Hawthorn – Victoria 2026

I would describe Hawthorn (the suburb) as teal-ish rather than left-wing. At the federal election in Richmond (the suburb) and Cremorne, Labor beat the Greens on the 2CP count at every booth as well as the nearest prepoll centres. There was no teal running.

The Age reports that teal independents and aligned groups are seeking another tilt at next election. There’s a Voices 4 Hawthorn group up and running. The Age also reports that Kew, Mornington, Prahran, Brighton and Malvern are potential targets.

Don’t get why the Teals target moderates, if there is a chance the Liberal Party might split. I can only see a Teal winning Hawthorn, if Baillieu ran.

Only seat the teals have a shot in, and maybe the only seat the Liberals might lose if so.

Teals, will probbaly make 2CP in Kew, Mornington and Malvern in addition to Hawthorn due to Labor PV dropping and tactical voting by Labo. Hawthorn is best chance for Teals and Labor would be wise to run dead and divert resources to sandbagging.

Which Teal who ran in Hawthorn or Kew did not live in the electorate in 2022? What have they actually go to give to the electorate? ALP and Greens will run dead if it means the Libs won’t win a seat but what would they stand for? They have to stand for more than being a ‘nice’ Teal.

@SCart: The Liberal is extremely likely to lose Prahran regardless. With both Labor & Greens running, Rachel Westaway will probably have to outperform her byelection result by at least +6 on primary votes. Incumbency will be cancelled out by so many favourable byelection factors not being present (including the fact that the byelection was held at the peak of the Liberals’ polling where they were polling over a 40% primary vote!).

A teal won’t really help her chances there either because Labor & Greens voters have no reason to tactically vote “teal” in a seat that had been Labor/Greens held for 19 of the 23 years prior to the byelection which was really a unique contest without Labor, so a teal would probably eat into her own primary vote and reduce her chances even more through preference leakage.

I agree that a teal won’t win Kew or Malvern either. I can’t see any possible reason that Jess Wilson won’t get a significant sophomore surge in Kew, she would be seen by moderate / teal types as the future of the Liberal Party that they want to see. Malvern is just too blue ribbon, but a teal would probably do better there than they would in Prahran which is solidly red/green in 3181-3183 (other than ‘Prahran East’).

In Mornington a teal came very close in 2022 so I wouldn’t write that off but I’d still consider it a long shot.

Hawthorn is the seat I have said for a while is most vulnerable to a teal because Pesutto’s 2022 pitch of becoming leader and ‘saving’ the Liberal Party is out the window. Even with that he only won very narrowly. And Labor made the 2CP, because they had incumbency which gave Labor/Greens voters less reason to tactically vote teal.

So next year I would say the combination of Pesutto no longer having leadership prospects and Labor being less popular and not having incumbency, means both the Labor & Liberal votes will go backwards, and the teal in 2022 only very narrowly missed the 2CP. So I’d say there’s probably a 95% chance of a LIB v IND 2CP which I’d favour an IND to win.

John Pesutto losing his pre-selection doesn’t look to be happening. You can argue that Pesutto is their best chance of holding. But the pre-selections around the Liberal party are shy of interest. Because of the Victorian Liberal Party’s dysfunction, it isn’t an attractive option for many potential candidates at the moment.

“Indeed, despite talk of a conservative challenge to former leader John Pesutto in Hawthorn – one of the party’s most marginal seats – no one nominated before it closed on Tuesday.”

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/oct/04/victorian-liberal-party-reselections-unusual-step-extending-deadline-search-for-future-mps

Reports that John pesutto is likely to be brought back to the frontbench under Jess wilson’s leadership

I wonder how Moira Deeming and Sky News will react to that.

If history is any indication, poorly.

Deeming now has 12 months to rev up her antiabortion advocacy and wreck Jess Wilson’s chances.

I never had anything against pesutto as a member but it was attacks on Deeming I had the problem with. He has probably cost himself the premiership. Deeming just needs to lay low on things like abortion.

Battin was weak on Deeming.
Liberals were traveling well when she made Andrews statue an issue, took all the wind outta their sails, Battin promoted her to the shadow frontbench after it had died down.

There’s hearsay that Battin bailing out Pesutto from bankruptcy or his handling of the Deeming matter was a reason for Battin’s downfall.

Makes sense.
Deeming is the Liberal Party’s main obstacle to winning.

The Liberals would win resoundingly if they pushed Deeming off the ticket.

Jess Wilson has just announced her shadow cabinet appointees. Neither John Pesutto nor Moira Deeming are among them.

That’s going to seriously backfire.

@Votante apparently Deeming is still on the frontbench as an assistant minister and Renee Heath got a full ministerial promotion. The fact that this ‘fresh’ start contains some of the same old that got the party to the current position today says it all really.

It wouldn’t be wise to put John Pesutto on the frontbench until the loan saga gets fully sorted.

@Tommo9: Moira Deeming is not in Jess Wilson’s publicly announced list of Shadow Cabinet, but this report says she will continue to serve as Shadow Assistant Minister for Local Government, which is a role first given to her by Brad Battin. https://www.smh.com.au/politics/victoria/jess-wilson-appoints-herself-shadow-treasurer-dumps-riordan-and-promotes-key-backer-20251130-p5njjv.html

Interestingly, Wilson will be forced to dump two upper house MPs if she wins power next November, because “Under section 50 of the Constitution Act, no more than six ministers can come from the Legislative Council. Wilson has named eight upper house MPs in her line-up, meaning at least two would need to be demoted before she could form government. The rule does not apply to an opposition’s shadow cabinet.”

The appointment of arch-conservatives like Bev McArthur, Moira Deeming and Renee Heath to the front bench is an attempt to appease the conservatives in the Liberal Party, whose support is essential for the leadership of any leader of the Victorian Liberal Party to survive. For example, promoting Bev McArthur to become the Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council is part of a peace deal Wilson’s supporters have brokered with McArthur to get her support. It can also be attempts to pull them into line to stop them fighting culture wars by introducing private members bills to roll back abortion or voluntary assisted dying rights. Fortunately they don’t seem to be engaging in culture wars recently.

@CJ: “Deeming’s hold over her upper house seat is expected to face a challenge from Dinesh Gourisetty, a prominent member of Melbourne’s fast-growing Indian community who has built considerable support across the party’s small western suburbs branches.” https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/how-12-good-men-and-women-stepped-in-to-save-john-pesutto-20250620-p5m900.html

Gourisetty was the Liberal candidate for Tarneit in the 2014 state election and was second on the Liberal Party’s Western Metropolitan Region ticket in the 2018 state election. Gourisetty could push Deeming down to the second spot on the Liberal Party’s Western Metropolitan Region ticket, which could see Deeming defeated. If she is pushed to the third spot then she will definitely be defeated. It’s very unlikely that Deeming will be pushed off the ticket entirely.