ALP 0.6%
Incumbent MP
John Kennedy, since 2018.
Geography
Eastern Melbourne. Hawthorn covers central parts of the Boroondara local government area, and specifically the suburbs of Hartwell and Hawthorn and parts of the suburbs of Burwood, Camberwell, Canterbury and Surrey Hills.
Redistribution
Hawthorn shifted to the east, taking in part of Surrey Hills from Burwood and Box Hill, and losing the remainder of Glen Iris to Ashwood. These changes slightly increased the Labor margin from 0.4% to 0.6%.
History
Hawthorn has existed as an electoral district continuously since 1889. In that time, it has been dominated by conservative MPs, and had only been won by the ALP at one election prior to the Labor win in 2018.
The seat was won in 1902 by George Swinburne. He ended up serving as a member of the Commonwealth Liberal Party before his retirement in 1913.
He was succeeded by William Murray McPherson. McPherson served as Treasurer in the Nationalist state government from 1917 to 1923, and as Premier from 1928 to 1929. McPherson resigned from Parliament in 1930.
He was succeeded by Nationalist candidate John Gray at the 1930 by-election. Gray served as Member for Hawthorn until his death in 1939.
His seat was won at the 1939 by-election by the United Australia Party’s Leslie Tyack. He lost the seat at the 1940 state election to independent candidate Leslie Hollins, who had links to the Social Credit movement.
Hollins held Hawthorn for two terms, losing in 1945 to the Liberal Party’s Frederick Edmunds. He also held the seat for two terms, until in 1950 the Liberal Party replaced him with his predecessor Leslie Tyack.
Tyack was defeated in 1952 by the ALP’s Charles Murphy, the only ALP member to ever win Hawthorn. He left the ALP in the split of 1955, and lost his seat at that year’s election to the Liberal Party’s James Manson.
After one term, Manson moved to the new seat of Ringwood in 1958, and was replaced in Hawthorn by Peter Garrisson. He was re-elected in 1961, but in 1963 he resigned from the Liberal Party, and lost his seat as an independent in 1964.
Walter Jona was elected as Liberal Member for Hawthorn in 1964. He served as a minister in the Liberal government from 1976 to 1982, and retired in 1985.
Hawthorn was won in 1985 by the Liberal Party’s Phillip Gude, who had previously held the seat of Geelong East for one term from 1976 to his defeat in 1979. He served as a minister in the Kennett government from 1992 until his retirement in 1999.
Since 1999, Hawthorn has been held by Ted Baillieu. Baillieu won re-election in 2002, 2006 and 2010.
Ted Baillieu was elected Liberal leader shortly before the 2006 election, and led the Coalition to defeat in 2006 and victory in 2010.
Baillieu served as Premier from 2010 until March 2013, when he resigned as Premier and Liberal leader under pressure from his party’s MPs. He retired at the 2014 election, and was succeeded by Liberal candidate John Pesutto.
Pesutto held Hawthorn for one term, losing the seat to Labor’s John Kennedy with a big swing in 2018.
- Faith Fuhrer (Animal Justice)
- John Kennedy (Labor)
- Ken Triantafillis (Family First)
- Richard Peppard (Liberal Democrats)
- Melissa Lowe (Independent)
- Nick Savage (Greens)
- John Pesutto (Liberal)
- Stratton Bell (Democratic Labour)
Assessment
Hawthorn has traditionally been considered a safe Liberal seat, but a cumulative swing of 17.1% to Labor since Ted Baillieu’s retirement in 2014 saw them grab the seat. It wouldn’t take much of that vote swinging back to restore the Liberal hold here, but if the Liberal Party doesn’t receive much of a bounce back Labor could hold the seat.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| John Pesutto | Liberal | 17,231 | 43.9 | -10.6 | 43.9 |
| John Kennedy | Labor | 12,646 | 32.2 | +8.0 | 32.9 |
| Nicholas Bieber | Greens | 7,167 | 18.3 | -3.1 | 17.7 |
| Sophie Paterson | Sustainable Australia | 960 | 2.4 | +2.5 | 2.4 |
| Catherine Wright | Animal Justice | 885 | 2.3 | +2.3 | 2.2 |
| Richard Grummet | Independent | 367 | 0.9 | +0.9 | 0.8 |
| Informal | 1,462 | 3.6 | -0.2 |
2018 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| John Kennedy | Labor | 19,793 | 50.4 | +9.0 | 50.6 |
| John Pesutto | Liberal | 19,463 | 49.6 | -9.0 | 49.4 |
Booths have been divided into three areas: central, east and west.
The Labor Party won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, with just over 52% in the centre and east and 57% in the west. The Liberal Party narrowly won the pre-poll vote and won the remaining vote more convincingly.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 12.3% in the east to 21.5% in the west.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| Central | 17.0 | 52.1 | 9,807 | 22.7 |
| East | 12.3 | 52.2 | 6,135 | 14.2 |
| West | 21.5 | 56.9 | 5,796 | 13.4 |
| Pre-poll | 18.1 | 46.5 | 13,503 | 31.2 |
| Other votes | 19.3 | 49.6 | 8,018 | 18.5 |
Election results in Hawthorn at the 2018 Victorian state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, Labor and the Greens.
still comparing a state electoral college result to a specific seat is not a reliable comparison. a comparison would be comparing a seat in the U.S house of representatives
comparing a blue wall us state would be the equivalent of comparing it with the State of Victoria for instnace
@ John
But even in the US there is what is known as Cook PVI which is used for both state and congressional level. So you can have a Cook PVI for a state like Maryland and a congressional disttrict.
In Australia you could do a Cook PVI to compare at a federal level for both states and electorates.
out of curiousity how did the teal not win here? did the greens preference labor over lowe?
Greens preference Teal over Labor on HTV but it did not flow strongly
I think there will be some extent of sympathy towards Pesutto from voters here but that will probably be cancelled out by Pesutto supporters perhaps wanting to punish the party for his treatment. Yes a vote for Pesutto supports him personally, but it’s also an endorsement of the party itself. Which makes it a bit of a Catch 22 for someone who supports him but not the party’s treatment of him.
So I think it’s hard to predict what will happen if he makes it to the 2026 election.
One thing that I do think will disadvantage him though, is that in 2022 his campaign was very much focused on “I need to be re-elected to run for leader and steer the party back in the direction you want”. He can’t really do that again because now he’s already been leader and is very unlikely to be again. The direction of the party will have very much been confirmed for moderate Hawthorn voters by his displacement as leader and Moira Deeming’s readmission to the party.
That said, Labor are less popular than in 2022 as well, so it’s another counter factor that could cancel that out. Anything could happen.
With all those factors playing off against each other, it might just simply come down to whether demographic change in the seat has continued shifting it away from the Liberal Party (even despite winning in 2022 Pesutto had a primary vote swing against him compared to 2018 when he lost).
The quality of ‘teal’ candidate, and a reduced Labor vote keeping them out of the 2CP compared to 2022 (providing the teal with a stronger preference flow than a third-placed teal would provide Labor) is probably going to be decisive.
What a mess……looking at all the mess round his ” bankruptcy ” who could vote liberal? She was in the liberal party then out then inagain…..suing her ex leader for bankruptcy..because he cannot afford her court costs. Then an attempted deal to guarantee her preselection or stop him contesting the leadership!
Wow you could not make this up
@ Trent
I think Hawthorn is Fiscally Conservative including the young renters they maybe less keen on Labor now compared to other parts of the Eastern suburbs such as Baywater. Labor never really pork barells Hawthorn like they do for the Sandbelt so i think may people who voted Pesutto maybe wanting a Teal rather than Labor. Also remember last time Teal outpolled Labor on all booths along Glenferrie Road and Camberwell Junciton so i think it is actually older voters that chose Labor over Teal.
I agree Nimalan, Labor only squeaked into the 2CP last time, but I don’t think they will again in 2026. Even though Labor ran pretty dead last time in Hawthorn, the fact that they had an incumbent MP would still have inflated their vote a little bit compared to a teal.
We’ve discussed before that when Labor are seen as competitive, Labor & Greens voters have less reason to “tactically” vote teal – hence the reason teals completely flopped in Brighton, Sandringham & Caulfield which were all on margins <1% vs Labor. The teal actually did much, much better in Hawthorn even despite Labor having an incumbent MP, so without incumbency – and being less popular than in 2022 – it's hard to see how Labor make the 2CP next time.
I'd say it will almost certainly be a LIB v IND contest and an IND would be very well placed to win that given the complete mess surrounding Pesutto and hopes of him leading the party back to the centre (no doubt a factor in his 2022 win) having already been crushed.
@ Trent
Agree any swing away from Libs will go to IND. Also Private school payroll tax, land tex increases will make Labor unpopular here but will have much less of an impact in Monbulk etc