Ivanhoe – Victoria 2026

ALP 12.8%

Incumbent MP
Anthony Carbines, since 2010.

Geography
Northern Melbourne. Ivanhoe covers southern parts of the City of Banyule. Ivanhoe covers the suburbs of Eaglemont, Heidelberg, Ivanhoe, Rosanna, View Bank and parts of Yallambie.

History
Ivanhoe was first created for the 1945 Victorian state election. In that time, it has alternated between the major parties, although it was predominantly held by the Liberal Party before the ALP gained it most recently in 1996.

Ivanhoe was first won in 1945 by independent candidate Robert Gardner, who was a journalist and community organiser. He held the seat for one term, losing in 1947 to the Liberal Party’s Rupert Curnow.

Curnow died in December 1950, and the 1951 by-election was won by Liberal candidate Frank Block.

Block was defeated by the ALP’s Michael Lucy in 1952. Lucy left the ALP in 1955 to join the Anti-Communist ALP, which became the Democratic Labor Party. He lost his seat at the 1955 election to the Liberal Party’s Vernon Christie.

Christie held the seat for eighteen years, retiring in 1973. The seat was won by race-caller Bruce Skeggs for the Liberal Party. He lost the seat in 1982 to the ALP’s Tony Sheehan, although later won the Legislative Council province of Templestowe in 1988, holding it until 1996.

Sheehan lost Ivanhoe in 1985, but later held the neighbouring seat of Northcote from 1988 to 1998.

In 1985, Ivanhoe was won by Vin Heffernan of the Liberal Party. He held Ivanhoe until his defeat in 1996. The seat had long been a solidly Liberal seat, but the 1992 redistribution made the seat notionally Labor. Heffernan managed to hold on in 1992, but in 1996 he lost to the ALP’s Craig Langdon.

Langdon held the seat for the next fourteen years, but in 2009 was defeated for Labor preselection, and then resigned from Parliament in August 2010, predicting that his successor would fail to hold the seat.

Langdon’s prediction was proven untrue, and Anthony Carbines won the seat as the Labor candidate in 2010. Carbines has been re-elected three times.

Candidates

Assessment
Labor is in a strong position to win the seat.

2022 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Anthony Carbines Labor 17,333 42.7 -3.7
Bernadette Khoury Liberal 12,566 31.0 -1.4
Emily Bieber Greens 7,808 19.2 +4.5
Sarah Hayward Family First 1,216 3.0 +3.0
Sonja Ristevski Animal Justice 937 2.3 +2.3
Craig Langdon Independent 739 1.8 -3.1
Informal 1,536 3.6

2022 two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Anthony Carbines Labor 25,476 62.8 +0.4
Bernadette Khoury Liberal 15,123 37.2 -0.4

Booth breakdown

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

Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 61.4% in the south-west to 71.6% in the north-west.

The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 18.6% in the north-east to 22.7% in the south-west.

Voter group GRN prim ALP 2PP Total votes % of votes
South-West 22.7 61.4 6,306 15.5
North-East 18.6 63.9 4,853 11.9
North-West 22.4 71.6 3,836 9.4
Pre-poll 17.6 61.1 20,253 49.8
Other votes 19.6 63.2 5,415 13.3

Election results in Ivanhoe at the 2022 Victorian state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, the Liberal Party and the Greens.

Become a Patron!

8 COMMENTS

  1. With West Heidelburg and Bellfield in the electorate it won’t get close to a Liberal win. They had an adverse redistribution in 1992 and just held on. It was lost to Labor in 1996 and has been Labor ever since. The demographics and geography mean that the Libs have no chance as it will only ever go further into safe Labor territory – unless it lost Heidelberg West and stretched up into Lower Plenty but that is probably very unlikely.

  2. In the 2022 thread i made some comments on Ivanhoe.
    I live in the neighbouring seat of Bulleen and now this seat very well.Is true that that prior to 1992 when the West Heidelberg Public Housing area was not included Ivanhoe was a safe Liberal seats which only fell to Labor in landslide elections such as 1952&1982. Ivanhoe maybe the most unequal seat in the state with a huge gap between West Heidelberg on one hand and Eaglemont on the other. The rest of Ivanhoe includes standard middle class Yallambie and Macleod and more Upper middle class areas such as Viewbank/Rosanna as they are close to the River. Ivanhoe was lost in 1996 due to controversy surrounding the future of the Austin Hospital.

  3. @Redistributed they did get close to a win with West heidelberg in the electorate. After 2010 it was on less than 2%… West heidelberg labor votes been stable its Ivanhoe central/Heidelberg/Rosanna that swung hard to Labor between then and now

  4. @Up the Dragons
    Does not surpise me with West Heidelberg is stable since it is not a swing suburb. Suburbs like Rosanna/Viewbank are like Blackburn so there are swingy suburbs. For Libs to do well here there need to be Labor Lite on Social issues but different on economic issues.

  5. Since this seat has strong geographic boundaries on three sides (the Yarra and Darebin Creek), it’s unlikely to change radically in future redistributions – most likely only a modest expansion of its northern boundary, which wouldn’t change its political complexion much.

    In its post-1992 form this is a seat the Liberals would hold only in a big win (like 1992). 2010 was relatively close (1.6%) but a messy Labor preselection probably contributed to that.