LIB 1.0%
Incumbent MP
Cindy McLeish, since 2014. Previously member for Seymour 2010-2014.
Geography
Northern Victoria. Eildon covers rural areas immediately to the north-east of Melbourne, including Mansfield, Healesville, Warburton, Yea and Yarra Glen. Eildon covers the entirety of Mansfield Shire and Murrindindi Shire, and parts of Nillumbik and Yarra Ranges council areas.
Redistribution
Eildon expanded slightly, taking in Hurstbridge from Yan Yean. This change reduced the Liberal margin from 2.4% to 1.0%.
The seat of Eildon was created in 2014, and primarily replaced the seat of Seymour.
Seymour was first created as an electoral district in 1992. It was won in 1992 by Marie Tehan. She had served as a Liberal Member of the Legislative Council for Central Highlands province since 1987. She served as a minister in the Kennett government until her retirement in 1999.
In 1999, the ALP’s Ben Hardman won Seymour by a narrow margin. He was re-elected with a 9.5% margin in 2002 and again re-elected in 2006 with a slightly smaller margin.
In 2010, Labor MP Ben Hardman lost to Liberal candidate Cindy McLeish. McLeish was re-elected in Eildon in 2014 and 2018.
- Jane Judd (Labor)
- Chloe Bond (Animal Justice)
- Cindy McLeish (Liberal)
- Robert Thornton (Independent)
- Wil Mikelsons (Greens)
- Joshua Rusic (Freedom Party)
- Kammy Cordner Hunt (Independent)
- Tim Lacey (Family First)
Assessment
Eildon is a marginal seat and could be in play.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Cindy Mcleish | Liberal | 18,717 | 48.3 | +4.9 | 46.9 |
| Sally Brennan | Labor | 13,850 | 35.8 | +7.7 | 36.7 |
| Ken Deacon | Greens | 4,035 | 10.4 | -1.3 | 10.9 |
| Michelle Dunscombe | Independent | 2,113 | 5.5 | +5.5 | 5.2 |
| Others | 0.4 | ||||
| Informal | 2,178 | 5.3 | +0.1 |
2018 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Cindy Mcleish | Liberal | 20,296 | 52.4 | -1.3 | 51.0 |
| Sally Brennan | Labor | 18,410 | 47.6 | +1.3 | 49.0 |
Booths have been divided into four areas: central, north, south-east and south-west.
The Liberal Party won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in two areas, with 57.5% in the centre and 64% in the north. Labor polled 55.2% in the south-west and 59.1% in the south-east.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 7.2% in the north to 13.9% in the south-west.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | LIB 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| South-West | 13.9 | 44.8 | 9,800 | 23.9 |
| Central | 8.0 | 57.5 | 6,374 | 15.5 |
| South-East | 11.3 | 40.9 | 5,149 | 12.5 |
| North | 7.2 | 64.0 | 3,787 | 9.2 |
| Pre-poll | 11.4 | 47.6 | 8,085 | 19.7 |
| Other votes | 10.5 | 57.5 | 7,888 | 19.2 |
Election results in Eildon at the 2018 Victorian state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, Labor and the Greens.
It’s unusual for a state seat to be bordered with a seat that has some alignment to middle suburbia (Doncaster East is in neighboring Warrandyte) yet with parts of the seat being into the isolated towns far away from a major city and in a different part of the state (The alpine areas). I believe the lack of population in North East Victoria is the reason.
The redistribution shrunk this margin to only 1%, and you’d think this would be in play, but nobody asides from the Liberals has a candidate preselected here…
The vote barely moved here, there is a chance that the LNP could hold
1% margin, almost a month from the election and still no Labor candidate. Weird…
The only boundary change made to Eildon was the transfer of Hurstbridge from Yan Yean, where a Liberal candidate was disendorsed in 2018. The “true” post-redistribution is probably at least a few tenths of a percentage point (if not more) higher than 1%.
Nevertheless I agree that it is strange that Labor has not announced a candidate here yet.
Hurstbridge is not that strong for Labor true margin should around 60%
Is the Yarra Ranges LGA a bit like Blue Mountains or the Byron Shire in NSW? I noticed a relatively high Greens vote, compared to other semi-rural areas that are on the outsirts of large metropolitan areas.
@Votante
I’ve heard that’s a good comparison for some parts of Yarra Ranges LGA. But not at all for the Lilydale area (within Evelyn district).
@ Votante, i concur with Nicholas. It is really only the Dandenongs (Monbulk District) that is like the Blue Mountains some areas such as Selby, Kallista are as progressive as the inner city. The Evelyn district and some other parts such as Yarra Glen remind me of the Hawkesbury as the suburban area has a lot of tradies (very Anglo) while the semi-rural parts are wineries etc. Thats why i often call the Federal Division of Casey the Macquarie of Victoria. I am sure it is not a perfect analogy though but best i can think of. Happy for alternative comparisons 🙂
Agree with you Nimalan, Casey and Macquarie are very similar, although you would expect an equivalent Victorian seat to have a safer Labor margin than its NSW equivalent given Labor’s strength here, and Casey is Liberal held. I guess the main reason for this is that there is no equivalent of Lilydale, Mooroolbark etc in Macquarie. Don’t know what you could compare those suburbs to?
Lilydale and surrounds are similar to Windsor and Richmond
Probably agree Redistributed, Windsor and Richmond in NSW are generally conservative leaning, but they may have backed Labor at the recent federal election due to the positive reaction the ALP and their MP (Susan Templeman) provided following natural disaster events that affected the region quite badly – namely bushfires and floods.
The demographics heavily favour the LNP at the moment it would not be surprising if the LNP improved here.
Agree Lilydale and surrounding suburban areas are like Richmond/Windsor more urbanised areas with rail access. One thing that may explain why Casey is Liberal held and Macquarie is Labor held is the differences in population density between progressive and conservative areas (Caveat i have not done any calculations here-so just food for thought). Katoomba is a major centre in the Blue Mountains with a major rail line while that is not the case in Kallista, The Patch, Selby, Olinda etc. Belgrave to Upwey has rail access and quite suburban but we need to compare it to the Lilydale line corridor as well. Also Monbulk is more marginal than the Blue Mountains as it also has some very conservative areas such Narre Warren East (one of my favourite booths to look at often an outlier and one of the strongest booths for the Liberals. In fact there is a very conservative belt which i often refer to as the Southern Foothills starting at Lysterfield extending to Narre Warren North, Harkaway, Toomuc Valley, Upper Beaconsfield, Upper Pakenham etc which includes parts of Yarra Ranges Shire. I also cannot think of a Sydney equivalent to Healesville.
Just noticed some of the brutal swings against Labor in this seat. Double digit swings through Yarra Junction, Launching Place, Wesburn out to Warburton. Could this be due to anti lockdown sentiment with these country towns being included in Metro Melbourne as was the case in Nepean?
@ Adam, possibly although in neighboring Monbulk, i cannot see the same issue playing out especially in booths such as Macclesfield which should be bellwether. This is even with a retiring popular member. It is possible that Nepean was lost for this reason. However, that does not explain why Hastings (2/3 of it is on the Peninsula) was gained by Labor with some big swings around Crib Point etc. In essence, the Libs just traded one seat on the Peninsula for another. My view on Nepean is that a lot of it is their heartland like Portsea-Blairgowrie, Merricks, Flinders etc and many returned back once their platform moderated somewhat. As mentioned on the Berwick thread i cannot see an anti-lockdown backlash in the Mitchell Shire.
There was a lot of seats in the state election that mostly seemed to favour the incumbent, especially if the local member has worked hard.