Chisholm – Australia 2019

LIB 2.9%

Incumbent MP
Julia Banks, since 2016.

Geography
Eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Chisholm covers most of the western half of Monash council area and the western half of Whitehorse council area, along with a small part of Kingston council area. Suburbs include Burwood, Burwood East, Oakleigh, Chadstone, Mount Waverley, Box Hill and Mont Albert.

Redistribution
Chisholm shifted north, losing Chadstone, Oakleigh, Clayton and Huntingdale to Hotham, and also losing Mont Albert on its north-western corner to Kooyong. Chisholm then gained Blackburn, Blackburn North and part of Nunawading on its north-eastern corner from Deakin. These changes increased the Liberal margin from 1.2% to 2.9%.

History
Chisholm was created for the expansion of the House of Representatives at the 1949 election. For the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, the seat was relatively safe for the Liberal Party. Boundary changes saw the seat become a marginal seat in the early 1980s. It became stronger for Labor in the 2000s but was lost to the Liberal Party in 2016.

The seat was first won in Kent Hughes for the Liberal Party. Hughes was a former Deputy Premier of Victoria who had enlisted in the military at the outbreak of the Second World War, and ended up captured as part of the fall of Singapore and spent four years as a prisoner of war before returning to state politics, and moving to Canberra in 1949.

Hughes was chairman of the organising committee for the Melbourne Olympics in 1956, but after the Olympics was dropped from the ministry, and sat on the backbenches until his death in 1970.

Tony Staley won the 1970 by-election for the Liberal Party. He served as a junior minister in the Fraser government from 1976 until his retirement from politics in 1980. He went on to serve as Federal President of the Liberal Party.

The Liberal Party’s Graham Harris held on to Chisholm in 1980, but with a much smaller margin then those won by Hughes or Staley. He was defeated in 1983 by the ALP’s Helen Mayer.

Mayer was re-elected in 1984, but lost the seat in 1987 to the Liberal Party’s Michael Wooldridge. Wooldridge quickly became a senior Liberal frontbencher, and served as Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party from 1993 to 1994. Wooldridge was appointed Minister for Health upon the election of the Howard government in 1996. Wooldridge moved to the safer seat of Casey in 1998, and retired in 2001.

Chisholm was won in 1998 by the ALP’s Anna Burke, who held the seat for six terms. Anna Burke served as Speaker from 2012 to 2013. Burke retired in 2016, and Liberal candidate Julia Banks was the only Liberal in the country to gain a seat off Labor in winning Chisholm.

Julia Banks announced she would not run for re-election as a Liberal following the removal of Malcolm Turnbull as prime minister in 2018, and a few months later resigned from the party to sit as an independent.

Candidates
Sitting independent MP Julia Banks is instead running for the seat of Flinders.

Assessment
Chisholm is a marginal seat which Labor would be hoping to regain, after the party did poorly in Victoria in 2016. Banks’ departure from the seat will make it particularly hard for the Liberal Party to hold on.

2016 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Julia Banks Liberal 39,265 45.3 +1.2 47.1
Stefanie Perri Labor 31,160 35.9 -3.6 34.7
Josh Fergeus Greens 10,647 12.3 +2.8 11.5
Craig Mccracken Family First 2,137 2.5 +1.4 2.5
Nyree Walshe Animal Justice 1,799 2.1 +2.1 2.1
Melanie Vassiliou Rise Up Australia 1,712 2.0 +1.2 1.2
Others 0.8
Informal 2,439 2.7

2016 two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Julia Banks Liberal 44,437 51.2 +2.8 52.9
Stefanie Perri Labor 42,283 48.8 -2.8 47.1

Booth breakdown

Polling places in Chisholm have been divided into three areas: central, north and south.

The Liberal Party won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 51.1% in the north to 53.5% in the south.

The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 10.2% in the south to 14% in the north.

Voter group GRN prim % LIB 2PP % Total votes % of votes
South 10.2 53.5 22,843 24.0
Central 11.8 51.3 17,486 18.3
North 14.0 51.1 16,020 16.8
Other votes 10.4 55.1 21,127 22.2
Pre-poll 12.1 52.8 17,825 18.7

Election results in Chisholm at the 2016 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and Greens primary votes.

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62 COMMENTS

  1. These boundaries are certainly an improvement in community of interest, compared to the old boundaries. It makes enormous sense to unite Glen Waverley in a Burwood/Mount Waverley seat instead of with Dandenong and Springvale.

    Despite its fairly narrow margin, I’d think that the Liberals could hold on here unless it’s a really strong overall win for Labor. The overlapping state seats all stayed with the Liberals in the narrow losses of 1999 and 2014, falling only in the landslide defeats of 2002 and 2006.

  2. would Anna Burke have held on? probably yes……. 2% redistribution bound to libs and is there a new member add of 1% too

  3. The seat definitely seems more of a “Liberal except in landslides” seat than a marginal seat now, but it’s still very much in play. Julia Banks seems to get quite a lot of negative press for a first term MP.

    Labor figured out how to win back Asian voters in the Bennelong byelection, judging by the swings in those areas. They should be able to take this seat if they target it.

  4. John
    Is that what you got from the Bennelong By- election ?
    Owning six rental properties is the negative press, unless there is more. There are a lot more property barons in the ALP than the LNP. Rocks, & glass houses mate !!!

    Mark Mulcair
    With shifting demographics this looks very similar to how Deakin used to. Do you think it will trend the same way ?

    Melbourne is a very different city, & the Asian voters would be quite different to Sydney’s. I asked L96 (i think ) about this some time ago

  5. mick Quinlivan

    Anna Burke was probably seen as a good MP overall and so prevented the Liberals ever getting a hold of the seat until she retired (that combined with the firefighter union issue flaring up at the most unfortunate time for Vic Labor).

    I don’t think this seat is unwinnable for the ALP, but they needs a strong candidate – that and no repeat of 2016’s circumstances. If Labor is to win the election, this seat should definitely be one they strive to take back.

  6. winediamond

    Of course Labor lost Bennelong, but looking at the booths, Labor well and truly recovered among Chinese and Korean voters, while actually having a swing against them in the more affluent anglo areas. Box Hill switching to solid Labor would win this seat for Labor.

    The controversy is the mix of having 5 houses while claiming she could easily live on Newstart. I will grant however that plenty of Labor MPs have that kind of property portfolio, and Macklin made the same claims about Newstart.

    Labor will not be able to make a real challenge on the Newstart issue with their weak “review” policy. However the Greens (surprisingly strong in this seat), GetUp, Unions and other raise the rate campaigners will.

    Predicting an ALP gain but it will be a 1 term wonder.

  7. WD, I think a good equivalent would be Bennelong. It’s becoming more affluent and probably more naturally Liberal socio-demographically, but with a significant number of middle class Asian migrants.

    So it will depend on the ability of the Liberals to appeal to that constituency. They’ve seemed to do better at this at state level in recent times.

  9. PJ

    I think she’s a good fit considering the Asian demographic of the electorate – a better fit compared to Julia Banks in any case (though not sure if Banks is defending this seat). Assuming no gaffes in the Labor campaign, I think she could swing Mt Waverley, Glen Waverley (excluding the Mount View booth) and the rest of the blue booths in Box Hill.

  11. Interested
    Yeah maybe. It could just be a ploy of “it wasn’t me”. Let’s see if Jules “reconsiders” her position.

  12. Turnbull country. Apparently Labor campaign last time had many internal problems and first mistake was to pass over Yang as candidate.

  13. Now with Banks not recontesting, the Libs are gonna have an extremely hard time trying to hold this, especially with the potential for a big swing in Victoria.

    LAB gain.

  14. Chisholm is an interesting marginal seat in that it tends to stick with sitting MP’s, it stayed with Michael Wooldridge during the Howard government years, then when he retied the seat flipped to Anna Burke, then on her retirement at the last election, it flipped to Julia Banks, so on the news of Julia Banks quitting and while the boundaries have improved for the Liberal Party, the ALP are now a good chance to gain here.

  15. Wooldridge didn’t retire. He fled to Casey because he would have lost Chisholm.

    The retirement of Banks is a real surprise. For the second straight election Chisholm is an open seat. In what had looked like a probable Liberal retain, this seat should once again be very competitive.

  17. Banks is jumping before she’s pushed. Despite being very marginal, Turnbull may have been able to retain this one, but Morrison has no chance.

    ALP Gain

  18. After the events of last week & the announcement of Banks not re-contesting…. I’d be very surprised if this won’t be a Labor gain. The selection of Jennifer Yang as the Labor candidate would no doubt make Liberal attempts at retaining this seat all the more challenging

  19. In the areas of Chisholm added by the redistribution, Julia Banks will not have developed much name recognition yet. So far only piece of information in my letter box. It will be hard for the Libs to hold without a sitting MP. For a fighting chance, the Libs might need a candidate with an already high profile – a woman would probably help.

  20. Thing is, Is if Burke decided to have ran in 2016 she would have still been MP today, Just shows How Incumbency and being a Popular local MP helps, If she decides to run here again it would be a Safe labour gain, But even without her they will probably win it for 1 term and it returns to the Libs in ’22

  21. Liberal preselection for the seat is apparently this Thursday with a frontrunner in a Gladys Liu. Assuming she wins preselection, it’s going to be very interesting having both major party’s candidates for the seat be ethnic Chinese. And given that, even if Jennifer Yang gets up for Labor in 2019, I don’t think that’ll be the end of Gladys vying for the seat.

  22. Banks has resigned from the Liberal party to sit as an independant.

    Not that it will change the outcome, certain Labor gain

  23. I agree that Yang should be a strong favourite, particularly given state results here, but I reckon Banks has a fair shot running as an independent, maybe 1 in 4 or so.

    If she does run watch the Lib vote plummet to around 15%.

  24. I can see Chisholm being like a few seats on the weekend when strong independent challenges fell short because they couldn’t quite catch the second place getter Hawkins might sneak into second in Benambra.

    Yang would be smart to just keep being seen out and about the electorate, let the voters get to know her and she should be able to gain the seat.

  26. Regarding Banks’ chances as an Indy at the next election – I’ve been told that she is considering standing – but not here. Instead, she will probably run in Higgins instead (which, if she can pull a Phelps, takes a seat from the Libs that Labor probably couldn’t win).

    Chisholm should be an easy Labor gain by Yang.

  27. Regarding Banks’ chances as an Indy at the next election – I’ve been told that she is considering standing – but not here. She will probably run in Higgins instead (which, if she can pull a Phelps, takes a seat from the Libs that Labor probably couldn’t win).

    Chisholm should be an easy Labor gain by Yang.

  28. Why did you double your comment? Also why would she run against ODwyer if she is a woman? She talks about sexism and not enough women, But she wants to run against a women? Im confused

  29. Double comment is a site bug which I can’t fix.

    No idea why she’d run in Higgins, just relaying what I’ve been told.

  30. Liberal Hold, (If Banks Runs) I really don’t see her winning as an independent in a marginal city seat. And she is unlikely to preference Labor over liberal because remember she does not want Labor in power, She is giving Confidence and supply to the Liberal’s. If she stand’s she will allow the Liberal’s to win (Unless her voters ignore the how-to-vote cards which they should (How to vote cards should be banned because voters should decide for themselves, (even though they can they are not forced to) I think allot of these people are told to. So let the voters choose and not be convinced to preference a party over another

  31. In a straight Labor liberal contest this is a likely Alp gain. If Banks ran as an independent here who knows what would happen but why resign liberal nomination to run as a independent…….. possible she may run in another seat which is not as Marginal. Which seat? Higgins Kooyong? Deakin? Ah Menzies>.. but this is outside her stamping ground……….

  32. Even though i dont trust polls, The recent polling here makes me feel more confident about a victory here, a 4 point swing i predict

  33. 1. On 30th January or so, Julia Banks confirmed that she would run in Flinders against Greg Hunt. So it will be a race between two Asian women.
    2. I am predicting that Gladys Liu will prevail over Jennifer Yang to win Chisholm for Liberal despite that ALP will most likely win the election overall.

  34. I’m honestly going to give this to labor as the liberal party no longer have the benefit of incumbency. If the state swings are repeated the Liberal party don’t have a chance of keeping this seat.

  35. News from the Chisholm Front
    There have been reports that the Libs are more confident than they are letting on. Having lived in a marginal seat for almost two decades you pick up the nuances of a campaign. I would have thought that the Libs would have written Chisholm off and tried to sandbag higher up the pendulum – this was the case with Mike Symon in Deakin in 2013 – you could see that he didn’t have the funds or support on the ground – however, it is very much the opposite case. Gladys Liu and the Libs are giving it a right proper crack. The Lib volunteers have been out for weeks and there are lots of corflutes. I have read that Gladys Liu ran a very succcessful behind the scenes social media campaign that was instrumental in getting Julia Banks elected last time – she may be drawing on that resource as well.

    Labor are also running a high profile campaign and are pouring lots of resources in. However, with the effort the Libs are putting in, it might be closer than a lot of people think. It will be interesting toward the end of the campaign to see where the resources go.

    This morning I was seat polled by an outfit called National Field Services – does anybody know who they are working for? It wasn’t as obvious as the robocalls.

  36. The predictions of a massive Victorian wipeout for the Coalition are inconsistent with the latest findings from Newspoll showing only a very minor swing. I’d be surprised if the Coalition were put in any worse place than they were in 2007/2010.

    This means that Chisholm is very much in play.

  37. Wreathy of S
    You are dead right. However i might not be as convinced of your reasoning. Chisholm is quite unique, & atypical (of VIC seats) . Much will come down to the candidates themselves. Perhaps their will be a crucial influence on the Asian community. A persistent anti asian tone from the ALP may come into play also. Even Tanya’s crack about “Indian companies” would have an effect here. All BS needs now is for some union leader to shoot his mouth off.

    my theories are a little different to you i expect a swing to labor in VIC maybe even a big one. However this will be countered by one to the libs in NSW, Though perhaps not as large. So perhaps the Newspoll conceals a greater volatility than would seem ?

  38. Winediamond,

    Totally agree. The ALP will ABSOLUTELY get a swing towards them in Victoria. The question is how large and localised that swing is. Thus far, the conventional wisdom is that the Liberals’ metropolitan seats are at risk because of the Turnbull factor, which is true. However, I think that threat is massively overblown. Labor certainly DO NOT have any seats locked up in Victoria (other than Dunkley and Corangamite). Currently, I see them competitive in Chisholm, La Trobe and Casey and those seats only (and yes, I’m excluding Deakin).

    The ALP may yet achieve a big swing; I’m just saying I don’t see that borne out by solid and not subjective evidence at the moment. Of course, Newspoll is not the be-all and end-all. However, in the absence of more reliable data, it’s the best thing we’ve got.

  39. Bit of a controversy brewing, ABC just released an article showing the liberal candidate Gladys Liu making quite disparaging comments about homosexuals and transexual awareness, calling it rubbish and the like. Not sure how well that goes down in inner Eastern Melbourne, and certainly doesn’t help the liberals retaining this seat

  40. There’s no doubt that Labor will get a healthy swing in Victoria but the question is extent and location. In particular, it is worth wondering whether the Coalition can really do worse than 2007 – bearing in mind that Jason Wood held La Trobe in 2007, somehow lost in 2010, but then returned in 2013 so I wouldn’t be willing to make any bets on the result in La Trobe. Dunkley and Corangamite should be safe though.

  41. Chisholm will be hard to predict, the loss of Turnbull really hurts the Libs here as well as Banks fleeing to take on Hunt, although that being said the redistribution took Labor’s better areas out.
    Whilst I think Labor will get across the line here this time, in the future I think this will be a Lib leaning marginal along the lines of 55-45.
    My prediction Labor to win here 53-47.

  42. Above average swing to Labor here after the mess that is the Liberal candidates commentary.

    I think the TPP swing to Labor will be around 7%. 54-46 to Labor.

  43. The area sent to Hotham made this an alp marginal……… now new boundaries shifted it the other way long term…. Anna Burke had a personal… vote the loss of this was a factor in the liberal victory. If Banks had a personal vote it is lost to the libs…. the boundary changes helped the libs but with an alp swing in Vic of unknown dimensions and the trouble of the liberal candidate….. it appears I likely an alp win

  45. I haven’t heard any serious talk of Liu being replaced, but they might be reviewing it. In a must-win seat for the Libs I doubt they’d risk it this late.

    On a side note, whichever candidate wins this will be the first woman of Chinese descent to win a seat in the lower house, and I think only the second in parliament at all after Penny Wong (although Wong is Malaysian Chinese). That particular piece of information is creating a lot of chatter in the Chinese community down here.

  46. GSK debacle reveals that the Libs dodged a bullet with Banks. Of course Banks doesn’t want to talk about the compensation claim she caused. What an out, & out hypocrite . Did she think this would not come out ??

    Jen
    No indication the LIBS would do something so unlikely, & stupid. iF you are referring to that bit of conflated nonsense of the Guardian, i saw it. Here is a flash for you. Most asian communities are highly conservative, so Liu’s commentary was likely dead accurate. You may regard it as bigoted , you may even be right. However last time i checked we live in a free country, & people still”HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE BIGOTS”!!. I doubt anything will change that, regardless of the Herculean efforts of the lefty cheer squad, & thought police.

  47. Liu is very well-regarded in the Vic Libs and gets the credit for Banks’ victory in 2016. The ABC attention to her comments at the last election on gender fluidity is neutral at best and quite possibly a net positive – the Asian vote in this seat would overwhelmingly agree that Safe Schools etc is “ridiculous rubbish”.

  48. Agree with WineDiamond that the Gladys Liu LGBTI is a big beat up. If the truth be known, she was reflecting what seems to be a common attitude amongst the Australian Chinese community. It should be noted that seats that have the highest Chinese ethnic percentages in the nation voted No in the same sex plebiscite – Bruce, Banks, Bennelong. Amongst the Chinese community, it may win Gladys Liu votes.

  49. WD,

    Correct that members of the Chinese community (and indeed many other immigrant communities) are very conservative. I can’t exactly remember the exact number of electorates that voted “no” in the SSM postal survey but I am pretty sure there was a very strong correlation between the no vote and percentage of immigrants in a community (with a couple of exceptions like Maranoa? & Kennedy?). Indeed I heard a couple of elderly Chinese born Australians suggest that gay people could take a pill…… complete ignorance but that is what they believe. And I would suggest no chance that they will ever change their mind on this issue. And a couple of my Chinese friends have said that their parents were exactly the same (to their and my surprise I might add).

    Talking about believes, I just saw Israel Folaus twitter. I had thought it was just about homosexuality and didn’t realise everyone in the following categories were going to hell unless they repent: drunks, homosexuals, adulterers, liars, fornicators, thieves, atheists, idolators

    If Isreal Folau is correct I think I am serious trouble as I hit the button on at least 3 categories. 4 if “white” lies are excluded – what is one meant to say when Mrs Pollster asks: “do you think this dress is a little tight?”. Not sure if a lazy agnostic is in the same category as an atheist so might of missed there or am I at 5. And I am not entirely sure what an idolater is but if enjoying the skill of Isreal Folau playing sport (AFL, NRL, Rugby) or watching Winx gallop is idolation then I might be in more trouble.

    So somewhere between 3 & 6 categories is my self assessment for reasons why I will end up in hell.

    WD – better watch your enjoyment of the wine……. otherwise see you in a few years

    Cheers,

    Pollster

  50. WRT the Chinese community being relatively conservative, this is true to a point, but certainly not a universal given. Varies also greatly within the Chinese community depending on things like age, religion and where they’re from… Taiwanese tend to be much more progressive than Mainlanders or HKers, but this isn’t a given either – see the Taiwanese woman who briefly stood for One Nation for an example. Chinese Christians tend to be more socially conservative than the rest of the community also.

    But assuming that the entire Chinese community is homophobic is simply not true. Chisholm voted about 62-63% for Yes in the marriage equality survey, for what it’s worth.

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