LIB 3.5% vs IND
Incumbent MP
Dan Tehan, since 2010.
Geography
South-western Victoria. Wannon covers the southwestern corner of Victoria, including Warrnambool, Portland, Ararat, Lorne and Hamilton. Wannon covers Colac Otway, Ararat, Corangamite, Glenelg, Moyne, Southern Grampians and Warrnambool council areas, most of the Surf Coast council area, about half of the Pyrenees council area, and a small part of the Golden Plains council area.
Redistribution
Wannon expanded to the east towards Geelong, taking in Inverleigh, Modewarre and Moriac from Corangamite. These changes cut the Liberal margin from 3.9% to 3.5%.
History
Wannon is an original federation seat, having been created for the 1901 election. It has mainly been held by the Liberal Party and its predecessors, with the exception of a number of short periods when it was held by the ALP, with the ALP last holding the seat up to the 1955 election.
Wannon was first won in 1901 by Free Trade candidate Samuel Cooke. Cooke was a former minister in the Victorian colonial government, and he held the seat for one term before heading overseas in 1903.
He was succeeded in 1903 by another Free Trader, Arthur Robinson, who was a former colonial/state MP in the Victorian Parliament. Robinson held the seat for one term, losing in 1906. He went on to return to the Victorian Parliament and serve as a state minister.
The ALP’s John McDougall won Wannon off Robinson in 1906, campaigning against Robinson’s anti-union views. McDougall was re-elected in 1910, but lost in 1913, and failed to return to the House of Representatives in other seats at the 1914 election, a 1915 by-election and the 1917 election.
McDougall was replaced in 1913 by Liberal candidate Arthur Rodgers. Rodgers served as a minister in the Hughes government from 1920 to 1922 He held the seat until the 1922 election, when he lost to the ALP’s John McNeill. Rodgers won the seat back in 1925, before again losing to McNeill in 1929. McNeill served as a minister in the Scullin government, before losing the seat yet again in 1931.
The United Australia Party’s Thomas Scholfield won the seat in 1931, and held it until 1940, when he lost to the ALP’s Donald McLeod. McLeod held the seat for most of the next decade, losing it in 1949 to the Liberal Party’s Daniel Mackinnon.
Mackinnon only held the seat for one term, with McLeod regaining the seat in 1951. Mackinnon went on to win the neighbouring seat of Corangamite in a 1953 by-election, and held it until 1966.
At the 1954 election, McLeod was challenged by Liberal candidate Malcolm Fraser. McLeod defeated Fraser with a 17-vote margin.
In 1955, McLeod retired, and Fraser won the seat with a comfortable margin.
Fraser was a right-winger within the Liberal Party, and sat on the backbenches for a decade before joining the ministry in 1966. He served first as Minister for the Army, then Minister for Education and Science, and then Minister for Defence.
In 1971, he resigned from the ministry in protest at John Gorton’s interference in his portfolio, triggering a party room vote which saw a tied vote, and John Gorton was replaced as Prime Minister by William McMahon.
Fraser served as a minister in the McMahon government and on the opposition frontbench in the first term of the Whitlam government. After Billy Snedden’s loss in 1974 Fraser challenged for the leadership. Under Fraser’s leadership, the Liberal Party obstructed Gough Whitlam’s government in the Senate, which eventually led to Whitlam being dismissed by the Governor-General in late 1975, and Fraser became Prime Minister.
Fraser won the 1975, 1977 and 1980 elections, but lost in 1983, and retired from Parliament shortly after.
The 1983 by-election was won by David Hawker, also of the Liberal Party. Hawker served as an opposition whip from 1989 to 1990 and as a frontbencher from 1990 to 1993, and again as a whip until the 1996 election.
Hawker served as a backbencher in the Howard government from 1996 until the 2004 election. Hawker was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives after the 2004 election, and served in the role until the 2007 election.
Hawker retired in 2010, and the seat was won by Dan Tehan. Tehan has been re-elected four times.
Assessment
Independent candidate Alex Dyson wasn’t too far away from winning in 2022. The political environment has changed since 2022, which may make things easier for Tehan in a repeat contest.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Dan Tehan | Liberal | 44,948 | 44.5 | -6.6 | 44.2 |
| Gilbert Wilson | Labor | 19,303 | 19.1 | -6.9 | 19.6 |
| Alex Dyson | Independent | 19,504 | 19.3 | +9.6 | 18.7 |
| Hilary McAllister | Greens | 6,444 | 6.4 | -0.4 | 6.7 |
| Craige Kensen | United Australia | 3,308 | 3.3 | -2.3 | 3.3 |
| Ronnie Graham | One Nation | 3,275 | 3.2 | +3.2 | 3.2 |
| Graham Garner | Independent | 2,346 | 2.3 | +2.3 | 2.2 |
| Amanda Mead | Liberal Democrats | 1,973 | 2.0 | +2.0 | 2.0 |
| Others | 0.1 | ||||
| Informal | 5,603 | 5.3 | +1.5 |
2022 two-candidate-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Dan Tehan | Liberal | 54,517 | 53.9 | 53.5 | |
| Alex Dyson | Independent | 46,584 | 46.1 | 46.5 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Dan Tehan | Liberal | 59,722 | 59.1 | -1.1 | 58.7 |
| Gilbert Wilson | Labor | 41,379 | 40.9 | +1.1 | 41.3 |
Booths have been divided into six areas. The two local government areas in the north-east of the seat have been grouped together. The four in the south-east have also been grouped together. Polling places in the other four local government areas have been grouped along council boundaries.
The Liberal Party won a majority of the two-candidate-preferred vote in five out of six areas, ranging from 51.6% in Glenelg to 56.3% in the north-east. Alex Dyson polled 56% in Warrnambool.
| Voter group | ALP prim | IND prim | LIB 2CP | Total votes | % of votes |
| South-East | 19.2 | 16.9 | 54.2 | 18,775 | 18.0 |
| Warrnambool | 13.4 | 37.5 | 44.0 | 9,634 | 9.2 |
| Moyne | 12.0 | 29.1 | 55.0 | 6,201 | 5.9 |
| Glenelg | 25.9 | 19.0 | 51.6 | 5,076 | 4.9 |
| North-East | 25.3 | 12.6 | 56.3 | 4,828 | 4.6 |
| Southern Grampians | 13.5 | 27.6 | 54.8 | 4,253 | 4.1 |
| Pre-poll | 21.6 | 20.1 | 54.0 | 40,710 | 39.0 |
| Other votes | 19.7 | 15.5 | 57.2 | 15,021 | 14.4 |
Election results in Wannon at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-candidate-preferred votes (Liberal vs Independent or Labor), two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, independent candidates and Labor.
Noticed Dan Tehan has been invisible in larger media…..I assume he is concentrating on the highways and Byways of Wannon …. very worried
Trump and Palmer upset the same people, but those aren’t salt of the earth types, imo.
The ToP policy of putting the sitting member last will hurt Labor way more than the coalition, since Labor have a lot more marginals and there are a couple of coalition renegades. ToP seems to be running in all the seats in Qld, NSW, Vic, only some in other States. I’d say they’ll shave off a few percent Labor can’t afford to lose with some demographics.
Wow. Latest YouGov poll extrapolation in Wannon has Tehan 10% behind. Of course these extrapolations are not totally accurate on small sample but at this level of vote, it looks like Tehan will be back as Christian Brothers School teacher after 5 May. He was & will be a good teacher.
Yes Mickquin, Dan Tehan has been concentrating on the highways with his supporters stealing a lot of Alex Dyson’s prominent signs over the past week…at this stage such tactics reek of desperation and only make Wannon voters/Dyson supporters more angry with Tehan. Actually, the latest YouGov poll has Dyson on 57% TPP and Tehan on 43% TPP, but with a 6% error margin, Wannon could still be line ball with Dyson 51% and Tehan 49%.
The polling is certainly strong for Dyson here, and he doesn’t have the issue of the indies in Calare being less likely to preference each other – Labor and Greens voters will massively prefer him.
I do know Dan the Man was on the back of a CFA truck under Emergency Warning in the Grampians Bushfires. Mirranatwa to be exact. He certainly knows where that is and he cancelled his first sitting in parliament in Canberra to be with the fire crews and support the locals. Don’t know if many here would know where Mirranatwa is. Certainly Dyson wouldn’t and we didn’t see him in the bushfires under Emergency Warning!
If Dyson can get 47-48% TPP in the regions, he’ll win easily with the support likely to increase in Warrnambool and the coastal areas.
One more sleep before Tehan loses his seat.
From the trenches in Wannon, the desperation of the Liberal Party is palpable.
The Dyson campaign is based on honesty, transparency, accountability and positivity. Meanwhile the Liberal campaign has spread disinformation, most noticeably the Advance Australia and the Liberal pamphlet endorsed by local Liberal power broker, Makin, prior to the election being called.
There are obvious trolls who might be paid for each comment: bitter, offensive, nasty and they have obviously been deliberately skilled in their tactics on Facebook. I would think that like others of their ilk, they meet on Telegram nightly to decide on their daily focus and key phrases.
Now, at pre polling, there has been some disconcerting behaviour. Big men in the dark of early morning, using their physical presence to intimidate an older woman while she was preparing for the day ahead at the booth. Dan Tehan being cautioned by AEC staff for consistently encroaching the no go zone in order to address voters directly. Parking large vehicles covered with Liberal Party paraphernalia illegally, to obscure Dyson signs (a few parking fines there). And generally intimidatory behaviour of large men, apparently brought in from Melbourne, in Liberal gear. And of course the general constant stream of disinformation that appears in our letter boxes and in TV ads.
Meanwhile, although often tested, the orange volunteers remain cheerful, positive and dedicated. Many times I have spoken with people while doorknocking who have said ‘just for that, I’m voting Alex’.
The nasty, negative fear campaign may just have backfired against the sea of orange volunteers.
Sleep tight tonight!
Barb, your observations are spot on. The sheer nastiness of the Dan Tehan campaign (and his trolls and bussed-in minions) is two orders of magnitude worse than any other Federal election…but it seems to be backfiring if we can believe the polls.
As a resident here, my letterbox stopped filling up about a week and a half ago, and internal rumblings are that the Coalition are no longer too worried here. My wonder is whether Dyson’s money tap has run dry with Climate 200 having to throw quite a lot of resources at their incumbents, granted I live in a fairly small community but there was more action on the ground here leading up to pre-poll.
The flavour of Tehan’s campaign certainly changed once the election was called and focussed much more on his so called achievements and plans rather than trying to tie Dyson to the green-left bogeyman that probably did more damage than good.
I will say though, as much as Dyson’s supporters are adamant about him being a positive, community focussed centrist type guy not everyone is buying it, plenty of commentary that identifies him with the wider teal movement.
I think the YouGov polling was dead rubbish and it is in fact pretty line-ball here, Liberals have the slight edge for mine but Dyson well in the race
Curious to see what will happen with Dyson now. This is a pretty disappointing result for him considering the amount of resources thrown at the seat and the funding for it. He will either run for South-West Coast with his base in Warrnambool in the 2026 VIC state election, or just quit politics all together.
Ah well. Alex’s first preference votes were up but the polling booths were swinging wildly from as much as 11% swing to Alex, and 11% swing to Dan and the overall result did not get Alex up.
The enormous movement of locals who want to change the conservative flavour of Wannon are still there, the genie just might be out of the box, but the negative, disinformation and fear campaign won this time.
Dan Tehan is the GOAT. Teals wish they could win elections like Dan
The 2022 results are here, but where are the latest numbers from this election, 2025?
The ABC? The AEC? I don’t post live results.
Main observation here is that the Labor vote collapsed so hard (with most of it going to Dyson via first preferences) due to the party quite literally running dead, that there simply wasn’t a good flow of preferences to get Dyson over the line.
Unlike in other seats, Labor nor Dyson were also unable to swing Liberal voters.
There’s murmuring that Dyson won’t run for a fourth time and that he isn’t the sort of candidate that can swing Liberal voters – if he couldn’t do this in two elections, and especially this election which was a considerably bigger campaign than in 2022, taking into account that his first run in 2019 wasn’t a serious one, it’s not likely he’ll swing Liberal voters if he chooses to run a big campaign like this again for a third time.
Eccentric personalities are clearly not taken seriously as political candidates among the more conservative rump of voters in rural seats such as this and that’s not exactly something Dyson can change as… that’s who he is.
Perhaps Dyson would hold off until Tehan retires and then mount an all-out campaign in the seat? Although I don’t know if Dan Tehan has that significant of a personal vote here.
Dan Tehan campaigned like crazy and lots of resources got poured in and it paid off. He barely lost any of his primary vote.
The preferences flow is interesting. Unfortunately for Alex Dyson, the flow rate was far weaker this time. Perhaps not many Labor HTV cards landed in voters’ hands. Same goes for Zoe Daniel in Goldstein.
I guess that’s always going to be the dilemma for the ‘other’ major party in seats like this.
Run dead and you risk nobody getting your HTV card and preferencing how you want. Be too active and you might actually get second place despite yourself, or split the vote enough to allow your opponent to skate through.
Tehan won despite huge amounts of Climate 200 funding to Dyson. Same goes for Monash and Goldstein. On one hand you could say that Climate 200 have done their dough on the other you coukd say they have achieved their objectives as the policy direction will be so set after another two terms of Labor government that there will be no going back. Lots of discussions will be moot. The Liberal and Nationals leadership contenders should realise this.
How many liberals from Vic?
Do I need to use both hands to count?