Bayswater – Victoria 2014

LIB 6.8%

Incumbent MP
Heidi Victoria, since 2006.

Geography
Eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Bayswater covers the suburbs of Bayswater, Heathmont, Kilsyth South and The Basin, and parts of Bayswater North, Boronia and Wantirna. Bayswater covers northern parts of the City of Knox and southern parts of the City of Maroondah.

Map of Bayswater's 2010 and 2014 boundaries. 2010 boundaries marked as red lines, 2014 boundaries marked as white area. Click to enlarge.
Map of Bayswater’s 2010 and 2014 boundaries. 2010 boundaries marked as red lines, 2014 boundaries marked as white area. Click to enlarge.

Redistribution
Bayswater shifted east, gaining parts of Boronia from Ferntree Gully, The Basin from Monbulk, and Bayswater North and Kilsyth South from Kilsyth. These changes cut the Liberal margin from 10.6% to 6.8%.

History
Bayswater was created in 1992, replacing the former seat of Ringwood. It was considered to be a notional Labor seat that year, but was won by the Liberal Party’s Gordon Ashley.

Ashley held the seat until 2002, when he was defeated by the ALP’s Peter Lockwood.

In 2006, the Liberal Party initially preselected Ashley to run against Lockwood again, but the preselection was overturned and he was replaced by Heidi Victoria. Ashley ran as an independent, and Victoria won the seat.

Heidi Victoria was re-elected in 2010.

Candidates

  1. Jeremy Cass (Country Alliance)
  2. Robert Smyth (Animal Justice)
  3. Tristan Conway (Australian Christians)
  4. Tony Dib (Labor)
  5. James Tennant (Greens)
  6. Heidi Victoria (Liberal)
  7. John Carbonari (Independent)

Assessment
Bayswater should remain in Liberal hands, even with a general swing to Labor.

2010 election result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Heidi Victoria Liberal 17,597 52.85 +11.76 46.91
Peter Lockwood Labor 10,138 30.45 -5.65 32.79
James Tennant Greens 2,873 8.63 +0.74 9.10
Sotiria Stratis Sex Party 1,256 3.77 +3.77 2.73
Gary Coombes Family First 973 2.92 -1.09 5.93
Ronald Prendergast Democratic Labor 456 1.37 +1.37 1.54
Country Alliance 0.55
Other independents 0.47

2010 two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Heidi Victoria Liberal 20,178 60.57 +7.68 56.80
Peter Lockwood Labor 13,134 39.43 -7.68 43.20
Polling places in Bayswater at the 2010 Victorian state election. Central in green, East in blue, West in orange. Click to enlarge.
Polling places in Bayswater at the 2010 Victorian state election. Central in green, East in blue, West in orange. Click to enlarge.

Booth breakdown
Booths in Bayswater have been divided into three parts: central, east and west.

The Liberal Party won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas – a slim 51.2% majority in the east and larger 59-60% majorities in central and west.

The Greens came third, with a vote ranging from 6.5% in central to 11.1% in the west.

Voter group GRN % LIB 2PP % Total % of votes
East 9.36 51.15 9,318 25.03
Central 6.47 59.11 7,730 20.77
West 11.06 59.78 6,276 16.86
Other votes 9.50 57.69 13,901 37.34
Two-party-preferred votes in Bayswater at the 2010 Victorian state election.
Two-party-preferred votes in Bayswater at the 2010 Victorian state election.

5 COMMENTS

  1. Shifted east, surely?

    This is one of those seats where Labor won in the 2002 landslide, the Libs got it back in 2006 quite marginally, and the sophomore swing coincided with the change of government, so the new Lib MP got a nice big swing. (Compare with Ferntree Gully, Kilsyth and Evelyn – also Hastings, further south.) This batch of Libs might be more vulnerable than they look, despite the +10% margins.

  3. It is a common media theme that Victoria has become new Labor heartland but interesting that these outer eastern electorates have shifted against Labor since 1980s, same story with Aston federally. Labor is now competitive in them only when it does very well overall, whilst Bendigo & Ballarat have gone the other way.

  4. The redistribution hurt Labor in the outer east, but it has helped them in this one seat. Most of the good Labor areas in this part of Melbourne ended up getting removed from neighbouring seats and placed all together in Bayswater. It’s less affluent and more industrial than the surrounding seats.

    I think this would be a bit of a dark horse seat for Labor on these boundaries, despite the margin.

Comments are closed.