Bayswater – Victoria 2026

Heidi victoria would win for the libs if she recontested. Not sure if its on the cards for her but she would make a great addition to the libs. She has/had a large personal vote and moderate reputation. She would still be the MP if it werent for 2018 danslide.

Labor hold, Taylor has had the odds against him twice and defeated two incumbent members. I know of people who didn’t like Dan Andrews but voted for Taylor only because he was such a popular local member.

Up the dragons,
Heidi Victoria doesn’t live in the area anymore so and I have heard she has no interest in politics anymore. Given the Liberals move to right at the state level they’ll likely preselect someone from the right camp.

Jackson Taylor has announced he will not contest the 2026 election. He probably had one of biggest personal votes in the state so you would have to think this would be an easy Liberal gain. Although Aston was always talked of as the easiest Liberal gain at the Federal election this year and that didn’t eventuate. I think neighbouring Ringwood will be difficult for Labor to hold with Will Fowles leaving the party. Labor may also be vulnerable in neighbouring Monbulk.

@ Adam
Monbulk will have a sitting Labor member and Labor has a bigger margin after the 2022 election than they did after the 2006 election despite boundaries being more Pro-Liberal than the Bracks/Brumby era. If Libs get same swing as in 2026 than in 2010 they would still fall short.

Agreed with Nimalan, both this seat + Ringwood will be easier to gain than Monbulk

@adam thats because the liberal campagin collapsed trump mediscare vote buying etc. everything went wrong federally for the libs. this should be an easy pickup along with Melton for the libs

Bayswater and Ringwood are must wins for the Liberals to be able to call it a good election.

@pencil there are currently 8 marginal seats for the libs
Bass Jordan Crugnale ALP 0.2%
Pakenham Emma Vulin ALP 0.4%
Hastings Paul Mercurio ALP 1.4%
Ripon Martha Haylett ALP 3.0%
Glen Waverley John Mullahy ALP 3.3%
Bayswater Jackson Taylor ALP 4.2%
Yan Yean Lauren Kathage ALP 4.3%
Melton Steve McGhie ALP 4.6%

they would need all 8 of these to call it a good election
a great election would have them winning these 3 fairly safe seats that should be winnable. ive left out Niddrie since Labor will attempt to sandbag the seat as its the deputy leaders seat.

Ashwood Matt Fregon ALP 6.2%
Sunbury Josh Bull ALP 6.4%
Eureka Michaela Settle ALP 7.2%

anything more and theyre probably in govt.

Ringwood is only in play because the sitting member got into the shit with police.

John, would agree with that about the 8 marginals.

Yan Yean is probably one they can live without as the redistribution is probably gonna make it hard to hold but the other 7 are must wins. Ripon is probably gonna be easier for the nats to win. the nats can pump more resources into it and they do have a tendency to win over labor voters that would not vote liberals. ripon has a history of not swinging very much but thats in a traditional 2pp contest the addition of a nats candidate would shake that up. and i believe they intend to target it. so we’ll call that 6 they must win. from those 8 marginals.

those other 3 and maybe ringwood bendigo east and niddrie are the liberals/nationals best hopes. still thats only 14 seats and barring a labor collapse or major scandal i cant see the libs making the 17 seats needed

This isn’t great news for Labor at all and has made the Liberals chance a lot easier of getting back in.

@John You can maybe add Mulgrave, the margin at the b-e was only 4.7%, and that occurred while Vic Labor had a 2PP lead around 56-44. You can probably assume that it’s winnable without Dan’s personal vote

I’d give this seat to the Liberals for now. Jackson Taylor had a tremendous personal vote that even the best Labor candidate wouldn’t be able to match.

Mulgrave is probably a stretch. It is a high CALD population demo favours Labor. Assuming the MP runs again.

It would probably just depend on where Ian Cook’s vote ends up going tbh

Mulgrave is where the two Melbourne’s meet. South of the Monash freeway is very working class and unlike NW Melbourne Labor is doing much better in SE Melbourne. Infrastucture has been better managed. All Level crossings have been removed and Metro Tunnel is due to open. The biggest swings to Labor at a Federal level occured along Pakenham/Cranebourne rail corridor not the affluent inner east.
In seats such as Melton there is anger over Service Delivery and rapid population growth while Mulgrave is an established area and not a mortgage belt.

James yep it was a notional liberal seat after the redistribution but the member managed to hold on and effectively win it back. Without the member it should be easy enough to win back.

Scart nope they won’t win that if they couldn’t win any election when the king was dead. They won’t win it now. By election always favour the opposition especially when there won’t be a change of govt. They won’t win Mulgrave. Maybe Ian Cook but that’s it.

His vote won’t go anywhere based on the notional 2pp it’s the same as the 2cp.

Nimalan that’s what makes it the ideal seat to abolish along with being the most under quota seat.

By dragging all those seats north there’s probably justification to reconstitute keysborough

@John – on Bayswater, agreed. The Liberals ran a strong candidate in Nick Wakeling who held on in 2018 narrowly and was quite popular in Ferntree Gully, though Jackson Taylor showed himself to be an effective and well-liked MP that allowed him to win back Bayswater quite comfortably.

On Mulgrave, the Liberal 2PP was actually close to 2% better than Ian Cook’s vote on the 2CP. If we go off of 2PP, Mulgrave is actually marginal, similar margin to Melton. But the by-election was definitely a unique result, I don’t think Labor will lose unless Eden Foster hasn’t been doing too well as an MP or the Liberal polling takes an uptick.

They’ll win Werribee before mulgrave

I think Werribee and Melton and more broadly, the western suburbs, are more volatile and unpredictable. There’s urban sprawl and infrastructure inadequacies and issues as well as the mortgage belt demographic.

Bayswater will likely flip long before Mulgrave. For a start, it’s on a much lower margin. Mulgrave has a rusted-on Labor heartland vote.

Still it’s a prime candidate for abolition. Meaning it won’t be around d long, and even it’s it will face major changes.

The only risk to Eden Foster is her health. So far, that looks okay.

Also depends on what the Liberals run on. Battin seems to be mainly concentrating on crime, which is not something. Still, judging from the comments on social media, many residents have as much concern about the police as they do about the crimes themselves. How were Mary Doyle’s numbers in that part of her division in May?

Mulgrave is not in aston

@Craig Broadly similar to the state election, except Doyle did better around Ferntree Gully.

If they’re winn8ng Mulgrave they’re probably I govt. They be or Only won both Niddrie and bendigo east decapotating the labor leaderdhip

I was circling back to Bayswater according to AEC that area went 55.67% Labor for the 2023 by election. I haven’t seen the booth results for 2025 but give the 2PP was virtually identical between 2023 and 2025 they are probably close. State elections are often different but a good Labor performance in that area is very reasonable. What local issue would cause a significant swing from them aside from general malaise of an aging government?

Aston (compared to the 2022 result) and the eastern suburbs more generally, had swings bigger than the statewide and national swing. The 2023 and 2025 Aston results were pretty much the same. I would say 2025 is an outlier due to overperformance.

@ Votante
Aston IMHO is quite a typical Middle Australia electorate. It is slighlty above average in terms of SES. It is mostly An Anglo area with has a decent CALD populations. Labor usually only does well enough at high tide elections to win this area. Remember they nearly won Aston in 2010 as well. While Labor won it in 2025 the result in Aston was still below statewide result. Back in the 1980s it was mortgage belt and people assumed as the area was becoming older and wealthier it probably wold never be won back by Labor. When Labor won in 1984/1987 Aston was actually stronger for Labor than Victoria as a whole but those days long gone. It may not be saphire blue but it remanins light blue even whilst Labor won it.

Aston’s Labor 2PP has generally been lower than the Vic Labor 2PP. The mortgage belt label is a bit misleading as the area is more mature and the median age is a bit higher as is the socio economic status.

In Melton or in various parts of the west, the mortgage holders are younger and likely have young, growing children. Infrastructure inadequacies and despair following population growth will likely drive the protest vote though I doubt they will rush to the Liberals.

I think at this stage, Labor can cling on to Bayswater but it depends on how things pan out over the next 14 months and also candidate quality.

@ Votante
Aston is not a mortgage belt now but was from late 1980s to early 2000s when the area started to become settled. In the past interest rates would have been an issue here but no longer as people are more settled.

On comparing the federal results from memory Taylor does better but Labor still carried the results quite well. Without Taylor’s vote I’d say the seat is now technically 51.2 now instead of 54.2 as MP the question is can Labor keep the momentum in this seat as Taylor has built up the membership through here. It’s worth noting Bayswater and parts of Wantirna have been undergoing a massive demographic change so it will be interesting to see how that plays out. Still if there is an anti Labor swing I’d personally not be surprised if this falls.

Nimalan, so I guess the area within Aston would be akin to somewhere like the lower Hills District (Northmead, Winston Hills and Baulkham Hills) being a fairy settled area and not an emerging mortgage belt.

This area stretching down towards Parramatta is considered somewhat conservative leaning and has a decent proportion of CALD minorities but was historically almost ethnically white when it was at the forefront of Sydney’s urban growth (during the 1980’s period).

@ Yoh An
Excellent comparison, Agree it will be lower Hills District and perhaps Kings Langley from Blacktown council as well. Parts of Aston like Boronia/Ferntree Gully are older have a lot of weatherboard houses and close to mountains so i often compare those areas to Emu Plains/Leonay etc due to geography. A Brisbane comparision would be parts of Bonner like Mount Gravatt, Mansfield, Wishart etc.

The closer you get to the Dandenongs in Aston it comes better for Labor but also less ethnically diverse so those areas are not like Hills.

I would not compare Aston to places like Castle Hill, Glenhaven, West Pennant Hills, Cherrybrook etc as those areas are higher SES and more like Manningham/Menzies.

I know a few people who have had dealings with Jackson Taylor and they held him in very high regard and would sing his praises to anyone who would listen. There is a big personal vote going begging. It will depend on who the Liberals endorse as candidate – seeing as they have a unique talent in endorsing bad candidates. The margin in Ringwood would be closer if Cynthia Watson had not been a supremely bad candidate choice. A good Liberal candidate could win Ringwood – not sure if Will Fowles is running again or not – but he is a big waste of space as local MP – probably the least visible and worst I have had excluding very safe seats where the MPs just coasted along.

@Nimalan, I would describe Bayswater as middle class suburbia with free standing, detached homes, though mostly irreligious. Census figures show an above average proportion of mortgage holders though they may have bought homes ages ago when they were far cheaper.

Agree Votante, there has not been new housing estates in Bayswater for Decades. As recently as early 2000s there were greenfield housing estates in the Southern Part of Aston around Rowville. Now it is mostly infill development.

Although there is actually a large Pentecostal Community in Aston as it it home to the Citylife Megachurch

@ Marh
Pentecostals make up about 2% of Knox double national/greater melbourne average. There is actually more Buddhists and Hindus than Pentecostals in Knox. I dont think Pentecostals are a swing demographic and probably vote Family First . Knox has less Muslims than average though and more Pentecostals than Muslims.

https://profile.id.com.au/knox/religion

Amount of Buddhists is higher than Greater Melbourne probably due to large Sri Lankan and Chinese community.

It perplexes me (and rather irritates me – as a former long-term resident of Sydney’s Hill District) how a few percentage points of Pentecostal affiliation is supposedly enough to claim that Pentecostals are of notable political relevance. To no other demographic group is such a standard applied.

@ Nicholas
I have also pointed the same see below relating to Hills district and pointed out more Hindus than Pentecostals in the Hills. Hills is a very CALD area. This why despite Alex Hawke being a member of Hillsong he is concerned about Jacinta Price comments. He knows ethnic communities have the power to topple him while Pentecostals dont
https://www.tallyroom.com.au/archive/nswcouncil2024/thehills2024#comment-818946

Could Nick wakeling run again?

As a pentecostal i dont think theres a voting bloc. Every church is different, but most definitely dont vote family first. People dont vote based on religion tbh church and state are separate. Pentecostals are definitely overrepresented in politics because more extreme churches have infiltrated the liberal party. Wantirna area would probably be the most pentecostal in terms of proportion but in terms of numbers Melton and Narre Warren/Cranbourne areas would have more

I think a way Pentecostals are to the liberal party what cfmeu is to the labor party

@ Up the Dragons
Maybe my comment about Family First was inflated. However, Pentecostals are more likely to be vocal in religious compared to Catholics, Anglicans and Orthodox Chirstians. In the US, there is a big difference in voting patterns between Evangelical Protestant and Mainline Protestants. Also Black Christians are much less vocal on Abotion etc compared to White Born Again Evangelical Christians since Black churches focus more on social justice etc than what people do within the four walls of their Bedrooms

@Nimalan, it is interesting though since the Citylife Megachuch has a private school (Waverley Christian College) yet majority of the students there are Asian (mainly Chinese and South Asian Students) following the trend where many or even students in Christian Private Schools in Australia only attended there only for education rather than their personal religious beliefs.

Does anyone have an inside info who the Labor and Liberal candidates might be?