Cause of by-election
Sitting independent MP Sam Hibbins, until recently a member of the Greens, resigned after recently quitting his party due to the revelation of an affair with a staff member.
Margin – GRN 12.0% 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.
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.
Hibbins gained a sizeable primary vote swing in 2022, with Labor reduced to a clear third place, and he also increased his majority after preferences.
Hibbins resigned from the Greens in November 2024 due to the revelation of a previous affair with a staff member.
Assessment
Prahran has effectively two different axes on which competition takes place – between Labor and Greens to be the leading progressive party, and between those parties and the Liberal Party on the two-candidate-preferred count. The race was close on both axes in 2014. In 2018 the Liberal Party wasn’t competitive but Labor and Greens were still close. In 2022, Hibbins won easily on both.
This seat could be competitive on either axis in Hibbins’ absence, particularly considering the circumstances of his departure.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Sam Hibbins | Greens | 14,286 | 36.4 | +8.1 |
| Matthew Lucas | Liberal | 12,198 | 31.1 | -1.6 |
| Wesa Chau | Labor | 10,421 | 26.6 | -3.9 |
| Alice Le Huray | Animal Justice | 1,263 | 3.2 | +0.9 |
| Ronald Emilsen | Family First | 626 | 1.6 | +1.6 |
| Alan Menadue | Independent | 449 | 1.1 | +0.8 |
| Informal | 1,223 | 3.0 |
2022 two-candidate-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Sam Hibbins | Greens | 24,334 | 62.0 | +3.0 |
| Matthew Lucas | Liberal | 14,909 | 38.0 | -3.0 |
Booths have been divided into three areas: central, north and south.
The Greens topped the primary vote in all three areas, with a vote ranging from 39.1% in hte north to 45.5% in the south.
The Liberal Party came second, with a primary vote ranging from 18% in the south to 29.2% in the north. Labor’s primary vote ranged from 24.5% in the centre to 29.6% in the south, and outpolling Liberal in the south.
The Greens two-candidate-preferred vote against the Liberal Party ranged from 64% in the north to 76.3% in the south.
| Voter group | GRN prim | LIB prim | ALP prim | GRN 2CP | Total votes | % of votes |
| North | 39.1 | 29.2 | 25.9 | 64.0 | 5,206 | 13.3 |
| Central | 43.9 | 26.3 | 24.5 | 68.3 | 3,879 | 9.9 |
| South | 45.5 | 18.0 | 29.6 | 76.3 | 2,865 | 7.3 |
| Pre-poll | 35.4 | 32.7 | 26.6 | 61.1 | 18,980 | 48.3 |
| Other votes | 30.5 | 35.2 | 26.9 | 56.5 | 8,357 | 21.3 |
Election results in Prahran at the 2022 Victorian state election
Toggle between two-candidate-preferred votes (Greens vs Liberal) and primary votes for the Greens, the Liberal Party and Labor.
On this topic, because I think coming into both this Prahran byelection and Macnamara in the federal election there is a lot of discussion around the impact of the war on the Greens vote in this area, I have just looked at the religion by SA1 data to break down the Jewish population in the St Kilda & St Kilda East area into different sections.
It’s not so relevant for federal elections because it’s all in Macnamara anyway (although it is useful in redistribution topics because it highlights why Hotham St makes a great boundary), but it’s very relevant when discussing the Prahran byelection, to avoid overstating the impact of the Israel war or even actually focusing on the wrong part of the seat when talking about it.
Here is the Jewish population in each of these areas based on SA1 data:
ST KILDA (west of St Kilda Rd, in Albert Park district) – 2.0%
ST KILDA (east of St Kilda Rd, in Prahran district) – 2.8%
ST KILDA EAST (Port Phillip, west of Hotham, in Prahran district) – 6.7%
ST KILDA EAST (Port Phillip, east of Hotham, in Caulfield district) – 15.1%
ST KILDA EAST (Glen Eira, in Caulfield district) – 56.5%
BALACLAVA (entirely in Caulfield district) – 11.7%
RIPPONLEA (entirely in Caulfield district) – 12.7%
If I look at the 2023 federal enrolment numbers that overlap Prahran district there are around 46,000 enrolled voters, and the Jewish population for the seat is 2.7%. Certainly above average, but not in a meaningful way that would actually harm the Greens.
More interestingly, and related more to my post above and comments from journalists like Annika Smethurst stating that the Greens’ stance on Israel might hurt them in the “southern end of the seat” (which would refer to St Kilda & St Kilda East), here is the estimated number of Jewish voters per suburb in this seat, noting these numbers differ from above after looking at SA1s data properly:
SOUTH YARRA – 325
PRAHRAN – 309
WINDSOR – 203
ST KILDA EAST – 189
ST KILDA – 124
MELBOURNE – 73
SOUTHBANK – 26
I just thought that was interesting because for all of the focus on the “southern end” (mostly implying St Kilda East), I think a lot of people would be surprised to see just how small the actual Jewish population is there.
And demographically, I don’t think there’s any reason to believe the non-Jewish population in this seat would be any more turned off by the Greens’ stance on Gaza than any other seat. I’d actually argue the opposite as it’s a young, progressive and mostly non-religious seat.
John Pesutto announced that the Liberals will be running a candidate in this seat.
@Trent I think a lot of non-Jewish voters will be turned off by the Greens too though like they were in Queensland.
I feel the proximity to the federal camapign is symbiotic for the Greens’ fortunes in both. It will overlap perfectly with the ground war to win Macnamara, without requiring much extra in terms of resources. The Liberals don’t have the same incentive to go hard, but them just being present might win the favour of some ALP/Lib swing voters (which would help GRN leapfrog ALP in Macnamara.)
So long as they don’t invite drama with their candidate choice, this should be a comfortable retain – mid-high single digits. Demographic should avoid the swing to the Libs that is probably biting in the outer suburbs, and no scope for NIMBY-type local issues that could help the Libs in the blue-ribbon areas.
@ Votante
Yeah VS took advantage of anger post pandemic. VS is not left-conservative and is socially progressive they often were able to select candidates that lived locally and looked like the target demographic. I think COL crisis will benefit them. Kos Samaras has said there is anger over this in working class outer suburbs but the voters dont want the Liberals and are looking for alternatives. As i mentioned they are not looking to win tree torys sea changers etc like the Greens do so narrowcast the demographic to students/poor ethnic areas.
100% agree with your assessment BenM.
Greens have already been going very hard here. I live where Prahran and Macnamara overlap. Lots of Sonya Semmens corflutes already. They have hosted renters’ rights workshops (in this same Prahran/Macnamara overlap area), baby clothes swaps (also in this same overlap area, in addition to others nearby in Elwood), are hosting a big free community BBQ and “Family Day” at St Kilda Botanical Gardens only a few mins walk from the boundary of this seat on Sunday, so in addition to door knocking and advertising, have also been running events for the general public.
Demographics of this seat, not to mention boundaries, are not what they were in 2014, the last time it was close.
NIMBY issues are a non-factor because it’s a high density area full of renters that people move to because they want density and city lifestyle. Do no NIMBY backlash against Labor’s activity centres (which this seat doesn’t even have anyway) for the Libs to latch onto or side with.
The Greens lost seats at council elections mostly due to the change in single member wards but their vote actually didn’t really go backwards.
Where it did, for example the overlapping Alma Ward in Port Phillip, they actually lost to an even more left-wing independent; they finished first and second and the 2CP was between them.
I totally agree that this and the Macnamara campaign pretty much overlapping will really help the Greens fortunes, in both elections. The fact the Greens have already been campaigning so hard here means they have a head start for the Prahran by-election (and remember, most of this seat is now in the federal seat of Melbourne where the federal Libs won’t campaign at all), and on the other hand, the Greens and Libs campaigning for Prahran will help both in Macnamara which helps the Greens’ chances of making the 2CP.
@NP – I don’t think Israel specifically would hurt the Greens seat anymore here than elsewhere among non-Jewish voters, on average probably less than other seats due to a demographic more likely to support Palestine (predominantly young, left-leaning atheists). A lot of Israel’s support outside the Jewish community is Christian and this seat is has a very below average Christian population.
@ Trent
I agree with you regarding the Israel and the impact on this seat. You are correct that outside the Jewish community the main support for Israel is the Christian right (those who support Family First, Moira Deeming, Alex Antic etc) which does not really exist is in this seat and if they were a few probably did not vote Greens last time for other issues not relating to foreign policy. Right-wing Nationalists such as One Nation are Pro-Israel even though i very much doubt many Jews intend to vote for them. However, the demographic that supports Pauline Hanson does not exist in Prahran and very little in Greater Melbourne compared to other parts of Australia.
If you go to a place like Fitzroy, Brunswick, Collingwood etc even though these areas are becoming whiter with gentrification many people will be Pro-Palestine even though they are Anglo Atheists who drink alcohol, eat pork, may have had children out of wedlock. Lidia Thorpe will be warmly received in places like Fitzroy and her comments on White Privilege etc will not offend White people.
*will not offend White people in Fitzroy, Brunswick etc
And Prahran’s demographic is very similar. Culturally it may not be as activist left-wing as the inner-north, but it’s dominated by young, non-religious renters who move to the area because it is full of bars, clubs & nightlife.
I feel like the media often mischaracterises it based on its former boundaries (like Annika Smethurst did yesterday), and defines the seat by the old stereotypes of South Yarra & Toorak rather than Prahran, Windsor, St Kilda and a South Yarra that is now younger, denser and more progressive.
@ Trent
I think a lot of commentators are not engaged enough and think the Greens/Western Left’s support for Palestine started after October 7 and before that the Greens/Western Left were neutral. If anyone bothers to look through previous Macnamara/Melbourne Ports tallyroom threads they will realize the Israel is mentioned since 2010 in every election. Israel was discussed even in the Caulfield thread before the Victorian state election. In 2019, Ben locked the Macnamara thread as people got emotional about the Israel-Palestine conflict . Whilst as i have already mentioned repeatedly i dont want to state who i think is morally right or wrong in the conflict. A lot of people keep dragging unrelated issues such as Abortion into this debate. Also i dont think the Greens base is actually wealthy Professional women who went to Private Girls Schools and grew up in Teal areas, i think that is a demographic that the Greens have picked up in the absence of a Teal in some seats especially in Brisbane. The Core base of the Greens are young renters many often work in non-professional low paid inner city jobs such as bar tenders, cafe workers, hotel receptionists, Cloakroom attendant etc.
I still think the Liberals will finish first and the Greens will win on preferences (if Labor was running I’d guarantee it), similar to Maiwar. But it’ll be close on primaries simply because there’s no Labor candidate.
A big risk to the Greens (and the prospect would have the Liberals salivating) is the DLP running, with Labor absent.
The DLP using the word “Labour” as part of its HTVs, then recommending preferences to the Liberal & handing out at every prepoll & booth, could flip it.
The Green will be the de facto Labor candidate.
The DLP running is an indicator they expect pro abortion propaganda to flood Prahran during the campaign.
If it works, then it’ll be done at the Federal election.
If there’s a boilover in Prahran, Labor are in trouble everywhere.
@ Andrew 3040
I think the risk of the DLP is actually quite low for a couple of reasons
1. Prahran is a highly educated and engaged electorate, high levels of english proficiency and people dont actually need a HTV to cast a formal vote so a typical Labor vote will pick that up quite easily
2. The DLP is notorious for bad preference discipline even when they do run they recommend a second preference for the Libs. However, in practice it does not happen for example in Melton 59% DLP preferences went to Labor over Libs against the HTV. https://antonygreen.com.au/vic22-melton-analysis-of-preferences.
3. Even in the 2019 federal election when DLP ran it is preference flow went 60:40 in favour of the ALP so these days it little use to the Libs
4. The DLP membership is ageing and i dont know if they will have enough volunteers to staff all booths etc. The DLP HTV is also yellow not Red so the only people who may get confused are refugees who live in housing commission.
It is for this reason, the DLP is not a major asset that help Libs in the Red Wall these days let alone Prahran.
I think the reason DLP preferences often flow to Labor is because of the word “Labour” in their name. Similarly, before they changed their name to the Libertarian Party, she party that used to be called the Liberal Democrats preferenced the Coalition and their voters overwhelmingly followed to the Coalition (more so than One Nation and UAP voters) and often even went to the Coalition before other right-wing minor parties (even though they preferences the UAP second as part of a preference deal at the last federal election and then One Nation third) because of the word “Liberal” in their name. Even though both the Libertarians (and their predecessor the Liberal Democrats) and the DLP both use yellow whereas the Coalition is blue (Liberal is blue, National is green) and Labor is red.
@Nimalan – “The Core base of the Greens are young renters many often work in non-professional low paid inner city jobs such as bar tenders, cafe workers, hotel receptionists, Cloakroom attendant etc.”
100% agree and that sums up a huge chunk of Prahran’s demographic perfectly too. Also a lot of people, because it includes South Yarra and is close to Toorak & Armadale, think of it very differently to how it actually is.
@NP – I agree with you that with Labor running, the Liberals would have topped the primary vote, but probably only by about 2-3% (I predicted something like maybe 36-33 or 35-32). With Labor out though, the Green should pretty comfortably win the primary vote because I’d estimate that in the absence of a high profile IND, they’d probably split at least 60-25-15 or something (GRN-LIB-OTH).
So, say we we were looking at the following primary votes if Labor actually ran:
35% LIB
32% GRN
25% ALP
8% OTH
I’d estimate with Labor sitting it out, that would probably turn into around:
47% GRN
41% LIB
12% OTH
It’s very hard to see the Liberals outpolling the Greens on primary votes in Labor’s absence, in a Greens heartland seat where their existing primary vote is 36% and they typically get around 85% of Labor preferences.
Sorry to clarify the above, I’m saying the Labor primary vote would probably split 60-25-15 in those 3 directions.
@Trent I reckon 57.5% TCP for the Greens, which is a –4.5% swing against them and to the Liberals.
It will be interesting to see if any booths flip or not.
I think some of the South Yarra booths and probably Orrong will at least flip on primary vote (Greens won the PV in every booth in 2022), Orrong and maybe the Fawkner Park & Hawksburn area booths might flip on 2CP too. Although I think any booth that flips to the Libs would remain within the 50-55 range so nowhere near enough to counter the bigger Greens margins in the south.
@Trent I agree, as I said the result is obviously gonna be a Greens retain but there will be a swing against them.
Just had a look at John Pesutto’s Instagram story, today he was at South Yarra Station in the seat of Prahran campaigning on the it’s time factor for the Victorian Labor government talking about “10 years of Labor’s failures”. He says that he has received a positive reception, which may indicate that something could happen in South Yarra at the by-election.
It’s not an easy task to flip all of South Yarra though. Having a look at Higgins, in 2022 the Liberals dropped to third place behind the Greens and Labor in South Yarra and South Yarra Central and finished first at the South Yarra PPVC and in South Yarra South but on preferences the Greens would’ve won those booths. In 2019, the Greens won the primary vote in South Yarra itself, while in South Yarra Central and the South Yarra PPVC the Liberals finished first. The Greens got 55.8% of the TCP vote in South Yarra in 2016 and narrowly finished first in the booth.
I feel like when politicians post things like that and say the reception is good, it’s because only their supporters (or people open to supporting them) would actually stop and talk.
Similar to how that Ian Cook character did his own “exit poll” at a prepoll in Mulgrave that News Corp reported indicated he would beat Dan Andrews. Cook gor around 20% and Dan won on primary votes.
If you’re only gauging a response from people willing to speak to you it’ll always be skewed.
@Trent I agree it’s skewed and I’m not saying the Liberals are winning this either. Plus if it’s at a train station some people won’t even be residents of Prahran and could be from anywhere in Melbourne. Melbourne is a large city, the second-largest in Australia after Sydney, so that’s a very broad range of people you could come across at a train station or a tram stop.
But, the Liberals are still campaigning there already, so they’re kinda already beating the Greens in the campaign race. But the winner of the campaign doesn’t always win the election as we all should know by now (sure they often do but not always). For example, in the recent Queensland state election, One Nation clearly won the campaign (and even the social media campaign) in the seat of Keppel but finished third (behind the LNP and One Nation), while in the US presidential election the campaign was 50/50 (though very much divided on geography and demography) but Donald Trump still won easily.
Speaking of Ian Cook though, I wonder if he’ll keep running or he’ll call it quits after two consecutive losses to Labor. I have always been confused as to what he stands for but I’m pretty sure he’s a socially conservative, anti-lockdown independent if I recall correctly, but what did he stand for?
@ NP
South Yarra is a major interchange station so used by many people who live outside the electorate and the area is also close to major offices.
Ian Cook ran on anti-corruption platform not left or right. The issue was that he is no Dai Le and in a very ethnic area he is just an Old White Businessman who sometimes looked lost.
Yep Ian Cook’s platform was really just focused on government corruption but was also a personal vendetta to an extent, because the Dept of Health shut down his catering business in 2019. He was able to try to harness people’s anger at Dept of Health over Covid to win some public support in his own crusade against them.
I read that Ian Cook recently ran for a ward in Dandenong Council, also on a very generic anti-corruption platform, but missed out.
Regarding whether the Greens Israel stance would sway voters away from them, I think the politically informed and more educated voters and rusted on Zionists would’ve known the Greens stance for a long time. It hasn’t changed. I don’t think it would shift too many votes around in Prahran. Many people disagree with their favourite party’s stance on Israel but will hold their noses and vote for them because they see more pressing issues.
Nimalan above makes a good point that it’s a misconception that the Greens support for Palestine only began last year. It’s only just that since Oct 7, they’ve been more vocal and campaigned harder on the issue like appearing at protests.
@Votante that is a very valid point. I think some will swing over it because the Greens’ focus has been on identity politics and Palestine but not a massive amount. It happened in Maiwar, where Labor to Greens preference flows were below average, so it could very well happen in Prahran (note that the Greens still retained Maiwar, and I think Prahran will remain safer for the Greens than Maiwar).
@Nether Portal, the swings away from the Greens at various elections are probably because of a protest against Greens, mainly federal, seen as taking the eye off the ball and also an protest against their policies.
I don’t believe a huge number of the soft or swing Green voters left due to having polar opposite views on Palestine. In fact, Palestine may not even rank highly in their minds and the association with Palestine made such voters feel abandoned.
@Votante that’s what I’m saying, they don’t care about the free Palestine movement because it’s such a complex issue that doesn’t involve Australia.
The war in Ukraine is completely different and comparing those wars could be considered offensive (the war in Ukraine is a full-scale invasion of an oppressed and innocent sovereign state (Ukraine) by an aggressive force (Russia) against). The war in Gaza is not a genocide, the war in Ukraine however could be described as one. Boris Johnson described Putin as being “more of a Hitler” than a Stalin when asked in an interview recently.