LIB 5.5%
Incumbent MP
Matthew Guy, since 2014. Previously member of the Legislative Council representing Northern Metropolitan, 2006-2014.
Geography
Eastern Melbourne. Bulleen covers western parts of the City of Manningham, specifically the suburbs of Bulleen, Deep Creek, Doncaster, Lower Templestowe and Templestowe and parts of Doncaster East.
Redistribution
Bulleen expanded slightly to the east, taking in Deep Creek and part of Doncaster East from Warrandyte. This change slightly reduced the Liberal margin from 5.8% to 5.5%.
History
Bulleen was first created before the 1985 election. It has always been held by the Liberal Party. Bulleen was first won in 1985 by David Perrin. He served as a shadow minister from 1988 to 1991, but did not serve as a minister in the Kennett government. Perrin lost preselection at the 1999 election to Nicholas Kotsiras.
Kotsiras was re-elected three times, and retired in 2014.
Matthew Guy won Bulleen in 2014. Guy had served as a member of the Legislative Council since 2006, and had served as Minister for Planning in the Liberal government from 2010 until 2014. Guy was elected leader of the Liberal Party following the 2014 election. He led the party to a landslide defeat in 2018 but retained his seat.
Guy stepped down from the Liberal leadership following the 2018 election but returned to the role in late 2021.
- Kellie Stafford (Greens)
- Sanjeev Sabhlok (Independent)
- Jason Stokes (Family First)
- David Vincent (Independent)
- Matthew Guy (Liberal)
- Voula Patrikios (Freedom Party)
- Ian Rogers (Labor)
- Elnaz Jafari (Animal Justice)
Assessment
Bulleen is a heartland Liberal seat and is unlikely to change in 2022.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Matthew Guy | Liberal | 19,441 | 52.2 | -4.0 | 52.0 |
| Fiona Mackenzie | Labor | 13,597 | 36.5 | +6.2 | 36.4 |
| Chris Kearney | Greens | 4,219 | 11.3 | +1.6 | 11.1 |
| Others | 0.5 | ||||
| Informal | 2,646 | 6.6 | +1.7 |
2018 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Matthew Guy | Liberal | 20,826 | 55.8 | -4.8 | 55.5 |
| Fiona Mackenzie | Labor | 16,518 | 44.2 | +4.8 | 44.5 |
Booths have been divided into three areas: north-east, south-east and west.
The Liberal Party won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas on election day, ranging from 53.6% in the west to 54.5% in the south-east.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 9.7% in the north-east and 10.7% in the South-East.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | LIB 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| South-East | 10.5 | 54.5 | 7,722 | 18.4 |
| North-East | 9.7 | 54.3 | 6,658 | 15.9 |
| West | 10.7 | 53.6 | 5,633 | 13.4 |
| Pre-poll | 11.3 | 57.5 | 14,555 | 34.7 |
| Other votes | 12.8 | 56.3 | 7,342 | 17.5 |
Election results in Bulleen at the 2018 Victorian state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, Labor and the Greens.
RedBridge isn’t credible. You should check out the awful polling they manufactured to suggest a ‘teal wave’ in Melbourne. Skewed questions followed by weird numbers like “primary vote Lib:45 Teal:32 2PP:56-44 for teal. Totally true!”
Also Kos Samaras has a conflict of interest. His partner is a sitting Labor MP and he used to work at Daniel Andrews’ campaign strategist.
The Labor candidate is Ian Rogers, who I believe doesn’t live in the electorate. He tried to run for Labor preselection in Melbourne and presented himself as “Radical Left” and in fact was considered the most left-wing candidate in that preselection. Labor clearly doesn’t take this seat particularly seriously which should be a relief to Matthew Guy and indicating both parties will once again neglect this seat like they have always done.
This seat is probably one of the worst ones to run such a candidate. It’s not exactly a haven for the hard left and socialism.
Liberals announced, Tram extension to Doncaster
https://www.matthewguy.com.au/media-releases/2022-10-16-extending-route-48-tram-to-doncaster?topic=transport-infrastructure
they announced this into 2006 as well.
@Nimalan
How do you feel about that announcement as a Manningham resident? How does it compare with the SRL?
@Nicholas
On Principle i support the tram extension. I would note however, that trams/Bus Rapid are complement not a substitute for heavy rail. For example Tram Route 109 was extended to Box Hill in 2002 even though it has a rail station. This allowed Box Hill Residents better access to Kew/North Richmond etc. Even SRL (which i support in principle) is not a substitute for a City-Doncaster rail which still needs to be built at some point. Otherwise there will be just one railway station for over 100,000 Manningham residents and this will lead to crowding at either Box Hill or Heidelberg for City bound Manningham commuters. My personal preference would be for MM2 to be prioritised ahead of SRL as that it is needed to build Doncaster Rail, Wollert Rail and improve rail services along the Wyndham growth corridor as well. Also there should be a Tram Network Development Plan and Bus Network Development Plan as well similar to what have for Metro Rail and Regional Victoria.
This is the first time it’s come to my attention that I was born before Box Hill had trams! I have no recollection of there not being trams… I would have been only four years old.
Box Hill must be one of the most public transport saturated suburbs in Melbourne, if not all of Australia. How has Doncaster been left so far behind?
@ Nicholas, The tram used to terminate at Union Road. This was a less logical terminus. The reason i support a Tram Network Development Plan is that we can have a pipeline of tram projects which is staged. There are many extensions that are needed some are so small for example Route 67 to Carnegie which ends just a couple of hundred meters from the station or Route 3 just 500 meters from Malvern East railway station.
By-election soon?
Telling, I think Matthew Guy is just stepping down as leader but remaining in Parliament. I don’t believe he is resigning his seat completely.
Third time’s the charm 🙂
As a lifelong resident of this area ,I would say the Tragedy for the Libs over the last 8 years occurred when the old Doncaster electorate was abolished and Mary Wooldridge was left without a seat and had to move to the Upper House. Mary Wooldridge was my local MP and i knew her very well. This is a part of Melbourne that is neglected and taken for granted. Mary Wooldridge by contrast took this seat seriously and advocated for it. Mary Wooldridge had attempted to run for the seat Kew (but lost to Tim Smith and we know how much of a great asset he was for the Libs). Matt Guy was earmarked for the Bulleen electorate which was vacant. However, as large parts of the old Doncaster electorate including my home went into Bulleen i feel Mary Wooldridge should have been preselected over Matt Guy and been a potential leader.
Normally, opposition leaders don’t leave parliament after losing elections as leader. He is welcome to run as the party leader in four years time if he wants.
@Votante well he lost in 2018 by a huge margin then lost again in 2022 by a similar number of seats. The Libs would really have to shoot themselves in the foot to let him run the party for a 3rd time.
Libs are pretty good at shooting themselves in the foot.
@Dan M. I was being sarcastic. He was the opposition leader because there weren’t many leadership contenders available from 2018 to 2022 and O’Brien hardly cut the mustard during his time.
Matt Guy thought he could pull off a Mark McGowan by winning on his second attempt after suffering a huge statewide 2PP swing and losing seats on his first attempt.