ALP 14.3%
Incumbent MP
Brendan O’Connor, since 2004. Previously Member for Burke 2001-2004.
- Geography
- Redistribution
- History
- Candidate summary
- Assessment
- 2019 results
- Booth breakdown
- Results maps
Geography
Western Melbourne. Gorton covers parts of of the City of Melton and parts of the City of Brimbank. As well as Melton, Gorton covers the suburbs of Derrimut, Deer Park, Cairnlea, Albanvale, Kings Park, Burnside, Ravenhall, Caroline Springs, Delahey, Hillside and Calder Park.
Redistribution
Gorton shifted closer to the city, losing Melton to the new seat of Hawke and other northern and western parts of the Melton council area. Gorton expanded into the northern parts of the Brimbank council area, taking Keilor, Keilor Downs, Sydenham, Delahey and Calder Park from Fraser. These changes reduced the Labor margin from 15.4% to 14.3%.
History
Gorton was created at the 2004 election. The seat replaced the abolished seat of Burke, which sat in the same part of Melbourne. It is named after former Prime Minister John Gorton, who died in 2002. In its short history Gorton has been a very safe Labor seat, as was its predecessor seat of Burke.
Burke was created for the 1969 election. It was largely a safe seat, although it was considered marginal for much of the 1980s. It was held by Keith Johnson until 1980, followed by Andrew Theophanous from 1980 to 1984, when he moved to the new seat of Calwell, which he held until 2001. The seat was then held by Neil O’Keefe from 1984 to 2001. O’Keefe served as a Parliamentary Secretary in the second term of the Keating government.
In 2001, Burke was won by Brendan O’Connor, an official with the Australian Services Union, and O’Connor won the renamed Gorton in 2004. O’Connor has held Gorton ever since.
Assessment
Gorton is a very safe Labor seat.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Brendan O’Connor | Labor | 47,398 | 50.1 | -11.2 | 51.5 |
| Nathan Di Noia | Liberal | 24,677 | 26.1 | -2.7 | 28.0 |
| Harkirat Singh | Greens | 6,730 | 7.1 | -2.9 | 7.4 |
| Richard Turton | United Australia Party | 7,473 | 7.9 | +7.9 | 7.3 |
| Jarrod Bingham | Independent | 8,363 | 8.8 | +8.8 | 5.1 |
| Others | 0.8 | ||||
| Informal | 5,957 | 5.9 | +0.9 |
2019 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Brendan O’Connor | Labor | 61,861 | 65.4 | -3.1 | 64.3 |
| Nathan Di Noia | Liberal | 32,780 | 34.6 | +3.1 | 35.7 |
Polling places have been divided into three parts: north-east, north-west and south.
Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 53.4% in the north-east to 70.4% in the south.
| Voter group | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| South | 70.4 | 16,079 | 18.0 |
| North-West | 66.6 | 14,670 | 16.4 |
| North-East | 53.4 | 12,007 | 13.5 |
| Pre-poll | 64.9 | 33,385 | 37.4 |
| Other votes | 62.5 | 13,089 | 14.7 |
Election results in Gorton at the 2019 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor and the Liberal Party.
Keilor looks strange in this seat.
Keilor doesn’t really fit anywhere with the western suburbs seats, being an affluent Liberal area surrounded by mostly rock-solid Labor territory.
I guess Maribyrnong contains most of the best Liberal voting areas in the north-west, so probably it fits best there from a demographic point of view. A seat containing Moonee Ponds, Essendon, Strathmore, Niddrie, Keilor, and Taylors Lakes (excluding almost everything else) would be a winnable seat for the Libs IMHO. But they’re unlikely to ever get that lucky….
Moving it into Maribyrnong would make sense.
At a state level, Keilor is in the Niddrie electorate and parts of Taylors Lakes and middle class Gowanbrae have been proposed to be included at the next redistribution. So i guess there is precedent of including Keilor/Taylors Lakes with Moonee Valley council. Niddrie is much more marginal for this part of Melbourne.
The statement that Keilor is solid-Liberal voting is fairly misleading, mainly because it isn’t. It is certainly a Liberal suburb but the margin Keilor supports them in isn’t that high, mostly around the 52-56% mark.
Ryan, i would expect if the Liberals actually campaigned in the area, Keilor would be stronger for the Liberals than it is currently and the Keilor booths would hitting around 60%. Keilor, is actually demographically more like an Eastern Suburb than other Western Suburbs. Property prices and income levels would be similar to Vermont/Wantirna South etc. If the liberals actually competed i would also think they could even narrowly win some of the Taylors Lakes booths
https://www.realestate.com.au/neighbourhoods/keilor-3036-vic
I would say Keilor is similar to Bulleen, and Doncaster. The demographics are very similar. The houses are similar, and they are both very hilly.
Labor got the lowest margin ever in the history of the seat, even lower than the anti-Latham swing back in 2004. Looks like demographics are slowly changing in these Melbourne Western suburbs seats and the increasing discontent of inaction from Labor in general in terms of facilities and infrastructure.
@Alex I agree I also think the additional minor parties such as one nation and UAP who were preferencing liberals over Labor contributed to the swing aswell.
@Unknown Yeah that probably was the case in this seat. Melton/Kororoit will be interesting in the upcoming state election later this year.
@ Kaniel Outis , Agree about the comparison with Manningham interesting both Keilor and much of Manningham was developed in the 1970s. The streets, Houses look similar also both areas are close to a River and have creek valleys and extensive parklands.
The Labor lean of this seat seems to have significantly narrowed over the last decade. Prior to being contested in 2004, the notional Labor 2PP was around 18 percentage points higher than the statewide 2PP, but now it’s only roughly 5 percentage points higher. It looks like boundary shifts have played a slight role in reducing the Labor lean, but there must be other factors, and I would doubt it’s due to an improved Liberal campaign here, as I doubt they have tended to campaign here anyway since it’s previously been so safe for Labor, and the Lib primary vote hasn’t been increasing despite Labor’s falling by a lot in 2019 and 2022.
Continuing to suffer double digit primary vote swings as Labor did in both 2019 and 2022 is probably not sustainable, and I think Labor recognise this having taken note of adverse swings in safe Labor seats in their post election review.
@ GPPS, in 2019 there was an independent Jarrod Bingham who also ran in Melton in 2022 state election. Agree it is not sustainable and Labor should spend more time talking to the voters here they can talk about manufacturing revival. One thing about this seat is that it is fast growing with a lot of new housing estates in the Western end. Also the area would have among the highest % of Gen Z voters especially around Caroline Springs/Taylors Hill and Derrimut as the children who grew up in the areas it was developing in the 2000s are now coming of age so a lot of first time voters who still live at home.