ALP 0.6%
Incumbent MP
John Kennedy, since 2018.
Geography
Eastern Melbourne. Hawthorn covers central parts of the Boroondara local government area, and specifically the suburbs of Hartwell and Hawthorn and parts of the suburbs of Burwood, Camberwell, Canterbury and Surrey Hills.
Redistribution
Hawthorn shifted to the east, taking in part of Surrey Hills from Burwood and Box Hill, and losing the remainder of Glen Iris to Ashwood. These changes slightly increased the Labor margin from 0.4% to 0.6%.
History
Hawthorn has existed as an electoral district continuously since 1889. In that time, it has been dominated by conservative MPs, and had only been won by the ALP at one election prior to the Labor win in 2018.
The seat was won in 1902 by George Swinburne. He ended up serving as a member of the Commonwealth Liberal Party before his retirement in 1913.
He was succeeded by William Murray McPherson. McPherson served as Treasurer in the Nationalist state government from 1917 to 1923, and as Premier from 1928 to 1929. McPherson resigned from Parliament in 1930.
He was succeeded by Nationalist candidate John Gray at the 1930 by-election. Gray served as Member for Hawthorn until his death in 1939.
His seat was won at the 1939 by-election by the United Australia Party’s Leslie Tyack. He lost the seat at the 1940 state election to independent candidate Leslie Hollins, who had links to the Social Credit movement.
Hollins held Hawthorn for two terms, losing in 1945 to the Liberal Party’s Frederick Edmunds. He also held the seat for two terms, until in 1950 the Liberal Party replaced him with his predecessor Leslie Tyack.
Tyack was defeated in 1952 by the ALP’s Charles Murphy, the only ALP member to ever win Hawthorn. He left the ALP in the split of 1955, and lost his seat at that year’s election to the Liberal Party’s James Manson.
After one term, Manson moved to the new seat of Ringwood in 1958, and was replaced in Hawthorn by Peter Garrisson. He was re-elected in 1961, but in 1963 he resigned from the Liberal Party, and lost his seat as an independent in 1964.
Walter Jona was elected as Liberal Member for Hawthorn in 1964. He served as a minister in the Liberal government from 1976 to 1982, and retired in 1985.
Hawthorn was won in 1985 by the Liberal Party’s Phillip Gude, who had previously held the seat of Geelong East for one term from 1976 to his defeat in 1979. He served as a minister in the Kennett government from 1992 until his retirement in 1999.
Since 1999, Hawthorn has been held by Ted Baillieu. Baillieu won re-election in 2002, 2006 and 2010.
Ted Baillieu was elected Liberal leader shortly before the 2006 election, and led the Coalition to defeat in 2006 and victory in 2010.
Baillieu served as Premier from 2010 until March 2013, when he resigned as Premier and Liberal leader under pressure from his party’s MPs. He retired at the 2014 election, and was succeeded by Liberal candidate John Pesutto.
Pesutto held Hawthorn for one term, losing the seat to Labor’s John Kennedy with a big swing in 2018.
- Faith Fuhrer (Animal Justice)
- John Kennedy (Labor)
- Ken Triantafillis (Family First)
- Richard Peppard (Liberal Democrats)
- Melissa Lowe (Independent)
- Nick Savage (Greens)
- John Pesutto (Liberal)
- Stratton Bell (Democratic Labour)
Assessment
Hawthorn has traditionally been considered a safe Liberal seat, but a cumulative swing of 17.1% to Labor since Ted Baillieu’s retirement in 2014 saw them grab the seat. It wouldn’t take much of that vote swinging back to restore the Liberal hold here, but if the Liberal Party doesn’t receive much of a bounce back Labor could hold the seat.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| John Pesutto | Liberal | 17,231 | 43.9 | -10.6 | 43.9 |
| John Kennedy | Labor | 12,646 | 32.2 | +8.0 | 32.9 |
| Nicholas Bieber | Greens | 7,167 | 18.3 | -3.1 | 17.7 |
| Sophie Paterson | Sustainable Australia | 960 | 2.4 | +2.5 | 2.4 |
| Catherine Wright | Animal Justice | 885 | 2.3 | +2.3 | 2.2 |
| Richard Grummet | Independent | 367 | 0.9 | +0.9 | 0.8 |
| Informal | 1,462 | 3.6 | -0.2 |
2018 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| John Kennedy | Labor | 19,793 | 50.4 | +9.0 | 50.6 |
| John Pesutto | Liberal | 19,463 | 49.6 | -9.0 | 49.4 |
Booths have been divided into three areas: central, east and west.
The Labor Party won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, with just over 52% in the centre and east and 57% in the west. The Liberal Party narrowly won the pre-poll vote and won the remaining vote more convincingly.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 12.3% in the east to 21.5% in the west.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| Central | 17.0 | 52.1 | 9,807 | 22.7 |
| East | 12.3 | 52.2 | 6,135 | 14.2 |
| West | 21.5 | 56.9 | 5,796 | 13.4 |
| Pre-poll | 18.1 | 46.5 | 13,503 | 31.2 |
| Other votes | 19.3 | 49.6 | 8,018 | 18.5 |
Election results in Hawthorn at the 2018 Victorian state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, Labor and the Greens.
I would say Pesutto claim to the leadership is that he won a ballot and was elected to the role. Secondly and more importantly the Liberal party has never been or claimed to be a Christian party rather it has always been a secular party open to all faiths that was based on free markets, rewards for success, fiscal prudence and limited government open to all faiths and those of no faith. I dont see why Moira Deeming and Renee Heath cant just join the DLP or Family First which would always better align with their views. The Deputy leader of the Victorian Liberals is not even Christian and does not celebrate Christmas or go to Church. Just like the Labor party is not anti-religion party or an atheistic party people who are hostile to religion can always vote for the Reason party and the Labor party has no interest in courting Fiona Pattern to join their ranks. The Labor party is based on Social Democracy. The Labor party often does well in areas where there is a high concentration of ethnic communities where the percentage of people with no religion is low. The Difference between both major party has always been economic and it is the difference in Economic policy that should be the compelling reason to vote for either of them, run for either of them or volunteer for either of them. In NSW where there has been two socially conservative religious leaders from the Libs, Dominic Perrotet and Mike Baird there party has not been at war with themselves because those leaders were pragmatic conservatives. Chris Minns is also socially conservative and like DP is a Catholic and raising his children in that faith.
Entrepreneurial, are you endorsing Deemings Neo-Nazi anti-trans rallies?
Sounds as if you oppose the expulsion despite the fact it was justified. Moderates such as myself would never vote for a party infested by people like her who seem to be Hitler sympathisers.
Polwarth is one or 2 elections away from being won by Labor.. due largely to demographic changes
I’m quite confident that the LNP will replace John before the next state election. You think with an ageing government that they would be making some actual ground but it seems to be just as bad for them. The internal fighting doesn’t help and sky news attacking him as well.
I personally think the in-fighting will not end even if there is a change of leadership. It is the Product rather than the Salesman that is the issue. The Liberals have a dilemma that i dont think will be resolved easily be more right wing to appeal to the membership which make it less attractive for the wider community or become more moderate and the membership will attack them as “Labor Lite”. This dilemma cannot resolved easily.
Agree nimalan, I think the Victorian Liberals need a wholesale cleanout/purge similar to what state Labor went through in the 1970/1980s period prior to John Cain getting up as leader and then Premier.
Yep, they’re exactly where Victorian Labor was before 1982; being plagued by factional infighting and having no pragmatic interest in winning government.
Yoh An/Ian
Agree. In the 1970, Whitlam led an intervention into the Victorian branch. It may have taken a decade to bear fruit but it has been being paying divideneds in the years since. If someone said in the 1960s then in two decades Labor would govern for about 75% of the time and that at a federal level the Libs would only win twice the TPP (1990, 2004) they would have told that they were crazy. There does need to drastic renovation of the Victorian Libs but i think it will take sometime for the lessons to be learnt. Tony Barry said in the Liberal party you may need to kill 100 to educate 1. I think part of the problem is the contradictory results from the last state election. The Moderate wing would point out that the Libs actually recovered in wealthy areas such as Malvern, Brighton, Caulfield, Sandringham and Hawthorn whilst the Conservatives point to the swing in areas such as St Albans, Greenvale etc and say they should focus on those so both sides dig their heels in.
Good article about Whitlam intervention in Victorian Labor branch- https://www.theage.com.au/national/the-move-that-saved-labor-in-victoria-20021203-gduvcd.html
Thanks Nimalan, very nice read.
Without winning some seats in Geelong, Bendigo and Ballarat, the Libs have no way back to a majority. There are eight seats there, and except for South Barwon in 2010 and 2014, Labor have held 6 since 1999 and 7 since 2002. They cannot rely on Regional Victoria and Melbourne alone.
I agree Nimalan,
I don’t think replacing John will improve the LNP chances for 2026 intact it just make them unstable and incapable.
Johns seat is held on a knife edge if labor or a teal were to win at the next election he wouldnt be the leader anyway. though to be fair the strongest margin is only 8.4% so with enough swing there could be very few coalition members left but i imagine they will claw back some ground. and if the moira deeming thing goes to court he could be forced out too
@ John
I agree the Hawthorn is vulnerable to a Teal but i think Labor is unlikely especially if a Teal ran again. It is important to remember that even with a sitting Labor member the Teal outpolled the Labor on all booths along Glenferrie Road and Cambewell Junction eventhough this is younger and more densley populated part of the electorate. There are accusations that Labor delibrately did not bother to campaign to give a clear run for the Teal. However, Pesutto’s rivals Riordan and Battin are IMHO more in danger of Labor challenge than Pesutto is. Let me explain why
1. Polwarth has some very left-wing areas such Airnes Inlet, Lavers Hill etc. Torquay is progressive and growing and post covid there has been an acceleration of the sea-change trend with more remote working.
2. Berwick-Labor ran dead in 2022 so they can sandbag all neighbouring seats which they succesfully did. Also in Berwick it is the Southern Part of the electorate around Clyde North is rapidly growing. This area is Labor-friendly and ethnically diverse while the northern part of the electorate which is Green Wedge/Hillside more Anglo is not growing fast. So if Labor actually campaigns in Berwick they would have done better.
I think if Labor is heading for another victory they will be more interested in seats such as Croydon, Polwarth and maybe even Berwick.