ALP 9.5%
Incumbent MP
Mark Dreyfus, since 2007.
Geography
Outer south-eastern Melbourne. Isaacs covers suburbs along the coast of Port Phillip Bay on the south-eastern fringe of Melbourne. It covers a majority of the Kingston council area and southern parts of the Greater Dandenong council area.
Redistribution
Isaacs shifted north, losing Bonbeach, Carrum and Patterson Lakes to Dunkley and also losing the remainder of Highett to Goldstein. Isaacs gained Noble Park and Springvale South from Hotham and part of Dandenong from Bruce. These changes increased the Labor margin from 6.9% to 9.5%.
History
Isaacs was created at a redistribution before the 1969 federal election. The seat was long a marginal seat, but has become safer for the ALP over the last decade.
The seat was first won in 1969 by the Liberal Party’s David Hamer. Hamer held the seat until 1974, when he lost to the ALP’s Gareth Clayton, but Hamer won back the seat in 1975.
Hamer retired in 1977, and was succeeded by Liberal candidate William Burns. Burns failed to win re-election in 1980, when Isaacs was won by the ALP’s David Charles.
Charles held the seat for a decade, retiring in 1990. The Liberal Party’s Rod Atkinson won back the seat in 1990.
Atkinson was re-elected in 1993, but a redistribution before the 1996 election changed Isaacs’ margin from a 3% Liberal margin to a 3.9% Labor margin, and Atkinson lost to the ALP’s Greg Wilton.
Wilton was re-elected in 1998. His marriage broke down in 2000, and he faced strong media attack in 2000 after being found by police in a situation that some interpreted as an attempted murder-suicide. This ended with Wilton committing suicide in June 2000. He remains the only member of federal Parliament to ever die by suicide.
The ALP’s Ann Corcoran easily won re-election at the ensuing by-election, with the Liberal Party not standing a candidate. Corcoran’s margin was cut to around 1-2% at the 2001 and 2004 elections, and retired in 2007.
The seat was won in 2007 by the ALP’s candidate, prominent lawyer Mark Dreyfus. Dreyfus was has been re-elected five times.
Assessment
Isaacs is a reasonably safe Labor seat.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Mark Dreyfus | Labor | 39,228 | 40.0 | -5.0 | 42.8 |
| Robbie Beaton | Liberal | 31,306 | 31.9 | -3.4 | 29.5 |
| Alex Breskin | Greens | 12,621 | 12.9 | +1.8 | 12.1 |
| Sarah O’Donnell | Liberal Democrats | 4,785 | 4.9 | +4.9 | 5.6 |
| Scott McCamish | United Australia | 4,855 | 4.9 | +1.0 | 5.3 |
| Boris Sokiransky | One Nation | 3,130 | 3.2 | +3.2 | 3.0 |
| Alix Livingstone | Animal Justice | 2,259 | 2.3 | -1.3 | 1.7 |
| Informal | 3,382 | 3.3 | -0.8 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Mark Dreyfus | Labor | 55,818 | 56.9 | +0.4 | 59.5 |
| Robbie Beaton | Liberal | 42,366 | 43.1 | -0.4 | 40.5 |
Polling places in Isaacs have been divided into three areas, east, north-west and south.
Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 57.4% in the north-west to 63.2% in the east.
The Greens came third, with a vote ranging from 9.6% in the east to 16.2% in the north-west.
| Voter group | GRN prim | ALP 2PP | Total votes | % of votes |
| East | 9.6 | 63.2 | 15,960 | 15.7 |
| South | 15.3 | 59.2 | 12,837 | 12.6 |
| North-West | 16.2 | 57.4 | 9,073 | 8.9 |
| Pre-poll | 11.3 | 59.7 | 41,772 | 41.1 |
| Other votes | 11.8 | 57.5 | 22,028 | 21.7 |
Election results in Isaacs at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, the Liberal Party and the Greens.
Labor hold, the redistributions have been really favourable to Mark Dreyfus and he appears to be a well liked local member.
If the liberals wanted to make this seat more proliberal they would suggest Beaumaris and black rock be added here.
Now this impacts on Goldstein ( teal)
And Dunkley through flow through.
My seat. Dreyfus hold. He’s an active and well known local member with a relatively high profile.
Libs campaign here invisible apart from usual online scuttlebutt about Dreyfus living north of his electorate. That said, for the third election in a row the Libs have selected a candidate from outside the electorate also (this one from Hampton), so credibility of criticism rather diminished.
With Patterson Lakes transferred out, can Dreyfus win every booth?
liberals wont win here while dreyfus is in office. probably not until dandenong is moved out also. and maybe a landslide
In this seat Muslim voters Matters has endorsed Greens and recommended a second preferences for Dreyfus
It will be interesting to see if Mark Dreyfus precipitates a by election in the not too distant future after being dropped from cabinet. After all he is 69 so there is no reason to stick around.
very big swings along the Dandenong rail corridor the Dandenong South booth which is Majority Muslim (Dandenong South SLA 2) returned a huge 81.6% TPP majority for Labor
It’s likely Mark Dreyfus will retire which will cause a by-election here which won’t go down with the public very well.
It’ll be interesting to see how a by-election here plays out. Is there any possibility the Liberals could win? Could an independent? How would an independent have to position themselves to appeal here? Being an electorate of two very different parts, I imagine it would be difficult.
I note there’s a sizeable Muslim population in this electorate. So there is a narrative that could be pushed around the Labor factions turfing out their local MP and a Muslim minister. I’m not sure how effective this would be though.
Dreyfus is a dud and Ed Husic seems to have a massive sense of entitlement compared to ability.
Liberalism was rejected at the election in favor of Populism, so unless the Liberal Party goes populist fast, I can’t see them winning any byelections.
@Nicholas,
I doubt the Liberals will bother given the buffer this seat has now and how memory of Dutton is still in everyone’s mind. It’s likely an independent or Greens will make it in the final ttp but Labor will hold with a reduced margin.
I never got the sense that Husic is entitled – quite the opposite. He was very gracious – I would argue perhaps too gracious – when he conceded a spot in the frontbench to Keneally.
Your interpretation of the election results is interesting to say the least. I guess we’ll see what happens.
@SpaceFish
That sounds fair. Maybe it’ll be quiet campaign – I imagine it would not be in Labor’s interests to draw too much attention to it given the circumstances.
I personally doubt the Libs can win the seat under these boundaries also State Labor is more popular along the SE Melbourne rail lines due to Level crossing removals, metro tunnel etc so it is different to a by-election in Gorton where there are local issues hurting Labor
I think the most plausible scenario could be that if Dreyfus was to retire he’d retire mid-term at the earliest and latest at the conclusion of the term in 2028. If he and Albo got along he might even be lined up for an ambassador posting somewhere like Israel or another country as a sweetener.
It’s worth noting that he was in the caucus meeting on Friday whilst Ed Husic wasn’t which suggests to me that perhaps Dreyfus has quietly accepted the decision and retired to the backbench amicably?
Interesting to see that in suburbs with larger Muslim communities i.e. Noble Park and western parts of Dandenong, there were primary vote swings to both ALP and the Greens. This was mainly due to the absence of LDP and UAP.