ALP 7.9%
Incumbent MP
Libby Coker, since 2019.
Geography
South-western Victoria. Corangamite covers suburbs on the southern fringe of Geelong and then extends out to Torquay. The seat also covers the Bellarine peninsula. Most of the electorate is in the Greater Geelong council area, along with a small part of the Surf Coast council area.
Redistribution
Corangamite contracted, losing Bannockburn, Inverleigh, Moriac and Modewarre to Wannon. These changes slightly increased the Labor margin from 7.6% to 7.9%.
History
Corangamite was an original federation division, and a seat which changed hands often in early years, before becoming a solid conservative seat in the latter half of the 20th century.
It’s first member was Chester Manifold of the Protectionists, but he retired due to ill-health at the 1903 election and the seat was won by Grafton Wilson for the Free Traders. Wilson was defeated in 1910 by the ALP’s James Scullin, who held the seat for one term before being defeated by former member Manifold, who returned to contest the seat for the Liberals. Manifold, whose son, Sir Chester, was a state MP and a famed horse-breeder and racing administrator, held the seat until he died at sea in 1918.
The December 1918 by-election saw the first use of preferential voting for the federal parliament. Scullin returned to contest the seat for the ALP, and topped the primary vote, but was comfortably defeated on preferences by the Victorian Farmers Union’s William Gibson. Scullin would subsequently win the seat of Yarra in 1922 and serve as Prime Minister from 1929-32.
Gibson held the seat for the Country Party, serving as Postmaster-General and Minister for Works and Railways until his defeat in 1929 by Labor’s Richard Crouch, who had previously been a Protectionist/Liberal MP for Corio from 1901-1910. Crouch then lost to Gibson in 1931, who served one more term before winning election to the Senate in 1934.
Geoffrey Street of the UAP, who would serve as Defence Minister in Menzies’ first government, won Corangamite in 1934 and held it until his death, along with two other ministers, in a plane crash in 1940.
Allan McDonald, a former state MP, won the seat for the UAP in 1940, and quickly became a minister in the Menzies government. He unsuccessfully contested the UAP leadership in 1941 and 1943, and remained on the backbench when the Liberals returned to power in 1949. He died in 1953, and was succeeded by Daniel Mackinnon, who had previously been MP for Wannon.
Mackinnon retired in 1966, and was succeeded by Tony Street, son of the former member Geoffrey, who served as a minister in various portfolios in the Fraser government and subsequently retired in early 1984.
Stewart McArthur won the seat in 1984, and held it until defeated by the ALP’s Darren Cheeseman in 2007. Cheeseman was re-elected in 2010, and lost to Liberal candidate Sarah Henderson in 2013. Henderson was re-elected in 2016.
Labor’s Libby Coker defeated Henderson at the 2019 election. Henderson returned to parliament later in 2019 after being appointed to fill a vacancy in the Senate. Coker was re-elected in 2022.
Assessment
Corangamite is a classic marginal seat but Coker now holds the seat by a sizeable margin.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Libby Coker | Labor | 38,573 | 38.2 | +2.4 | 38.4 |
| Stephanie Asher | Liberal | 34,463 | 34.1 | -8.3 | 34.0 |
| Alex Marshall | Greens | 15,349 | 15.2 | +6.5 | 15.3 |
| Daniel Abou-Zeid | United Australia | 3,233 | 3.2 | +1.0 | 3.2 |
| Paul Barker | Liberal Democrats | 2,526 | 2.5 | +2.5 | 2.5 |
| Luke Sorensen | One Nation | 2,548 | 2.5 | +2.5 | 2.4 |
| Meg Watkins | Animal Justice | 1,986 | 2.0 | -0.2 | 2.0 |
| Jean-Marie D’Argent | Hinch’s Justice Party | 1,421 | 1.4 | -1.2 | 1.4 |
| Stephen Juhasz | Federation Party | 868 | 0.9 | +0.9 | 0.8 |
| Informal | 4,088 | 3.9 | -0.1 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Libby Coker | Labor | 58,160 | 57.6 | +6.6 | 57.9 |
| Stephanie Asher | Liberal | 42,807 | 42.4 | -6.6 | 42.1 |
Polling places in Corangamite have been divided into three areas. Booths in the Geelong urban area have been grouped together, as have those on the Bellarine peninsula. The rural booths around Torquay have been grouped as “south-west”.
Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 58.1% in Bellarine to 62.6% in Geelong.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 15.5% in Bellarine to 25.2% in the south-west.
| Voter group | GRN prim | ALP 2PP | Total votes | % of votes |
| Bellarine | 15.5 | 58.1 | 20,600 | 22.2 |
| Geelong | 16.5 | 62.6 | 10,468 | 11.3 |
| South-West | 25.2 | 61.3 | 4,611 | 5.0 |
| Pre-poll | 15.0 | 58.6 | 35,995 | 38.8 |
| Other votes | 13.1 | 53.2 | 21,104 | 22.7 |
Election results in Corangamite at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, the Liberal Party and the Greens.
@ Yon An
Also in WA
Tangney, Cowan and Swan bigger swings than Pearce, Canning and in QLD Moreton, Oxley, Rankin, Bonner bigger wings than Petrie, Longman
Mick based on state enrolment data it’s more likely to shrink further. They really need to change the Corangamite name.
Nimalan Pearce and canning swung to the libs. I reckon Pearce should be a lib gain in 2028 especially if the sitting member retires
@Nimalan, it looks like the more CALD seats in Victoria swung away much more from the Liberals.
In NSW, provincial electorates (classified by AEC) like Robertson, Dobell and Shortland swung strongly away from the Liberals. The latter two are less culturally diverse and have fewer migrants.
In Victoria, similar coastal provincial electorates that are 50km to 150km away from the capital city CBD didn’t swing much.
Which seems to justify the liberal strategy of targeting outer surburban working class white voters.
@ John
Yes that what i meant Pearce and Canning did swing to the Libs. I pointed out that even before the election i said i thought there will be a swing to Libs in Pearce and they may even possibly win it but i said no chance of Libs winning Swan in 2025. Pearce is largely an affluent Anglo mortgage belt area where Dutton may have been liked.
@ Votante
Yes CALD voters may have what prevented an Anti-Allan backlash. Even in Lalor, there were big swings to Labor around Tarneit which is CALD but swings against Labor in more Anglo and older Werribee. Calwell had a notional TPP swing to Labor and on booth result big notional swings around Muslim parts in Meadow Heights etc which had the biggest anti-lockdown swings in both state and Federal elections in 2022 now a lot but not all of it has been reversed.
I do agree that NSW provincial electorates on Central Coast had big swings to Labor. Shortland i think is a recovery from Adani backlash in 2019 which may have taken two elections
@ John
As i pointed out before the strategy of targeting Outer Suburban White (including Eastern and Southern Europeans) Voters may have worked.
The libs would be wanting Corangamite to shed Torquay and would help them greatly
Losing Torquay will help a bit but apart from the semi-rural areas like Wallington, Conneware there are no real strong Liberal areas left.
@Nimalan, that’s an interesting point you made about variances in swings within Lalor.
The largest 2PP swing to Labor in Melbourne’s west was in Fraser (5.5%) followed by Gellibrand (3.9%). In Fraser, there was a massive tilt to the left with the Greens and Victorian Socialists making gains in primary votes. The final 2CP in Fraser is ALP vs GRN.
In Eastern and South-Eastern Melbourne, there are at least 5 seats that recorded swings greater than the one in Gellibrand. The anti-Allan backlash in the west might have been greater and kept swings to a minimum in Gorton, Hawke, Corio and like you mentioned, Lalor.
Even in Hawke and Gorton newer housing estates which are more CALD had swings to Labor so there is variance there as well
Australia can’t become America however, where White Americans vote Republican and everyone else votes Democrat (though Hispanics are trending Republican, A. they aren’t a race but rather an ethnolinguistic group and B. Black voters are staying Democrat). Not to mention the female vote is becoming more Democrat, and pretty much every young woman or young LGBT person over there is a Democrat.
This isn’t yet the case in Australia and it shouldn’t be. All parties should target all voters regardless of their background. Outer and inner suburban white, Asian, Indian, Arab, Indigenous, anyone. Rather geographical and economic differences and personal preferences should regard who votes who.
Nevertheless it is an interesting topic. In South Africa’s most recent election the vast majority of South African diaspora voted for the centre-right party (the DA). The DA usually appeals to White, Coloured and Indian/Asian South Africans while the ANC appeals to Black voters (hence why Western Cape which is the most diverse and the richest province always votes strongly DA while the poorer Black provinces always strongly vote ANC). This can be tied down to historical reasons though (apartheid) whereas the American trend is more on current policy.
@ nether portal
I think Dutton led to racial polarisation in Australia for his comment on white farmers African gangs etc it is why the polling may have underestimated Labor because they did not weight for cultural background. in South Africa the non black community votes DA to keep balance and not give too much power to the ANC. That is even Muslim South Africans support DA even though it is pro Israel
The US electoral geography is very different and the electoral system has a lot more malapportionment. It favours states that are small, sparsely populated, largely white and have fewer immigrants. These states are mainly ‘flyover states’ (in between the east and west coast) and are generally red states. They get way more electoral votes and more representatives per million people. What works in the US won’t necessarily work in Australia.
The Liberal strategy of chasing outer-suburban, working-class Labor seats obviously didn’t work. In fact, in many cases, it was the exact opposite result. Maybe they got inspiration of Trump. Trump won over the working-class and socially conservative migrants and people of colour and small-town residents and outer suburbanites. Just because Trump did it successfully, it doesn’t mean that the Liberals can do it too.
I didn’t get the sense that the campaign understood what appeals to such electorates. Hastie does, which is probably why he got a swing towards him.
@Votante – Trump did it successfully, but I wouldn’t say it was an overwhelming success. His victories have always been relatively narrow, and the way the electoral votes are appropriated gave him the appearance of a larger win than he had. The Congress is very closely divided, almost like a parliament, with a margin of 76-74 or something similar. Additionally, I believe Trump drew considerable personal appeal, and whether that appeal can be sustained when he is not on the ballot is a larger question. The point is that, in the larger scheme of things, within the worldview, I am not sure whether Trump’s current behaviour can be sustained by anyone else as we move forward. A lot of world leaders are appeasing Trump as best as they can with the expectation that the Republicans will lose some power in the US midterm elections and then, in a few years, when Trump cycles out (or dies).
As far as the Liberals, aside from the vagaries of the US election process, most major industrialized countries in the world are overall more to the left than the US. For example, in the realm of climate policy, there is greater receptivity in Australia for forward-thinking initiatives, such as the Paris Agreement. There will always be some opposition, but I see something going through much sooner in Canberra than in Washington anytime soon. The problem that the Liberals have, speaking as an elder Millennial, is that they are arguing over things that mainly appeal to Boomers and certain affluent and entrenched people. Up-and-coming groups, younger CALD communities, and others see that party as expecting the voters to come to them rather than meeting the voters where they are.