Hawthorn – Victoria 2022

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.

Candidates

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.

2018 result

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

Booth breakdown

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.

Become a Patron!

807 COMMENTS

  1. 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

  2. comparing a blue wall us state would be the equivalent of comparing it with the State of Victoria for instnace

  3. @ 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.

  6. 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.

  7. 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

  8. @ 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.

  9. 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.

  10. @ 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

  12. Pesutto might have a personal vote or even a ‘sympathy vote’ for Pesutto if he seeks reelection. To maximise his chances of reelection, he might have to debrand himself from the Liberal Party and maybe call in popular moderate or teal-ish Liberals for endorsements. At least he will (very likely) have the benefit of a diminished statewide Labor vote.

    Federal Liberal seats that turned teal in 2022 were historically safe Liberal. Federal Labor had never even come close to winning them. In 2022, tactical voting by Labor and Greens voters plus a sizable number of disgruntled Liberal voters helped several teal candidates win.

    How possible is it that in Hawthorn in 2026, a teal candidate and Labor split votes allowing the Liberal to win? Voters of Labor may not preference teals and vice versa. A teal victory is more likely to happen if Labor runs dead or suffers a huge swing and the teal can capture some of the Liberal vote.

    @Nimalan, you mentioned the prospect of Liberals targetting Greenvale and St Albans. The recent federal election showed that the Greens made more in-roads in working-class, religious electorates than the Liberals did, especially in suburban Melbourne.

    In Fraser, the Greens made huge gains and entered the 2CP. Fraser doesn’t have a large Muslim population. The Greens candidate was ethnic Vietnamese. I wouldn’t be surprised if the party asks her to run in St Albans or Footscray in 2026. In other electorates, it’s possible that angst and despair over service delivery might make voters switch to the Greens or Victorian Socialists if their campaigns are more convincing than that of the Liberals. Even Middle Eastern conflicts may drive people to switch to the Greens like what happened at the QLD state election.

  13. @ Votante
    Agree in the overlapping booths in Fraser with St Albans the Greens actually outpolled the Libs in many of the poorer booths. As you correctly pointed out Fraser is not really Muslim and Buddhism in the main minority religion. There is small overlap with Gorton (Keilor Downs) but on a notional TPP all booths in St Albans had a swing to Labor over Greens.
    In Greenvale (Calwell), the overlapping booths in Meadow Heights/Roxburgh Park did hava a notional swing to Labor. The Victorian Socialists did well at the state election which was before October 7. I expect them to do even better now. I think Middle Eastern conflicts has meant Muslims have forgotton about Lockdowns and Gaza is a higher priority than Trans issues.

  14. with the loss of labor incumbency this will be a lib v ind contest.

    I personally didnt want them to just give pesutto the money. surely he should have to go out and get a loan in the private market first then i wouldnt mind the party “loaning” him the money.

    but what a mess this has been, if pesutto hadnt of casued his own downfall he would probably be a shoe in for premier come 2026

  15. @Votante, I think what you describe in terms of the Labor & Teal vote being split is partly what contributed to Pesutto winning the seat back in that election.

    Pesutto actually suffered a primary vote swing against him in 2022 compared to 2018, but preference leakage ensured he won the 2CP (which I think would have been even closer if the 2CP was vs the Teal).

    This time with a statewide swing expected against Labor, and loss of Labor incumbency, I think it will be a LIB v IND 2CP. And I think the more Labor voters tactically vote IND, the better chance the IND has of winning.

    You’re right that Pesutto will really need to distance himself from the Liberal brand because as I mention in a comment above, even people who want to vote for Pesutto out of sympathy will be stuck between a rock & a hard place because at the same time they won’t want to reward the Liberal Party.

    At this point, I actually don’t even know why Pesutto and Southwick want to hang around in the party, to be honest. They are clearly on the ‘outside’ now after the Deeming saga, the leaked recordings, etc. It can’t be a pleasant environment, and both of their leadership aspirations have been extinguished now too.

  16. Given that Pesutto is seen as a moderate who is on the fringes or outside of the state party branch (which is seen as somewhat hardcore conservative overall), I wonder if it is better if he just leaves the party altogether and runs as a teal like independent instead.

    A disadvantage with this approach is that the teal backers like Simon Holmes a Court may not be keen for him to run as part of their brand. Also, Pesutto may not even want to hang around as a local MP so he could just opt to retire instead, enabling a teal independent to pick up the seat.

  17. Given that Pesutto is seen as a moderate who is on the fringes or outside of the state party branch (which is seen as somewhat hardcore conservative overall), I wonder if it is better if he just leaves the party altogether and runs as a teal like independent instead.

    A disadvantage with this approach is that the teal backers like Simon Holmes a Court may not be keen for him to run as part of their brand. Also, Pesutto may not even want to hang around as a local MP so he could just opt to retire instead, enabling a teal independent to pick up the seat.

  18. Yeah, honestly I find it hard to imagine why Pesutto would even want to recontest – at least as a member of the Liberal Party – in 2026 at all.

    I understand wanting to avoid bankruptcy not just to avoid ineligibility in parliament but just because nobody wants to be bankrupted. So I don’t believe his efforts to raise the money and avoid bankruptcy are necessarily based only (or even mostly) on avoiding a byelection.

    Why would he want to keep representing a party that ousted him as leader, refused to support him in his legal situation, readmitted (and supports) the person who sued him in the first place, and is just so divided with his opposing faction being the dominant one?

    It is in his best interest to stay in the party right now in an effort to raise the funds to avoid a bankruptcy which would have consequences outside his political career.

    But if he does avoid bankruptcy and avoid a byelection, I can picture any of the following happening:

    – He voluntarily retires and triggers a byelection;
    – He quits the party and sits as an independent, then recontests as one;
    – He quits the party and sits as an independent but doesn’t recontest;
    – He stays in the party until 2026 and then doesn’t recontest

    Honestly all 4 of them make more sense than recontesting as a Liberal in 2026.

    RE: Climate 200, Victoria’s electoral funding caps make it much more difficult for INDs to get funding than federally, which is partly why teals in the VIC election had nowhere near the resources they do federally. For this reason, whether or not Simon A Holmes Court funds a Pesutto IND campaign or not probably doesn’t make a whole lot of difference. They weren’t able to contribute much to Melissa Lowe either.

    I wonder if the fact that people like Rob Baillieu donated to Pesutto is a sign that teal-aligned people may want Pesutto to remain eligible to sit in parliament precisely because they believe he may do so as an IND?

    Either way, I think the Liberals will struggle to hold Hawthorn against a strong IND in 2026 regardless of whether Pesutto contests for them or not.

  19. @trent for starters it was his own fault he made allegations publicly about someone and defamed them and a court said he did and lost. its not the partys job to defend someones legal action just because they are a member of and leader of that particular arty especially when it has nothing to do with the party. he has made it clear he wishes to remain the member for hawthorn as long as the constituents will have him so the only reason he will leave will be by bankruptcy or being voted out.

  21. Ousting Pesutto has only made the Victorian Liberals weaker. As for whether he’d stay a Liberal member I think he will, and as for a by-election we’re getting a bit too close for that (not legally too close since one can be called now, but really it’s pointless unless he gets a health condition or dies). However I don’t know if he’ll recontest, but if he does he’ll win.

  22. @np but at the end of the day he caused his own downfall. the reason the numbers turned against him was him losing the defamation case which he caused by accusing moira deeming on national television of being a nazi. if he had of called any other person in the community a nazi without proof he would of been sued and lost. he will recontest hawthorn as long as the people will have him as in his pres release on june 2.
    in regards to a by election there will absolutely be one as its still 18 months until the next election. there would have to be only around 3 months remaing for one not to be held.

    https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1107193201222576&set=a.219991403276098

  23. Whether or not he caused his own downfall probably makes little difference to his electoral prospects here, in my opinion.

    The people of Hawthorn voted him back in (albeit with a primary vote swing against) in 2022 after a campaign that was all about being re-elected so that he could take the leadership and rebuild the Liberal Party in the image of moderate Hawthorn voters. He was rewarded for that.

    It has backfired. He lost the leadership, has no prospect of regaining it, and the Victorian Liberals confirmed for Hawthorn voters that their direction is not in the image of John Pesutto.

    It’s hard to imagine that anybody who didn’t vote for the hope of a Pesutto-led Liberal Party in 2022, would vote for Pesutto this time around. I think he can really only lose 2022 votes rather than gain them.

    Any swing against Labor will most likely to go a teal or even the Greens. Remember that there is also rapid demographic change working against the Liberals in this seat too and now it’s not only Hawthorn but also Camberwell that is the focus of medium & high density apartment development.

  24. @trent how could they be voting for a Pesutto led leadership party when they hadnt yet lost the election. people were voting fro a Matthew Guy led liberal party in 2022. labor has fallen far from their 2022 vote and id imagin some of that labor vote would go to pesutto

  25. Pesutto was actively campaigning that he would run for the leadership and there was a lot of media commentary around it too. I think everybody knew the Liberals had no chance of winning the 2022 election. A second landslide wasn’t expected, but a Labor win certainly was.

  26. I really don’t think Brad Battin in Victoria or Vincent Tarzia in SA are extreme at all. It’s just that they haven’t been effective in their leadership or in convincing voters that they’ve got control of the party and that they’re willing to govern well (similar to Matthew Guy).

    Neither Battin, Tarzia nor Guy hold extreme views. But Pesutto told voters that the party would move to a position of electability and stop the factional infighting that is typical of the Labor Party when it’s about to lose an election (2009-2013 federally and in the past 12+ years in Tassie).

    I don’t see what the benefit is of having Moira Deeming in the party. Is she a Nazi? No, but the rally she went to was hijacked by Nazis and had transphobes present. But is she really a Liberal?

    To quote Sir Robert Menzies: “We took the name ‘Liberal’ because we were determined to be a progressive party, willing to make experiments, in no sense reactionary but believing in the individual, his right and his enterprise, and rejecting the socialist panacea.”

  27. Agree NP, the Liberals and Coalition perform best when they focus on economic issues and act as a proper centre right party that is agnostic/neutral on social issues. This is how they comfortably won three terms in NSW and also Tasmania under Will Hodgman and Peter Gutwein.

  28. The CLP under NT Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro and Queensland LNP under Premier David Crisafulli seem to be emulating this model, which bodes well for them to win second terms for their parties.

  29. Couldnt agree more. Liberals need to go hard on the economy to be elected in victoria and be angostic or moderate on social issues!

  30. The issue is the Libs are the opposite they are Agnostic economically but socially passionate they feel this works in the red wall

  31. trent still not a thing to be banking on when he hasnt even won the seat. but when it became clear i thought he was th better choice until he threw moira deeming under the bus.

  33. I agree with you NP that Brad Battin isn’t extreme as well. At this stage he’s mostly just unknown to the electorate.

    Pesutto had put the Liberals in their best position in Victoria in a decade though. So replacing him with Battin is really just a step backwards in that firstly it has probably interrupted the momentum they had under Pesutto, and secondly Pesutto had more of a profile so now the Liberals need to start again with raising their leader’s profile – and it’s something they had better do quickly, because Battin’s previous occupation does give Labor an opportunity to portray him as being like Peter Dutton if the Liberals don’t get in first with shaping his public profile the way they want to. That said, I wouldn’t say Battin is a negative for the Liberal Party at all. Just less of a positive (at this stage) than Pesutto was.

    Really though it’s Moira Deeming who is causing the damage to the party. I agree that for the Liberals to win in Victoria they really need to be moderate or agnostic on social issues, and in that context, she should never have even been at that rally – hijacked or not – to have allowed for the Liberal Party to even be associated with it. She may not have known the neo-Nazis would show up, but she knew exactly who the controversial guest speaker was that she chose to appear alongside and Pesutto was right that it was never in the party’s interest for her to be there.

  34. @trent she was there to support womens rights. I have been to two events with her. First time at CPAC in 2023 where she was given a stand novation and the only person who beat her or came close was Pauline Hanson. second was at a event in wodonga. she is popular among conservatives and the liberal party membership.

  35. If Pesutto avoids being forced out of parliament, he should be able to hold Hawthorn quite easily, however, it’s hard to see the Liberals holding it in any by-election.

  37. Pencil is right. They’re preaching to the converted would who never vote Labor at a CPAC event. The fact that Pauline Hanson also got a standing ovation says it all.

    The Liberals don’t need to win over their membership, they need to win over soft Labor voters. John Pesutto was very well placed to do that. Brad Battin may be able to as well. But Moira Deeming is a liability.

    She may have been there to support women’s rights, but she knew that the guest speaker was very controversial, and that associating with such a rally would open her party up to attacks, which is the point Pesutto made. It was a poor political decision that really only appeals to the base.

  38. If Deeming being popular with the Hanson-fans and CPAC is the benchmark for what the Victorian Liberals should be then they might as well rebrand themselves to the Conservatives or One Nation then. They’ll probably have a better chance at being competitive whilst being full nutso than being some sort of a faux ‘Liberal’ party that pretends to care about the people they’re begging to vote for them whilst they’re more interested in talking absolute BS and stoking culture wars.

  39. @trent
    The question is can the Libs win a DLP style demographic in the red wall but talking about Trans issues?

  40. My prediction now…. the liberals are unfit to govern…so Labor in Victoria will be reelected.The whole Deeming saga has shown this.

  42. @Pencil
    I am inclined to agree with you
    however many rank and file Liberal members that I know see Moira Deeming as an asset who can help finally break the red wall and wedge issue such as Trans issues can help in Greenvale that’s why they were furious that they were she was expelled from the party room

  43. Regardless of what someone’s personal view is on those sort of issues, it’s not what most voters are focused on, nor is it what they want their elected representatives focused on.

  44. I’m aware they’re preaching to the converted but here’s support amongst members (the people who choose the candidates) is strong that she would probably get preselected. Unlike Labor where the fscfions determine the candidate in the liberal party it’s usually a grassroots pick. And unlike Labor the libs can challenge a sitting member for preselection in Labor its whoever has the best mates

  45. I find it somewhat amazing that a person in Australia in 2025 does not have access to the Courts without the prospect of being bankrupted (or being extremely rich or have extremely rich friends who can fund a case and afford to pay up if you lose – shout out to Kerry Stokes funding Ben Roberts-Smith all the way to the High Court – reported cost: more than $25m).

    Maybe the issue lies with the so-called justice system in Australia which needs to be reformed so an everyday person like John can have a dispute decided without being bankrupted????

    I am sure John’s lawyers took their fees (probably up front) while warning him of the risky nature of litigation and when the case was lost I am sure the lawyers didn’t refund their fees.

    Despite my thought that the legal system should be changed to eliminate cost orders against individuals (and small-medium businesses) I think John’s real crime is his complete lack of judgement, both political and legal, in forcing this matter into the Courts. This, more than his possible bankruptcy, is why he is unfit to be premier. A potential premier should have found a way to work together with people who have different views and formed a coalition of people against labor.

  46. @pollster I’m in that boat. I’m trying to fight woolies over discrimination wage theft and about 100 other thinsg unfortunately in order to go to court lawyers want money and that’s the thing i don’t have because of the abuse.

  48. The Trans Issue is completely astroturfed, Liberal pols wasting any time on it give themselves away as either completely out of touch or labor stooges.
    My opinion, Moira Deeming is the latter.
    if it’s true that she offered to cease pursuing Pesutto over her Costs in return for preselection, you’ve gotta wonder who’s guaranteeing her legal bills?

  49. I too applaud Kerry Stokes for supporting Ben Roverts-Smith. It doesn’t matter what the court says he is a national hero and we know he is.

  50. Nimalan, makes me wonder if Liberal party members are engaging with their local communities or if they simply project their own views.

    John, since this is about Hawthorn, if the grass roots choose the candidate, what is the significance of Frydenberg’s supporters winning key posts at the Kooyong EFC or doesn’t that influence who wins preselection for Kooyong?

« Older Comments Newer Comments »

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here