Frankston – Victoria 2022

ALP 10.2%

Incumbent MP
Paul Edbrooke, since 2014.

Geography
South-eastern Melbourne. The electorate covers the suburbs of Frankston, Frankston North, Frankston South and Karingal as well as part of Seaford, all within the City of Frankston.

Redistribution
Frankston expanded slightly to the north, taking in part of Seaford. This change increased the Labor margin from 9.7% to 10.1%.

History
A seat with the name “Frankston” has existed twice: from 1967 to 1985, and again since 1992.

The seat was first won in 1967 by Liberal minister Edward Meagher, who had served as Member for Mentone from 1955 to 1967. He served as a minister in the Liberal state government from 1961 until 1973. Meagher retired from Frankston in 1976.

Frankston was won in 1976 by Graeme Weideman. He served as a minister in the Liberal state government from 1981 to 1982, when he lost Frankston, and the Liberal government lost power.

Frankston was won by the ALP’s Jane Hill. In 1985, Frankston was abolished and replaced by Frankston North and Frankston South. Hill moved to the seat of Frankston North, and Weideman returned to Parliament as the Liberal Member for Frankston South.

In 1992, the two seats were redrawn again, being replaced by Frankston and Frankston East. Hill contested the marginal seat of Frankston East unsuccessfully, while Weideman won Frankston, which was a relatively safe Liberal seat.

Weideman retired in 1996, and was succeeded by Andrea McCall, also from the Liberal Party. McCall was re-elected in 1999.

Shortly after the 1999 Victorian state election, the Frankston East by-election was won by the ALP, bringing Labor into power. Prior to the 2002 election, Frankston East was abolished in a by-election, which brought strong Labor areas into the seat of Frankston.

At the 2002 election, McCall lost the redrawn Frankston to the ALP’s Alistair Harkness. Harkness was re-elected in 2006.

In 2010, Harkness was defeated by Liberal candidate Geoff Shaw.

Shaw has been a very controversial MP during his first term in Parliament. In 2012, he was accused of using his parliamentary vehicle as part of his business. In March 2013, Shaw resigned from the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party held a slim 45-43 majority in the Assembly, so Shaw’s resignation put him in the balance of power. The last eighteen months saw Shaw demand concessions from the government, and come into conflict with the Speaker at the time, which resulted in the Speaker resigning. He was charged with a number of offences in late 2013, which were later dropped.

Shaw ran as an independent in Frankston in 2014, and came a distant third. Labor’s Paul Edbrooke was elected. Edbrooke won a second term in 2018.

Candidates

Assessment
Frankston was a very marginal seat prior to the last election. While the current margin looks solid, this seat has been competitive for the Liberal Party in the very recent past and may well be again.

2018 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Paul Edbrooke Labor 16,844 45.9 +10.9 46.3
Michael Lamb Liberal 12,005 32.7 -3.2 32.6
Colin Lane Greens 2,781 7.6 -0.4 7.6
Lachlan O’Connell Derryn Hinch’s Justice 1,564 4.3 +4.3 4.4
Michael Long Democratic Labour 1,366 3.7 +3.7 3.5
James Persson Animal Justice 1,142 3.1 +3.1 2.8
Henry Kelsall Independent 790 2.2 +2.2 2.1
Jyothi Rudra Transport Matters 242 0.7 +0.7 0.7
Others 0.1
Informal 2,403 6.1 -2.7

2018 two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Paul Edbrooke Labor 21,972 59.7 +9.3 60.2
Michael Lamb Liberal 14,805 40.3 -9.3 39.8

Booth breakdown

Booths have been divided into three areas: north-east, north-west and south.

Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 60.3% in the south to 66.6% in the north-east.

Voter group ALP 2PP % Total votes % of votes
South 60.3 9,467 23.6
North-East 66.6 5,213 13.0
North-West 65.7 4,383 10.9
Pre-poll 57.1 13,601 33.9
Other votes 57.2 7,480 18.6

Election results in Frankston at the 2018 Victorian state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor and the Liberal Party.

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4 COMMENTS

  1. Labor improved in federal through out Frankston which will be interesting to see if it is repeated in this state electorate.

  2. @Bob Labor improved in Frankston federally but it still seems to be below what they achieved in 2018. Interestingly Frankston North swung against Laobr 4.4%, no idea why. It’s still their second strongest booth in Frankston (with Frankston rail been the highest and having a green vote higher than the Liberal vote).

  3. Frankston does not strike me as a place where the Greens would do particularly well. Perhaps the Lib vote has collapsed so much that the Greens outperformed them on the primaries.

  4. @Dan M On federal results most of the Frankston booths were between 9-13% with the more North you went the lower the green vote. The best booths for them were the Frankston booth with 17.2% and Frankston rail with 20.3%. The lib vote collapsed to 19.1% with a swing of 7.6% against whereas the greens got a swing to them of 3.2%.
    I’m not too familiar with the area but i assume as the booth is near the train station there’s a lot of apartments so probably skews younger.

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