GRN 8.2% vs LIB
Incumbent MP
Sam Hibbins, since 2014.
Geography
Inner southern Melbourne. Prahran covers the suburbs of Prahran, South Yarra and Windsor and parts of St Kilda and St Kilda East.
Redistribution
Prahran shifted slightly to the west, taking in part of Southbank from Albert Park and part of Balaclava from Caulfield, and then lost the remainder of Toorak to Malvern and part of St Kilda East to Caulfield. These changes slightly increased the Greens margin.
History
Prahran has been a state electorate since 1889. It has alternated between the ALP and conservative parties, before falling to the Greens in 2014.
The ALP first won the seat in 1894, holding it until 1900. Liberal MP Donald Mackinnon held the seat from 1900 to 1920. The ALP and conservative parties alternated in control until the 1930s, with the Liberal Party holding the seat until 1945.
In 1945, the ALP’s William Quirk won the seat, holding it until his death in November 1948. The ensuing by-election in 1949 was won by Frank Crean, who had previously held the seat of Albert Park. He left the seat in 1951 when he moved to the federal seat of Melbourne Ports. He served as a federal MP until 1977, playing a senior role in the Whitlam Labor government.
The 1951 Prahran by-election was won by the ALP’s Robert Pettiona, who held the seat until his defeat in 1955.
Since 1955, Prahran has been won by the ALP only four times. In 1955, the seat was won by Sam Loxton, a Liberal candidate. Loxton was a former test cricketer who had been part of Don Bradman’s Invincibles team and played VFL football for St Kilda.
Loxton held the seat until 1979, when the ALP’s Bob Miller won the seat. He held the seat for two terms, and in 1985 unsuccessfully contested the Legislative Council province of Monash.
The Liberal Party’s Don Hayward won the seat in 1985. He had previously held the upper house seat of Monash from 1979 to 1985. He served as Member for Prahran until the 1996 election.
In 1996, the Liberal Party’s Leonie Burke won Prahran. Burke was defeated in 2002 by the ALP’s Tony Lupton. Lupton was re-elected in 2006.
In 2010, Lupton was defeated by Liberal candidate Clem Newton-Brown.
Prahran produced an unusual result in 2014, with the third-placed Greens candidate Sam Hibbins overtaking both Labor and Liberal candidates to win narrowly.
Hibbins was re-elected in 2018, again coming third on primary votes and then overtaking Labor and Liberal to win.
- Alice Le Huray (Animal Justice)
- Matthew Lucas (Liberal)
- Wesa Chau (Labor)
- Alan Menadue (Independent)
- Sam Hibbins (Greens)
- Ronald Emilsen (Family First)
Assessment
Prahran is a complex seat. The Greens won in 2014 and 2018 despite polling third on the primary vote. Hibbins managed to pick up enough preferences from minor candidates to overtake Labor, and then won on Labor preferences (easily in 2018, less so in 2014).
The redistribution has increased the Greens margin over the Liberal Party. It’s also made the seat safer for Labor if they make the top two. The redistribution has widened the primary vote gap between Labor and the Greens, so Labor has a real chance of winning the seat, but Hibbins could well gain enough of a swing to come a clear second on primary votes and win easily on Labor preferences.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Katie Allen | Liberal | 13,956 | 34.5 | -10.3 | 32.5 |
| Neil Pharaoh | Labor | 11,702 | 28.9 | +3.0 | 30.7 |
| Sam Hibbins | Greens | 11,347 | 28.1 | +3.3 | 28.3 |
| Jennifer Long | Animal Justice | 900 | 2.2 | 0.0 | 2.4 |
| Leon Kofmansky | Democratic Labour | 933 | 2.3 | +2.3 | 2.2 |
| Tom Tomlin | Reason | 830 | 2.1 | +2.1 | 2.1 |
| Dennis Bilic | Sustainable Australia | 468 | 1.2 | +1.2 | 1.2 |
| Wendy Patterson | Aussie Battler Party | 156 | 0.4 | +0.4 | 0.4 |
| Alan Menadue | Independent | 130 | 0.3 | +0.1 | 0.4 |
| Others | 0.1 | ||||
| Informal | 2,229 | 5.2 | +0.1 |
2018 two-candidate-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Sam Hibbins | Greens | 23,224 | 57.5 | +7.1 | 58.2 |
| Katie Allen | Liberal | 17,198 | 42.6 | -7.1 | 41.8 |
2018 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Neil Pharaoh | Labor | 23,263 | 57.6 | +7.6 | 59.5 |
| Katie Allen | Liberal | 17,159 | 42.5 | -7.6 | 40.5 |
Booths have been divided into three areas: central, north and south.
The Liberal Party topped the primary vote in the north, and also did best on the special votes. They did worst in the south.
Labor topped the poll easily in the south and narrowly in the centre. The Greens came second in all three areas.
| Voter group | GRN prim | ALP prim | LIB prim | Total votes | % of votes |
| Central | 32.3 | 32.6 | 26.6 | 5,494 | 14.3 |
| North | 28.9 | 27.4 | 36.6 | 5,124 | 13.3 |
| South | 33.8 | 40.1 | 18.3 | 3,996 | 10.4 |
| Pre-poll | 26.9 | 30.1 | 34.9 | 15,206 | 39.4 |
| Other votes | 25.3 | 28.3 | 36.2 | 8,730 | 22.6 |
Election results in Prahran at the 2018 Victorian state election
Toggle between two-candidate-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, Labor and the Greens.
Labor’s 2002 landslide I meant.
@Trent I actually think Docklands is still better for the Liberals. In 2016 the Liberal TCP (against the Greens) was higher in Docklands than in South Yarra.
Think south Yarra is no longer even pro liberal
@NP I wouldn’t be surprised to be honest, I just assumed Docklands would be similar to Southbank (which generally has a mid-60s 2CP) but you’re right, I think the 2CP in Docklands is only in the 50s. South Yarra has definitely trended much more left and is somewhere in between the two these days.
You’re right Mick it’s not, and as the least “left” and most populous suburb in the seat, the Liberals really can’t win Prahran without winning South Yarra (and by enough to cancel out Windsor and St Kilda) so they have a long way to climb.
This is what I think will also help the Greens easily retain – barring complications from Hibbins re-contesting as an independent – the fact that neither Labor or the Liberals will particularly target this seat or put resources into it.
Labor won’t target a Greens seat that they come third in when they have to fight off the Greens in 4-5 marginal ALP v GRN seats not to mention a swag of marginal ALP v LIB seats, they’ll be on the defensive. The Liberals aren’t going to be targeting 12% Greens seats when there are more than 20 Labor seats on margins less than that in areas that are trending away from Labor.
@Trent I was talking about 2016 in Docklands, the Liberal vote is down heaps now (more than halved). In 2016 the TPP in Southbank was actually 52.4% Labor vs Liberal while the Greens vs Liberal TCP in Docklands was 53.1% and 55.8% in South Yarra.
Docklands, Southbank and South Yarra are all now Greens booths yet they used to be marginal Greens vs Liberal booths where the Liberals finished first but lost to the Greens on Labor preferences. What happened? Surely the massive switch can’t just be from the Liberals moving further to the right since the Greens have been moving further to the left.
BREAKING: Sam Hibbins is resigning from parliament, with a by-election to be called soon.
The circumstances outlined in The Age are very odd. Interesting to see where it goes.
This will be a test for the Greens, will be interesting to see if the other two parties contest this.
Please move over to the new guide.
Thought I’d move over here to discuss Prahran 2026 in the aftermath of the federal election and what those results say about it.
Firstly, off the bat I’ll say that the Liberals retaining after the byelection is extremely unlikely, because I’d predict the byelection-specific factors added around 6-7% to their 2CP (at least).
Westaway won the 2CP by a margin of 427 votes, and any one of the byelection-specific factors not being present would likely have flipped that result; let alone all of them not being present at a general election.
Turnout almost certainly impacting Port Phillip (Liberals’ weakest area) the most as they don’t identify with “Prahran”. Donkey vote (the IND at #1 got over 5% with no campaign and Westaway was #2). 70% preference flow from Lupton. No Labor candidate or Labor preferences. No Labor campaign attacking the Liberals. No focus on party leader or who forms government.
So, let’s assume the Liberals maintain their primary vote of around 36% – which was probably inflated by byelection factors by say Westaway has some incumbency advantage. That would be a +5 swing from 2022 and a +4 swing from 2018 (redistribution adjusted) so is still factoring in a generous swing to them. They can’t win a 2CP on that primary vote, when both Labor & Greens are running. Labor will absolutely preference the Greens, this isn’t Macnamara nor does it overlap any Jewish parts of Macnamara.
With that out of the way, this shapes up to be very much like 2018 again. ALP v GRN race at the 3CP where the winner goes on to defeat the Liberals comfortably, as the most likely outcome.
At the federal election, in the booths that overlap Melbourne, while the ALP won the 2CP in all of them (due to strong Liberal preference flows), the Greens actually still won the primary vote in all booths except one: South Yarra South which is the one at the housing commission estate. Similarly in the booths overlapping Macnamara, the Greens won of all them too except 1 (“Balaclava” which is actually on Inkerman St, St Kilda).
That’s a good sign for them, however early & postal votes probably favoured Labor which will cancel that out.
So at a federal level at least, these booths probably had a close 3CP between ALP & GRN as a starting point. Obviously in the booths overlapping Melbourne the Greens vote may be inflated by Bandt’s incumbency, but that is probably cancelled out by Burns’ incumbency in the Macnamara booths.
However, you’d think Labor will probably do worse at a state level than federal level this time around. Not guaranteed though and Labor are probably less “on the nose” in this neck of the woods where their vote may be holding up a lot better. They did beat the Greens in a couple of Port Phillip council wards, running as endorsed & branded Labor candidates (unlike most other councils).
In short, after a long post, I think this will really be close at the 3CP again between ALP & GRN and the result really just might come down to who Labor pre-select to run. Their 2022 candidate didn’t seem very strong, with the right candidate I think this is their best chance to win Prahran back. But I’d probably give the Greens the edge at this point, just based on:
– Overlapping federal results in which the Greens would probably have made the 2CP;
– Expectation that Labor will probably do worse than their federal results at the state election
I think it’s also worth reflecting on where the Liberal Party were at the time of the by-election, they had just switched leaders and were clearly throwing more resources at the Werribee race – they have a chance to improve their stock significantly with Battin as leader and drill down further into the issues that allowed Westaway to win. Yes the by-election brought turnout way down and the flow of preferences is unlikely to be replicated but I definitely don’t think the Liberals were at an unnaturally strong point in February in inner Melbourne compared to the Greens.
i plan to do som e reno on this seat come rdistribution anyway. Im think of moving Albert Part to Punt Road. and then Malvern on the area north of toorak Road. then shift Prahan south along orrang Road and inkeman street and as far into st kilda/elwood as is needed. thoughts?
I agree that they weren’t at an unnaturally strong point, but only a 36% primary vote at a byelection is unlikely to be beaten in a general election.
The Liberals were also at a very strong point in terms of their Victorian polling still (the leader change hadn’t done much) and were actually throwing everything at Prahran. I think people underestimate just how much effort the Liberals – and Advance and Tony Lupton practically campaigning for them too – actually put into Prahran. WAY more than at a general election.
So I’d argue the opposite in that regard: in February the Liberals could throw all their resources at just 2 byelections, Werribee and Prahran. And both being quite different seats, they featured people like Pesutto, Crozier & Southwick heavily in Prahran while focusing more on people like Battin out in Werribee.
In 2026 they have to spread their resources a lot more thinly while the Greens will still keep their focus to a smaller number of winnable seats in the inner city. People like Pesutto (if he’s still around) and Southwick will have their hands full defending their own marginal seats, and the Liberals will be far more focused on winning 17 seats off Labor and holding their margins like Caulfield & Hawthorn.
Basically, all starting evenly when you exclude byelection specific factors like the lack of Labor preferences, Tony Lupton, low turnout etc, the Liberals will probably need a +7 swing compared to the byelection to match the result of the byelection. Just on primary vote along they’d need at least a +6 swing, they can’t win on a 36% primary vote.
To put that another way, with Labor back on the ballot the Liberals will likely need a minimum +6 primary vote swing to be competitive in holding Prahran; whereas the Greens would win Prahran with a -6 primary vote swing.
@John, yeah I will likely suggest unifying St Kilda in Prahran as well. That was actually proposed by the VEC last time but overturned after some objections, but I think it made sense. I actually think what would make the most sense is a seat centred more on St Kilda (St Kilda, Balaclava, Elwood, St Kilda East, Windsor) which would probably be renamed St Kilda, like what used to exist, but it’s been hard to make the numbers work for that without crossing the river.
the liberals cannot hold this seat. with a labor candidate directing preferences and greens vice versa. the left will win it back. unless labor can knock either the libs or greens out (unlikely) then the greens will win the seat back
@trent i also want to push sandringham north and then caufield and brighton eastwards
it would likely advantage labor and flip it back in their favour too
@Trent
I remember commentary on this site (probably yours) that suggested the leadership change over Christmas saw prominent local moderate Liberals pull away from the campaign and Battin shifted the focus to Werribee, there was certainly more media attention on it and Battin seemed to visit the district more. Yes at a general election resources on the ground will be more scarce but at the same time the Greens had that advantage going into the by-election too and despite having a greater presence on the ground (going by my own visit to South Yarra on the day and commentary here) the Liberals won the seat.
I will need to have another look at the electoral roll, but for Macnamara at least the population had gotten older and the amount of younger millenials/gen z had actually decreased since the census in 2021, suspect demography is actually making this seat harder for the greens while seats such as Footscray and Pascoe Vale seem to be trending quite fast towards them.
I do agree though that it’s going to be a tough hold for the Liberals, cracking 40% here will probably mean they need to be nudging 42-43% primary statewide and still they’d be relying on a relatively timid preference flow from Labor to the Greens.
@maxim the funny thing is that the libs will probly lose Prahan and Labor will likely lose Werriebee
So, I just looked at all the Melbourne & Macnamara booth results from 3 May that overlap Prahran (no point doing the one overlapping Kooyong booth because the presence of a teal skews all the primary votes).
The overlapping Macnamara booths had the following primary votes:
Primary votes: GRN 38.2 / ALP 37.7 / LIB 18.8
The overlapping Melbourne booths had the following primary votes:
GRN 34.2 / ALP 30.4 / LIB 26.8
So overall, the ‘election day’ vote in the booths overlapping Prahran this month was:
GRN 36.3 / ALP 34.1 / LIB 22.6
Obviously postal and early votes are far better for the Liberals, so I looked how how prepoll & postal votes differed from polling day votes across Macnamara and Melbourne, to estimate what the postal & prepoll primary votes overlapping Prahran may have been by applying those variances to the election day votes. Here’s what I got:
Postal – LIB 36.4 / ALP 32.5 / GRN 22.6
Prepoll – ALP 34.4 / GRN 30.9 / LIB 28.3
Then I looked at the vote share percentages for ordinary, prepoll & postal in the 2022 Prahran election and applied those primary vote percentages to each, to come up with what the estimated primary votes would have been at the 2025 Federal Election if a seat had the same boundaries as Prahran.
The result was very interesting:
ALP 34.1% (34.1 on ordinary, 32.5 on postal, 34.4 on early)
GRN 31.6% (36.3 on ordinary, 22.6 on postal, 30.9 on early)
LIB 27.5% (22.6 on ordinary, 36.4 on postal, 28.3 on early)
That actually seems about right to me too. But obviously Labor are expected to fare a lot worse (and based on most recent polling anyway, the Liberals a lot better) at the 2026 state election compared to the 2025 federal election.
Even so though, if we’re to assume that in a traditional 3-way contest with Labor & Greens directing preferences to each other, that the Liberals would need a minimum primary vote of around 42% to be competitive, then here are the primary vote swings they would require:
+6% swing compared to their 2025 byelection result, where Labor didn’t run;
+11% swing compared to the 2022 State Election result;
+14.5% swing compared to how the overlapping area voted at the 2025 Federal Election
That’s a pretty tall order I think, and why it’s extremely unlikely that they have a chance of holding the seat next year.
yea the libs arent winning this seat. not in its current configuration
the greens wil probably win northcote, preston pascoe vale and footscray furhter harming labors chances of majority govt. i cant see labor making majority tbh
John, why would The Greens win Northcote, Preston (there was a swing to Labor from the Greens in Cooper btw) and Pascoe Vale/Footscray? I can’t see the Liberals preferencing the Greens above Labor again considering the Liberals vehemently believe the Greens are a vile, anti-semitic party and that seems to be the one opinion that unites everybody in the Liberal party.
@ Adam
Being Pro Israel is the only thing that unites the Libs.
Yea Adam that was in a federal election that was based on federal issues. The Allen labor govt is gonna tank in the polls in 18months time. Never assume what the state libs will do and the state greens aren’t as bad in my opinion
At Mulgrave and Werribee by election they preferenced Labor ahead of Greens
Also if people don’t like Labor why will they vote Greens to get rid of Allen? it is like Labor preferencing ONP in Maranoa
I think there’s a very slim chance the Liberals would preference the Greens anywhere in the 2026 election.
That means the starting point for Northcote, Footscray, Preston and Pascoe Vale will probably be at least a +5 to Labor compared to the current margin.
I do believe there will be a swing against Labor though, but if you look at a seat like Footscray for example, if you flip the Liberals’ preference decision around you’re probably looking at closer to a 9-10% swing needed by the Greens rather than a 4-5% swing.
I think Brunswick will be safe, Melbourne will be close (but favour the Greens), Labor are in a great position to regain Richmond, Prahran is a toss-up between who out of Labor & Greens makes the 2CP to comfortably beat the Liberals (Liberal preferences won’t factor there), but the Greens might struggle to gain new seats without Liberal preferences as they’ll probably need at least an additional ~5% swing on top of whatever the 2022 deficit was.
I see the Liberal vote increasing in Green held Melbourne and Richmond. Maybe by 5 %. Whether that helps the Greens retain or Labor gain im not sure. Both parties are losing popularity in different demographics in the inner city but doesnt really translate to Liberal votes . If LGA elections were any indication, community socialists could win Richmond if they ran. MP Gabby is not too popular in Richmond i think her margin could halve.
Well in mulgrave and werribee it cant known because they were never gonna be a lab v grn contest. Personally I would vote greens just to screw labor. The difference in maranoa is on have no hope of winning and secondly the greens would use that against labor.
The thing that could hurt Labor in Northcote might be the VPS job cuts. My understanding is there are a lot of VPS employees in Northcote and maybe this will push some to the Greens? But the area has seemed to trend Labor.
Good analysis Trent.
The Prahran byelection results are meaningless predictors – there was no Labor candidate, the byelection was called because of a scandal for the Greens incumbent, it was probably the lowest of ebbs for Labor in general (though not low enough to lose Werribee).
I’d say the byelection result, the Federal election results including in Macnamara, and the removal of Adam Bandt, has drained off the Labor-Greens animosity that Lupton drew on, I don’t think there’d be a continuing appetite in 2026 for an elevated level of Labor voters puttiing the Libs above the Greens.
As you say, if the Federal Election was replicated in Prahran then Labor will win easily. Nobody is expecting that to be replicated. But the Libs are coming from a long way back to be able to get a high enough primary to win the seat with Labor and the Greens preferencing each other. The wildcard is how the state Greens go as they can really only win if both they and the Libs get ahead of Labor. The state Greens seem to have gone back to being nonentities in the local zeitgeist with Ratnam leaving to try her hand at Federal level.
Brunswick will be safe but the other Greens seats are at risk. Prahran might stay Liberal or go to Labor.
@ np
The 2022 redistrbution made Brunswick even safer as it removed parts of Pascoe Vale South (Middle class centrist area with decent Liberal support) and put Ultra Left Fitzroy North in
The Macnamara results (insofar as being potential future vote indicators) are possibly poisoned by Liberal voters voting tactically for Josh Burns – I know it happened in central Brisbane and there was speculation it might happen in Macnamara too, can’t prove it I guess. Also, the state Liberals have the capacity to run a campaign that taps into local issues around crime and over-development (or whatever the story is there) much better than Dutton could for Macnamara. Not to mention how on the nose state Labor is – which might change, but I can’t see why there would be much encouragement for potential Green voters to defect to Labor as some sort of punishment for parliamentary tactics – the state greens seem more like enablers than blockers.
I think the Liberals will revert to recommending preferences to Labor over the Greens, especially in this neck of the woods. Liberal insiders were annoyed in 2022 about how the Liberals put the Greens ahead of Labor across the state.
On another note, Prahran North East is the sole polling booth here that’s in the federal seat of Kooyong. It was by far the best teal booth south of the M1. This part of the electorate got redistributed into Kooyong. It’s even more teal than any booth in Goldstein.
I agree Arky. Not only would Labor have easily won this seat on federal results, but it would have been an ALP v GRN 2CP with a Liberal primary vote considerably lower than 2022.
That byelection was so unique without Labor running, that nothing about it can be really be used to predict the next general election contest.
@Maxim, nowhere in Macnamara that may have tactically voted Labor over Liberal would likely overlap with Prahran. The part in Prahran (St Kilda, St Kilda East) is where the Greens vote held up best and the Liberal vote was no worse than in 2022.
But I agree and have said myself that the Libs will do much better in Victoria/Prahran 2026 than they did at the federal election. And I mean significantly better like +6 or +7 on primary vote compared to the overlapping federal results.
I think they’re certain to finish first on primary vote, probably in the 34-35% range. And that is significantly higher than the recent federal results where I estimate they would have got about 27.5% across all vote types (only 22% in ordinary votes!).
Even if they match the byelection primary vote and get 36%, that’s just nowhere near enough to win. They’d literally need at least a +6 primary vote swing above the byelection to retain this.
And remember the byelection occurred at a time when state Labor were polling at a low of 22% and the Liberals over 40% in Victoria… So they would need to outperform that, without the additional byelection factors that favoured them, by an additional +6 or so.
I just can’t see how the Liberals get a 42+ primary vote in Prahran, or how they won without that.
@ Trent
Please see the Richmond 2022 (VIC) thread i have posted to discuss that seat
Nimalan, just saw that. I think things have changed a lot since 2014 in terms of how preferences might flow, but in Melbourne 2025 preferences flowed 74% to Labor, so if that rate were applied to the Richmond 2022 result (32.5% to be distributed between ALP & GRN with a 74-26 split to Labor), Richmond’s 2CP would have been a 56.8-43.2 Labor win.
Not saying that’s how they would have flowed if the Liberals had preferenced Labor on their HTVC, but that’s a pretty thumping Labor win if 2025 Melbourne preference flows applied, so it shows how the Greens would likely be in trouble in Richmond if the Liberals do promote a ‘Greens last’ approach again.
Also, using the same methodology to work out what Prahran’s 2CP & 2PP results would have been based on the overlapping federal results…
Using the estimated primary votes I calculated (which factored in postals & early votes):
ALP 34.1 / GRN 30.9 / LIB 27.5
Applying Melbourne’s 74-26 2CP preference flow between ALP & GRN; and the Liberal 2PP being an average of 6% above than their primary vote between both Melbourne & Macnamara…
Prahran would likely have resulted in a 60-40 ALP v GRN win, with an ALP v LIB 2PP of 66.5-33.5 on 2025 federal results. Which I think again shows the uphill battle the Liberals will face to “retain” their byelection gain.
Again, not saying that will happen in November 2026 at all. I think the Liberals will do much better and win the primary vote and 3CP. But I don’t think they’re outperforming their 2PP by anywhere near +16.
I’d confidently say that the 36% they got at an extremely favourable byelection, at the peak of their Victorian polling (over 40% primary vote), with no Labor candidate, is a ceiling for them. And it’s just not close to a winning primary vote when you have ALP+GRN combining for at least 55% (which would be -10 compared to the overlapping federal results).