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.

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807 COMMENTS

  1. @ Pencil
    my experience with the Liberal party members that i know personally is that they are firm in the view of a trump style realignent so they belive that targetting a DLP style demographic (Economically Left, Socially Right) is the way forward. They believe that social issues will be the fault line going forward. I think they are less interested in seats such as Eltham, Monbulk, Bellarine and Macedon which are very irreligious seats. The Red wall has a lot of CALD religious voters. It is why even when Pesutto was leader he was campaigning in Greenvale etc

  2. A couple of comments here to reply to:

    I agree that Pesutto’s replacement was a step backwards and that the way to win elections is by focusing on economic issues. It makes you wonder what America would be like if that was the case (Vermont is a good example).

    As for whether the Liberals can win in the Red Walls of our major cities like they did in the UK (the UK example is bad because Jeremy Corbyn was very leftist especially on foreign policy and was out of touch), I would say no but they could be less safe for Labor if a sensible Coalition government contributed to infrastructure there.

    As for CPAC it’s based off an American conference of the same name which is a MAGA conference so the Australian one is similar. I wouldn’t say Hansonism is Trumpism though. Many One Nation voters aren’t bad people or extremists even if the party does also get the votes of extreme right people. In fact the voter bases of the Nationals and One Nation both didnt really oppose gay marriage much.

  3. I think that something that worked in Victorian Labor’s favour is that they did what the NSW Coalition did when it comes to infrastructure just to a lesser extent. Look at Sydney’s metro for example. I’ve used it many times despite not living there and it’s great. That was a NSW Coalition government project. The list goes on for the infrastructure projects they did in NSW. They focused on that rather than American-style culture wars. Indeed, it was also a Coalition government that won the bid for the Women’s World Cup and World Pride.

    Speaking of this, if Deeming is a true supporter of keeping womens sport safe like I am, why has she never (to my knowledge) spoken out for women’s sport or events like the WWC in Parliament?

  4. Whilst trans issues are polarising, how overyhyped and overweighted is it in the state election debate?

    This past federal election taught us that the electorate’s opposition to the voice to parliament didn’t lead to a backlash against Labor nor did it guarantee votes for the Liberals. The federal Liberals misconstrued the mood of this one particular issue. They were too optimistic about winning over No (to the voice) voters in working-class electorates. There was also a lot of weighting of greivance politics. People were pessimistic and dejected but it didn’t mean people would swing hard to the Liberals.

    @Nimalan, you make a lot of sense the demographics and dynamics of the red wall seats. It must be mentioned that unlike in the US, disaffected working-class voters who normally vote left or centre-left have other options to vote for e.g. Greens, Victorian Socialists, and not just the main right-wing party.

    @Trent
    “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).”
    Yes, absolutely. I agree with you that a statewide swing against Labor, and loss of Labor incumbency would bring down the Labor primary vote and make it a Lib vs Independent contest (if a high-profile ‘teal’ independent runs).

  5. Why are people even considering Moira deeming an asset to the party. She should save us all the headache and just defect to the DLP. The fact that she voted with Labor the majority of the time as an independent says it all . Far-right groups and evangelicals seeing the Liberal party as their political home in Victoria is extremely concerning .

  6. With Pesutto in and deeming out i could see for the first time the Libs being electable . Only 4 years of my life Victoria has had Liberal government. When will they get their act together and realise they will NEVER win an election in Victoria advocating against abortion and trans rights – or giving promotions to those who do. Victorians are concerned with our failing economy, rampant crime and huge debt… not banning furries from schools 😂

  7. And to assume that culture wars will win over the working class Red wall is offensive . There are much more pressing issues that affect us and while many are socially conservative it has never been something we take to the ballot box (excepting referendums)… like someone once said , its the economy stupid!

  8. Nimalan, there could be potential for the Liberals to become competitive in red wall areas, however the Liberals could be more successful, if they focused on family values, also, many red wall areas have high levels of welfare dependency, which makes economic policy more important, but being economically left could be seen as being Labor lite, the very thing they hate moderates doing.

  9. Up the dragons, when listening to Deeming, and If I didn’t know her politics, she sounds like member of the ALP.

  10. @pencil there’s a story to that. She used to be a Labor member like Waaren Mundine. But left the party or in her words the party left her. They don’t identify with the Labor any more because it’s become more about activist causes then the worker.

  11. Again I don’t think Deeming is truly a Liberal. She doesn’t fit with what Menzies set out when founding the party.

    And I ask again, does Deeming really care about saving women’s sports and spaces or is it just a way to court right-wing votes by claiming to support women’s sports and women’s spaces?

  12. John, I’ve heard Deeming talk about that, and the Liberals and the UAP before them successfully recruited people from the ALP, think Joseph Lyons, however Deeming doesn’t sound like a real Liberal person, and that is why her pet issues are at odds with the Liberal Party’s target voters.

  13. @ Votante and Pencil
    Great points raised. Chris Ulhman warned the Liberals in a Sky News Docummentary in Late 2023 that the No vote in the Voice was not a vote for the Liberals so they should get ahead of themselves. Brexit did realign UK politics. I also agree that there are other options for dissatisfied working class voters in Red Wall seats such as Greens, Family First, Victorian Socialists and independents like Paul Hopper. I also agree that areas like Meadow Heights (Greenvale) and St Albans have high degree of welfare dependency so if Labor made a campaign promise to send all families a $100 Coles Myer Gift voucher every months many of these poor voters will vote Labor over Libs as economic issues are more pressing it is a reflection of Maslow Hireachy of Needs more than anything. I often think many people in the Libs are DLP lite these days as they dont really care as much about economics rather social issues eventhough they accuse the moderates of being Labor lite.

  14. The less affluent the voter, the less likely they are to take social issues into the ballot box as a priority.

    Someone could be staunchly conservative on issues like same sex marriage, abortion and trans rights, but if they are working class they are more likely to vote for whoever they feel offers more tangible quality of life improvements (job security, wages, healthcare, welfare benefits, infrastructure) even if they have polar opposite social values.

    This is the Liberals’ challenge in winning the “red wall” seats. They may share social values but these are overwhelmingly not affluent voters, they don’t have the luxury of focusing on moral & social issues when they are worried about job security, mortgage stress or securing a rental property.

    Voters in affluent seats like Hawthorn are the ones who typically place more importance on social issues, they have the luxury of doing so, and they lean more socially progressive.

    NP is right that the NSW LIberals were a good model of a successful state Liberal Party who were able to present as modern, in touch and able to get things done and make progress.

    The Victorian Liberals have failed miserably at offering anything other than grievance and relentlessly opposing, which usually doesn’t translate to votes. They’re a mess, and it makes Labor’s attack lines like “We build and they block” far too easy.

  15. I do agree with Trent that in Red Wall seats people dont have the luxury to focus on non material issues to the extent that more affluent voters especilaly in the Teal seats. One thing to remember from 2022 is that the pandemic did affect peoples economic wellbeing. Working class voters did not have the luxury to WFH hence they were more likley to be exposed tothe virus which would have driven the large swing in Greenvale and St Albans so it was not really a culture war for those residents. Opposing Coal mining is affects the job security of Coal miners hence Anti-Adani backlash same with Latham’s Tasmanian Forestry policy in 2004 but this is different to trans rights and Abortion. The reason that Labor runs a scare campaign on Liberal cuts is that it works in the Red Wall and Albo showing off the Medicare card also resonates the Red Wall. I always bring this up because those who support Deeming argue the opposite that Red Wall is ripe for conversion to Blue it just needs the right wedge.

  16. The thing is that Trans Issues don’t affect the Average Australian and wedging on trans issues which is mainly done in America are mostly ideological rather than even genuine.

    Trans using the bathroom of their choice is one example as their claim about endangering women is not genuine given it does not legalise sexual assault and would they rather have trans men or trans women into women’s bathroom.

  18. the most vunerale of the red wall is Werribee which almost collapsed at the by election. Also melton and eureka, sunbury, niddrie, greenvale.

  19. Those are the issues that resonate with the majority of voters in those areas John. And I doubt that is stopping anytime soon, so if the Liberals hope to break through they will have to take that into account.

  20. Werribee by-election happened at a low point for the Vic government and even then they managed to hold on. In a general election that result is likely at least a few points better. And even with polling of around 49-51 in the last polls it was tough to see that mapping to an actual win in enough seats for Liberal government.

  21. @adda the biggest threat to labor in werribee would be the IND who polled quite well. if he were to get over the libs he would likely win

  22. @ John
    The Great to Labor in the Red Wall will be not Libs but IND so yes if Paul Hopper outpolled Libs he could win same with Greenvale so if Youhana outpolled Libs he could win.
    I agree Niddrie, Sunbury, Yan Yean and Eureka are in play they are largely White/European seats. However, Greenvale includes Meadow Heights and it includes some of the strongest Labor suburbs in the state it is margin is deceptively low. I would like someone to calculate Greenvale on Federal results (notional ALP/LIB TPP). By-elections swings are not repeated at general elections. At a general election i think swing would have been lower and Labor would win 54% TPP in Werribee.

  23. @Marh this was exactly my point in my above comment (people seem to have missed it). Is it just a way to stir up votes or do they really care?

  24. @nimalan labor will probably marginally hold Werribee but given the excess in Werribee and all the seats in the SW Werribee will probably lose WErribee at the redistribution making it possibly notionally liberal.

  25. @ John
    There only two small rural Liberal voting booths anywhere in the area (Werribee South and Little River) both are Green wedge and not growing

  26. @nimalan still the there must be a vote somewhere for the liberals to have gotten so close at the by election. i think the redistribution will probably move everything east of the werribee river out of the seat

  29. John moving Werribee west into Lara won’t really help the libs, everywhere there is solid for Labor.

  31. @ Andrew of 3040
    I don’t actually know tbh have not heard anything. niddrie does not have a significant Assyrian/Chaldean community it is very much Italian Catholic. Greenvale has a large Assyrian/ Chaldean community as these community is Christian I think liberals will be happy to run dead unlike an MVM candidate.

  34. Early by-election or not the Victorian Liberals are still divided which will eventually spill over.

  35. Yeah I can’t see Pesutto peacefully coexisting with Deeming in the party. The Libs’ media allies at Sky will continue to attack the party and its moderates over this too. The saga is far from over even if he avoided bankruptcy.

  37. i think regardless of his political future not being bankrupt is a good outcome. Avoids potential loss of Family Home and other complications. I dont know why he will move to Federal politics which is even harder as he will get involved in climate wars. I also feel Sky News will sabotage any moves to run in a federal seat.

  38. Agree Nimalan, Pesutto is better off being like Matt Kean who was another moderate who simply stepped aside from politics as his views were not liked by the wider party. Especially those in the grassroots membership

  39. @ Yoh An
    Pesutto had the misfortune of being caught while the party is undergoing signifcant internal debate on the way forward. Even before the controversial rally that Moira Deeming took place i think some in the right flank were concerned about Pesutto. The Fact that he was the member for Hawthorn was an issue many feel this is no longer their heartland and they should look elsewhere. Many believe the strategy is should to win the DLP style voter as i keep mentioning by playing on Wedge issues.

  40. Nimalan, if they think Hawthorn isn’t their heartland, shows how out of touch they have become, maybe not the Swinburne part, however the Liberals are still competitive in the rest of the seat.

  42. @ Pencil
    The Swinburne part is just a bit weaker due to some student housing and higher density. While there is a tram line it is still still not Brunswick Street Fitzroy. Even in 2019 after the eleciton Peta Credlin said Kooyong will no longer be a heartland and the future leaders will come from seats like Aston which she said was their new heartland. Some rank and file right flank liberals were exicited about winning Bruce and it contains industrial suburbs, religious and would have love to have Dandenong town hall and Doveton in a Liberal seat. Tim Smith even said Libs should stop obessing about Kew (his former seat) and put the focus on Cranbourne.
    There is a belief that seats like Hawthorn hinder this strategy

    See this article below
    https://ipa.org.au/ipa-today/the-liberals-need-to-embrace-their-working-class-voters-to-win-over-the-outer-suburban-freedom-fighters

  44. She will likely lose preselection soon, and I assume she will move to the crossbench either as an Independent or DLP

  46. Not to the DLP but some new grouping further to the right. The power struggle within the Libs will culminate soon enough

  47. @ Up the Dragons
    I posted the Cooper thread about Wedge issues. Sometimes they become redudant due to external factors.

  48. I think eastern Melbourne is still the Liberals heartland but it depends on the local members’ personal vote.

    At the recent federal election in Kooyong, the strongest Liberal part was in Malvern, followed by Kew whilst the weakest was in Hawthorn. Hawthorn is perhaps the more vulnerable of the three seats based on federal results. Jess Wilson has the chance to get a sophomore surge in Kew.

    The Liberal embrace of Western suburbs and Dandenong and Casey LGA is possible but culture wars won’t be the silver bullet.

  49. If there was to be a conservative walkout in the days, weeks or months after this, one wonders how strong the swing against the state ALP would be come next year in November, where one of the biggest inhibitors of Liberals winning, (let alone being competitive) being constantly engaging in culture wars is put behind them (maybe not permanently but at least for the short to medium term).

  50. @ Votane
    Labor is doing much better in SE Melbourne (Casey/Dandenong/Cardinia LGA) than corresponding areas in the West or North. Main reason is service delivery has been better managed. All level crossings are being removed only 1 left Webster Road, Dandenong. Furthermore the Narre Warrens and Cranbourne have never been taken for granted and treated as seats in play “every election). There is also electrified rail to East Pakenham (edge of urban growth boundary). Libs could win Cranbourne due to Clyde Rail Extention demands.
    In the West Sunbury/Niddrie are in play due to Airport rail delay even with a moderate platform. Melton is in play due to Melton electrfication/Western Highway Upgrade

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