LIB 8.4%
Incumbent MP
Jason Wood, since 2013. Previously 2004-2010.
Geography
La Trobe covers the south eastern fringe of Melbourne and parts of the Dandenong Ranges, centred on Pakenham. It covers most of the Cardinia council area and an eastern portion of the City of Casey.
Redistribution
La Trobe lost Berwick to Bruce. This reduced the Liberal margin from 8.7% to 8.4%.
History
La Trobe was first created after the Second World War when the House of Representatives was expanded at the 1949 election. The seat was first won by Richard Casey, who had previously been an MP and minister before resigning from Parliament in 1940 to serve in a variety of diplomatic roles during the war.
Casey served as a minister for eleven years before resigning in 1960. John Jess won the seat for the Liberal Party in a by-election that year and held the seat until his defeat in 1972, when Whitlam’s national victory swept Tony Lamb into La Trobe. He lost the seat in 1975 and later returned to Parliament serving in the seat of Streeton from 1984 to 1990.
Marshall Baillieu won the seat for the Liberals in 1975 and held it until 1980. That year he was defeated by Peter Milton who held it until 1990 for the ALP. Bob Charles defeated Milton in 1990 and held the seat until 2004, during which he served on the shadow ministry from 1994 to 1996.
Charles retired in 2004 and he was succeeded by Jason Wood. Wood’s 5.8% margin in 2004 was cut to 0.5% in 2007, but he held on in the face of the election of the Rudd government. In 2010, Wood was defeated by Labor candidate Laura Smyth. La Trobe was one of only two seats that the ALP gained off the Coalition in an election where Labor lost ground and lost its parliamentary majority.
Jason Wood won back La Trobe in 2013 and has been re-elected three more times since.
Assessment
La Trobe is a reasonably safe Liberal seat.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Jason Wood | Liberal | 41,786 | 45.6 | -0.2 | 45.2 |
| Abi Kumar | Labor | 23,918 | 26.1 | -7.6 | 26.2 |
| Michael Schilling | Greens | 9,980 | 10.9 | +3.3 | 10.9 |
| Merryn Mott | United Australia | 6,182 | 6.7 | +3.8 | 6.9 |
| Hadden Ervin | One Nation | 4,555 | 5.0 | -0.6 | 5.1 |
| Helen Jeges | Animal Justice | 2,450 | 2.7 | +2.7 | 2.7 |
| Michael Abelman | Liberal Democrats | 1,911 | 2.1 | +2.1 | 2.1 |
| Rebecca Skinner | Federation Party | 890 | 1.0 | +1.0 | 1.0 |
| Informal | 4,483 | 4.7 | +0.1 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Jason Wood | Liberal | 53,803 | 58.7 | +3.6 | 58.4 |
| Abi Kumar | Labor | 37,869 | 41.3 | -3.6 | 41.6 |
Polling places in La Trobe have been split into four parts. Those in the Pakenham area have been grouped together, with the split between north-east, south-east and south-west.
The Liberal Party won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote ranging from 53.5% in Pakenham to 65% in the south-east.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 7.3% in the south-east to 15.6% in the north-east.
| Voter group | GRN prim | LIB 2PP | Total votes | % of votes |
| Pakenham | 13.3 | 53.5 | 14,081 | 16.6 |
| South-West | 11.4 | 55.5 | 8,797 | 10.4 |
| North-East | 15.6 | 55.8 | 6,245 | 7.4 |
| South-East | 7.3 | 65.0 | 5,659 | 6.7 |
| Pre-poll | 10.0 | 59.4 | 31,332 | 36.9 |
| Other votes | 10.0 | 60.7 | 18,740 | 22.1 |
Election results in La Trobe at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, Labor and the Greens.
Only the Clyde North Central, Emerald and Cockatoo booths stayed Labor. Liberal hold with it going having a double digit margin after the election.
@SpaceFish I think on the state level Pakenham will be a Liberal gain too.
The MP for this seat is Liberal Jason Wood who is very active on Instagram so he would’ve built up a profile in his electorate.
@Nether Portal,
I agree, while I think Labor can get a fourth term they’re going to lose the state seat of Pakenham as they only won with about 15 votes last time and the incumbent member is retiring. I can see other neighbouring seats at the state level falling as well like Hastings and Bass.
I think lab will lose govt in 2026.
Will be interesting to see if Labor’s primary vote increases or the Liberals with absence of United Australia and if One Nation doesn’t run here as well.
Whoops just saw that One Nation is running a candidate here.
The majority of uap will go to onp but I suspect lnp will get a boost too. The rest will split amongst the other cnadidates
A former cardinia mayor Jeff Springfield is the Labor candidate here, interestingly in the YouGov poll Labor was getting a swing here which I don’t see how or maybe the Liberals peaked in 2022 here? Honestly, I think the Liberals will crack double digit margin here.
This could be very well the only Liberal seat left in Victoria. From my knowledge Labor didn’t put any effort into trying to win here and I am surprised Labor did so well as La Trobe has one of the highest house hold, mortgage stress and rental stress in the entire state and the Liberals failed to cut through.
I actually know a Labor branch member in this seat who i spoke with in January at that time there was little hope for Labor winning the seat and no one had put their hand up for preselection. However, the branch member did tell me they had longer term hopes for the seat due to increased urbanisation and ethnic diversification. Labor branch members in this seat were focused on sandbagging existing Labor held seats such as Bruce, Holt. Labor won all but two booths within the Urban Growth boundary (Beaconsfield and Officer (only lost by 1 vote)). Libs were only saved because they romped home in the rural areas. However, longer term faster population growth within the urban parts will eventually swamp the rural vote.
Labor was too busy sandbagging safe seats in western, northern and south eastern Melbourne to worry about here. I know this is a big call to make but I reckon if some sort of effort was put in here Labor would have picked this up given the little effort and resources that were put into this seat. I am doubtful that labor would pick this up in 2028 given the amount of seats it will be defending plus I’m sure some of the governments shine will have faded.
@ SpaceFish maybe not 2028 but demographic trends are Pro-Labor as i mentioned above.
@Nimalan: “Libs were only saved because they romped home in the rural areas”: The Liberals were mainly saved by pre-poll and postal votes. The Liberals decisively won the two largest metropolitan pre-poll booths.
Labor narrowly won the polling day vote across the electorate with a 2PP of 50.11%. However, the Liberal Party polled strongly in pre-poll booths, winning the two biggest pre-poll booths of Berwick LA TROBE PPVC (53.64% Liberal 2PP) and Pakenham La Trobe PPVC (54.24% Liberal 2PP). The Liberal party also polled 56.30% on postal votes. Pre-poll votes and postal votes together with rural votes saved the Liberal Party.
@ Joseph
Yep i only looked election day results and saw a clear urban/rural divide in this seat. I still think Labor has longer term prospects here for the reason i mentioned abobe.
It’s places like Gembrook, Officer and Pakenham where this seat will be won, not Bunyip, Lang Lang and Koo Wee Rup. Redistribution could have an impact too if Pakenham gets as big as it’s projected to get.
Labor would have probably won this on its 2019 boundaries but probably wouldn’t won Menzies on its old boundaries.
@ SpaceFish
On the 2019 boundaries Labor would have certainly won it as it was more Urban in 2025. On the 2016 boundries which were even better for Labor, they may have even come close in 2022.
@ Nether Portal
Gembrook, Emerald and Cockatoo are Mountain Townships they are marginal but not experiencing population growth unlike Officer/Pakenham which is rapidly growing and will have a greater weight on the result in coming years.
Jacinta Price’s comments won’t the Liberals here.
The 2PP swing of 6.4% to Labor was pretty big considering that its outer-suburban and semi-rural demographics supposedly suited the Liberals. Also, it wasn’t even a target seat.
I agree with the post-election comments that urban sprawl has made this seat more competitive. Labor didn’t target this seat because they had a fear of losing seats in greater Melbourne.
My belief is that Jason Wood being a strong incumbent was why won decently in 2022 but not really sure why it didn’t work 2025.
Looking at the La Trobe, Holt and Bruce results it seems that the huge swings (and they were huge) all happened around Berwick and Clyde. Is this demographic change, lack of Liberal campaigning or all a flow on from the clusterf*** which was the Liberal campaign in Bruce? Particularly if it demographics then Brad Battin might be in big trouble in Berwick next year.
I mentioned above that i actually know a Labor branch member in this seat who said to me in January they did not have interest in this seat in 2025 but they had longer term ambitions for this seat because of urbanisation and ethnic diversification. I also think there is a difference of how Morrison was perceived and how Dutton is perceived. I dont think Morrison had a bad reputation among South Asians etc he often attended South Asian festivals and expressed his love for South Asian food. However, IMHO Dutton has a very bad reputation among people of colour given past racial comments he has made so i think there was Morrison to Dutton swing here as well. In Northern Tasmania while certainly not CALD Morrison was liked but Dutton was not.
Same with, I don’t think he’s in any trouble at all esp given that he’ll definitely outdo Dutton statewide in VIC
Battin*
it wont hurt Battin the swings in this area were a result of poor liberal cmapigning and other factors Dutton is gone. hes yesterdays news
I dont expect Battin to loose not in 2026 but i dont think state Labor is unpopular in this area like they are in Melton etc. Labor has invested a lot in South East Melbourne. I think Pakenham will have a below average swing to Libs as will the Narre Warrens.
@nimalan the libs can live with a below avergare swing in Pakenham because its on a very low margin so any swing is likely to tip it over. in relation to federal swing to labor if labor couldnt win it in 2025 they wont win it in 2028 labor has probaby hit the high watermark barring a major implosion by the libs or a war.
Battin and incumbency and a local profile and is perhaps more palatable than Dutton. State Labor, in its third term, is not as popular as Federal Labor was in May 2025. I don’t think Battin is at risk.
@ John
i agree i dont think Pakenham will be retained. However, population growth in Pakenham is helping Labor due to urbanisation so maybe there is a 30% chance Labor wil retain Pakenham. I think Hastings will see a bigger swing to Libs
Six News did a Projection. If an election was held today. Labor would be down to 92 seats. Obviously seat by seat projection should be taken with a grain of salt. However, two seats that i said were possible Labor pick ups in 2028. La Trobe/Longman would be gained while Labor would loose Bullwinkle, Solomon and Bendigo. The Greens will loose Ryan to Labor. It says ONP could pick up Wright.
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1239942801485390&set=a.446518107494534
Nimaln interesting. Although longman Ryan and Wright are subject to redistribution longmand Wright’s would probly favour the lnp. Also bean. And I suspect that will further favour the ind. Still it’s still as you subject to seat poll fluctuation. And there is no election until at least 2027. I doubt a double dissolution since labor effectively only has to deal with either the libs or greens and aren’t gonna give up their obvious advantage before then. I suspect the libs will continue to scratch away as time passes. La trobe is a concern in the long run though. The libs need to fix their eastern Melbourne problems. The onp problem is a result of a weak lnp. The libs need to get their shit together.
I suspect some of those results will hold true in 2028. I suspect Bean Fremantle Solomon and Bulliwnkel are about accurate.
@ John
The poll would have only been done projecting on current boundaries. It makes logical sense that Longman and La Trobe are better today than in May. Interest rate cuts and real wage growth probably improved Labor’s standing in outer suburban mortgage belt areas. La Trobe/Longman are certainly seats at some point Labor wants to win back. I doubt Labor has any interest in seats like Calare, Flinders that they once held. I would describe La Trobe as SE Melbourne than Eastern Melbourne (except the Dandenong townships like Emerald) as it is focused on the Pakenham rail corridor rather than Burnley group of lines which defines the Eastern Suburbs. La Trobe is also urbanising and becoming less rural and State Labor is not really on the nose in SE melbourne compared to Gorton/Hawke etc. I also dont think they will be a double dissolution election as Labor has an ideal senate.
I cant see the. Winning longman after redistribution it’s gonna lose some of it southern edge and gain to the north possibly even west depending on what they decide to do with Somerset. So I’m gonna put that down as a lnp hold. La trobe will be up in the air. It will depend on how the libs recover before the next election. Also what happens at the state election. A relected labor govt would probably hurt federal labor. The libs can absolutely recover and hold it but they need a better approach then in 2028. The state election will hopefully give us a better understanding of the trends in different areas of the state.
@ John
If Longman extends beyond the Moreton Bay Region/Greater Brisbane then it is certainly hurts Labor so Labor may then need to wait till an expansion of parliament before winning the seat again. In 2028 they will be a lot more new homes built in new estates in La Trobe which will help Labor demographically especially if the economy is better and real wages are rising. On 2019, 2013-2016 and Pre 2010 boundaries Labor would have win La Trobe in 2025.