a moderate if they were gonna be voting in line with a significantly more right-wing leader like Dutton 95% of the time anyway? I can almost guarantee you THAT’S what voters in suburban electorates like Menzies and Bennelong were more worried about this election.
Yeah totally agree with Malben. If you are a moderate and vote all the time with your conservative party, are you even a moderate at all?
yes – moderates have been dumped because the electorate has learnt that since Turnbull was dumped that there was no point having a “moderate” in the party room as they just did what the liberal and national party conservatives did.
That is why there are are now a bunch of independents on the cross bench that would have fitted into earlier incarnations of the Liberal party where those that didn’t have hard right views weren’t bullied out
Conversely, what good is a conservative if they’re not creating a strong conservative platform? Dutton tried to please everyone by doing very little and ended up pleasing no-one.
Incidentally, Wolahan’s not quite of out of yet. His primary vote appears to be stable.
Keith Wolahan might still win here. Remarkable given the swing everywhere else in Melbourne. If he does manage to win (and if he loses), the seat will be ultra-marginal.
If Keith does win would he be a good choice for the new Opposition Leader? He’s pretty moderate and seems to be doing well with the Chinese community here. I could see him being preferred PM in some polls. I think the only thing stopping him isn’t that he isn’t a veteran MP but rather that Menzies is so marginal.
The Liberal Party needs a divorce. The “broad church” of liberals and conservatives does not work in today’s Australia.
Theres talk the vic liberals want o poach him along with hamer and the lib candidayes for Mcewen corangamkte and hawke. While they were resoundingly defeated it was a combination of factors that turned against them at the wrong moment. Up until the campaign started they were in the box swat to get incredibly close. Expext a reblund in 2028 once tjey regroup. Hamer should win Kooyong as the margin is now under 1000 votes and will close further as postals heavily favour hame almost 2:1. Wolahan may yet prevail.in menzies. Jacinta allen reckons its an endorsement of he r but up til recently she almost sank the govt. It was all federal factors at play. Allen will be lucky to hold her own seat let alone govt.
@Nicholas, I’ve seen this brought up a few times after this election. Not sure if it’d work though.
@Darth Vader, I think Wolahan, Hamer and Bridget Archer will and should all run again in 2028.
Labor looks like they’ll probably just get over the line her, I agree that Wolahan and Archer should run again in 2028.
I think hamer will win this time and wolahan is a chcnace too. But youd think that most of the defeated vic ca didaye.in seays that werr treending libs before the bottom fell out should run again.
Looking at where things stand now it would seem that Wolohan will end up about 300 votes behind. Might just get there if he is lucky with Declaration pre polls and an uptake in the postals but it would seem that he will just fall short.
Still it means he hadls done better then the libs anywhrre else in a classic contest given he has started from behind
I heard that there are around 1800 votes that the AEC can’t account for in Menzies. More specifically, the number of ballot papers issued exceeds the number of ballot papers in the AEC’s possession. Anyone else heard this rumour and if so does it have any degree of truth?
@Neither
Woolahan isn’t read for leader but he, Zoe Mckenzie, Henry Pike, Caldwell, Gisele should all be out into the shadow ministry.
It’s time to ditch the Abbott Turnbull era and refresh with younger faces.
Then get some of the junior shadows more prominent like Angie Bell, Patterson, Duniam, Hume, Susan McDonald, Mel McIntosh and yes Hastie.
Sharma, Leeser and Hogan all have roles to play too.
Tine to move the Abbott era under performers with baggage Bridget McKenzie, Michaela Cash, Ted O’Brien, Angus Taylor, Littleproud. Also Barnaby can’t be allowed back on the front bench. I know that all won’t happen, but it should.
I’d also put Sussen Ley in a lower profile ministry, she was never up to a high level responsibility.