Morwell – Victoria 2026

Despite the redistributions being favourable to Labor in 2022 they still lost here which just shows the re alignment of this region away from Labor.

i am not sure if this realignment seat i would say it is de-industralisation with decline of Coal mining. Brown Coal is not exported so unlike the Hunter Valley Labor vote is steadily declining over time. This is like West Virginia/Kentucky. i mentioned in the 2022 Morwell thread, that this was Labor’s last ever chance to win the seat. I dont Labor will ever win this seat again and they have a better chance to win Rowville in the future than Morwell. In Hindsight, Labor should not have bothered here in 2022 and they should have targetted Croydon instead.

Agree Nimalan, this seat is like Bathurst in NSW where the transformation has been more gradual rather than sudden. If the 2011 state election was not a landslide defeat but rather a modest Coalition victory (similar to Queensland 2024) then Bathurst would still have been lost whilst Labor retained its traditional seats (Blue Mountains, Newcastle, Granville etc.).

I agree Labor should have focussed on Croydon, I still think Rowville is out of reach though.

@ Yoh An
Perfect example it is like Bathurst more specifically the area around Lithgow which is trending right. We can see this at both levels as Gippsland/Calare have trended right. Labor is not going to with Bathurst again so if Chris Minns wants a majority he needs to look at other seats such as Winston Hills. I think in another 15 years they were will be no Red booths left in the La Trobe Valley at either level of government.
@ SpaceFish i also think Rowville is out of reach but what i am saying is that i expect Morwell to become more right wing over time but not as much change in Rowville. In 2022 Labor won 60 notional seats (including Greens held seats) in 2002 Labor won 62 (no Greens won seats). Two seats that Bracks won in 2002 (Morwell/Narracan) will never be won again so if Labor wants to win 62 notional seats (including Greens held ones) they need to loook at two more (Croydon and Polwarth) subject to boundaries are better targets than Morwell or Narracan in the future.

The main issue in Morwell in 2022 was the imminent closure of the Maryvale paper mill due to hardwood timber supplies (forests) being destroyed in 2019-20 bushfires.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-14/white-paper-production-stops-maryvale-paper-mill/101973646

Labor first won Morwell in 1970 state election. This was long after coal mining commenced in the Latrobe Valley. It was one of four rural seats that Labor gained at that election. The others being Portland, Dundas (based on Hamilton) and Kara Kara (based on Maryborough). The Labor gains were due to a large leakage of preferences between the Liberal Party and Country Party. The Country Party also lost three seats to the Liberal Party.

The Age Newspaper had an article regarding the outcome of the 1970 Victorian state election – complete with quotations from Liberal Party Premier, Henry Bolte.
“The campaign: It was particularly dirty. A lot of infighting. But the Country Party received its just reward.”
Looks like there was some kind of dispute between the Liberal Party and Country Party which resulted in Labor winning Morwell for the first time along with the three western Victorian seats.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/from-the-archives-1970-bolte-s-liberals-win-sixth-successive-election-20200528-p54x8a.html

WW
The late 1960s and 1970s were the Latrobe Valley heyday. The SEC and the towns grew quickly and Labor reaped that reward. The other issue to consider now is that One Nation do well in the Valley. It is probably the best Australian comparison with a US or northern England rustbelt.

Nimalan,
It is 60 years since Lithgow had enough voters to determine the result in a state election and it has never had enough voters to determine the result in a federal election.
The NSW seat of Hartley was based on Lithgow. Hartley was held by Labor until 1965 when it was won by the Liberal Party. In 1968, Hartley was expanded and renamed Blue Mountains. Blue Mountains was retained by the Liberal Party until the 1978 Wranslide election.
In 1981, there was a redistribution which removed the rural weighting. This redistribution moved Lithgow into the seat of Bathurst for the first time ever. Despite winning 55.73% of the first preference vote statewide, Labor were only able to win Bathurst by 31 votes.

@ Watson Watch
As Redistributed correctly points out this area is closest to Brexit country/Rust Belt. There is de-industrialisation, I dont think anybody actually disputes that is happening here from a purely demographic perspective. It is not that Labor is doing bad but it simply not the same seat it once was. I dont know why you feel that people are attacking Labor here by pointing out a demographic fact. Once upon a time, Maranoa was a safe Labor seat but the fact it is now the most right-wing seat in the country no sane person said Albanese did not have a good result in May 2025 because Labor lost Maranoa by a huge margin. Whitlam was the seat of Cook in 1972 but now it is safest Capital city seat for the Coalition but there no need to shed tears for the fact that Labor did not win Cook in 2025 as it is quite different demographically from 1972. Labor now has won Bega which they did not win during the Carr years. Labor can win Polwarth in the future which once was a very safe Liberal seat. It is quite silly to get defensive. My earlier post suggest Croydon and Polwarth as seats Labor could win future.

Nimalan

Labor last won Maranoa in 1940 and before that had not held it since 1921 – not a good example. Kennedy would be a good example – comfortably Labor until 1966 and Labor have won it once since then (in 1990) – coincidentally without a Katter running.
Bathurst is a funny seat – sitting MPs (of both sides) run up big majorities based on a personal vote and then when they retire there are violent swings the other way. When Trevor Toole retires – it might happen again.

@ Redistributed
The reason i mentioned Maranoa is like you correctly pointed out was held by Labor from Federation to 1921 by-election. I agree it is much older example and Kennedy is a more recent example and better example. The reason i mentioned is i dont know why Watson Watch who i strongly assume is a Labor supporter, which i totally respect btw, got defensive when i pointed out that Morwell is demographically changing and probably will not be won again it was not meant to be a an attack on Labor. You have also correctly pointed out it is rust belt area. There other parts of the Nation which are seeing a long term trend to the Left. While Bathurst may see a swing to Labor when Mr Toole retires as you correctly pointed out we have also seen that Calare is a right trending seat and there has been demographic change there as well.

Nimalan,
You appear to have misunderstood my posts.
I don’t feel that anybody is attacking Labor and I wouldn’t care if they did.
As I have stated many times before, I do not belong to a political party and have never belonged to a Party with ‘Labor’ or ‘Labour’ in its name.
Even if I wanted to join the Labor Party, I doubt that they would accept someone who was a member of the NSW National Party for 20 years.

Although the first Labor member for Morwell was born in England, I doubt that there is any other correlation between England and the Latrobe Valley. From what I can determine, the coal mining in Northern England and also West Virginia/Kentucky was underground pit mining which is labour intensive while the Latrobe Valley mining was open cut which isn’t labour intensive.

Morwell went from marginal liberal to safe Labor. To marginal non Labor due to a internal alp split.
But it has not returned to Labor despite the most recent redistribution which helped Labor. This seat is part of Gippsland federally and does not look like changing at that level.
This seat is close to Melbourne but this doesn’t make a difference…..the one country area where labor’s position is not improving .

Labor will have a chance to win this seat again when the coal fired power stations close ,if the Latrobe Valley’s destiny is to be a Bendigo/Ballarat style regional centre that’s big enough and close enough to Melbourne to be somewhat vibrant.

Otherwise it’s gone (outside of a WA2021 esque landslide.) The only recent example I can think of where Labor got back on the board in a resources heavy seat outside such a landslide is Braddon at the federal election.

@ BNJ
The issue is that once Coal fired power stations are closed this will have less unionised blue collar workers and may become like Shepperton a focus for the agricultural industry. I think Bendigo/Ballarat had some goldfields charm/heritage which made it attractive to tree changers, while Geelong’s maritime heritage made it attractive to sea changers. Also a lot of the La Trobe valley is in Gippsland (one of the most right wing seats in the country) so no Federal benefit while Croydon is in Deakin/Aston which Labor is interested in.

Coal industry means railway networks that could be the backbone of a transit city.

Quality of life will shoot up dramatically with improved air quality, so it could be a good place to get a bargain on housing. Plus there’s lots of government plans to try transition workers to clean energy type industries – we’ll see if that pans out.

Latrobe is a distance and terrain from Melbourne where it wouldn’t be particularly hard to upgrade trains to be just over an hour from Melbourne CBD. You could imagine it being an appealing place for a university campus if they want to go the “college town” route.

All of that suggests a different kind of regional centre to Shepparton or Wagga, though that is always possible.

Anyway, none of this is going to play out for decades in this safe Nats seat.

@ BNJ
Fair points
I think i am more optimistic about the future of the Hunter Valley post Coal i dont feel it will turn into West Virginia/Kentucky. There are surf beaches, wineries and good agricultural land plus Newcastle is a big city so being close ot that is a a benefit. Central QLD is harder to transition.

The next redistribution will probably put all of the Latrobe shire into Morwell and the new part is very conservative, so I think the seat will move further away from Labor

At the last redistribution Victoria was expected to grow at 68 electors per seat per month, it is currently growing at 66 per electorate per month while Morwell was expected to grow at 63 electors per month and is growing at only 38 electors per month

Within its region (Eastern Victoria) the biggest growing seat is Bass (growing at 173 electors per month) and the slowest is Monbulk (growing at 4 electors per month

@captain agreed depending on what happens with Bass theyre may also be an argument to recreate West Gipplsland

@ John, thanks for the reply. I you might be right or do you mean renaming Bass to West Gippsland

Currently I see (in broad terms)

Gippsland East being East Gippsland shire, Wellington Northern Ward and most of Central Ward

Gippsland South being part Wellington Central ward all of Coastal, South Gippsland Council Bass Coast Island and most of Western Port ward

Morwell: All of Latrobe

Narracan All of Baw Baw Council and the 3 voters form Mt Baw Baw

Nepean French Island Mornington Peninsula Councils Benbenjie, Collart, Tootgaroo, Nepaen and Warringine wards

Mornington rest of Mornington Pen. Council

Bass, Bass Coast – Bunurong ward and part Westernport ward, Cardinia – Bunyip, Central, Henty and Westernport wards

Pakenham – Cardinia _Pakenham Hills, Toomuc, Beacon Hills, Officer and Ranges wards

Hastings (new name needed_ Morning pen council Beek Beek wards, Cranbourne Garden and Tooradin

As to Evelyn and Monbulk I wonder if the commission would be happy to cross the ranges and split Yarra Ranges council into these seats as they are a perfect match for these 2 seats

Captain i doubt they will cross the ranges as they use this as a natural boundary. but there will likely be a northward shift in the eastern suburbs if one seat isnt abolished altogether

also if Gippsland South were to move in Bass Shire it would flip the seat assuming Crugnale can hold on this time which is doubtful given how marginal the seat is.

@Captain Morwell is currently over quota by about 5% so it would shed parts of la robe not gain them Morwell surplus would be enough to top up the Gippsland seats

Would it not be easier to remove Casey and cardinals from bass and put in ssouth gipplsand shire. Then move it more into la robe and the push Morwell into narracan. Then you can form 3 seats from the cardinia shire Inc part in “narracan” . Given Pakenham is at quota you could probably leave it depending on projections. Then comine the parts of Casey and cardinia from bass with parts of southern berwick.

Thoughts?

Id rename Narracan to West gippsland or Strzelecki ranges

And morwell to Latrobe valley then bass to Bass coast

Dragons I’d rename bass to west Gippsland, morwell to Traralgon. Naming it la trobe valley wouldn’t get up as there is already a federal seat of la trobe. And Narracan to Warragul or Baw Baw

@ John, Morwell was the only seat at the last redistribution in Eastern Victoria that started with above 50,000 electors at 52,618, the next closest had 49,766 and the rest ranged from 44,728 to 49,108

I agree it is currently over average by 3,000 electors but by the forecasting cut off it is expected to be closer than that.

Long term I still believe the entire shire could be in Morwell if the committee want it to have stable boundaries for a long period of time, as its growth is so slow compared to the state average

In 2028, when the next process starts the projections would be interesting, but if all of the Shire was in Morwell now it would not be the largest seat

@ John, re non-Morwell, your suggestion has a lot of merit, but I think Pakenham will lose some territory as it is growing at 144 on a monthly average, the second highest in the region. Still, it was projected to be 179.

By the time the commission gets around to starting the next redistribution it will be close to the upper end of the quota (my figures have it at 58,252 and the upper range would around be around 60,300

Bass at the time will be around 61,474, so I would expect this to shrink dramatically. I realise my current Narracan is under quota currently, so it is more of a watching brief (as is all of my current thinking)

I think theyre may be an argument for reviving Gembrook too.

Moonlight
Victoria does not have projections. From the EBC website – “To ensure equal representation in Parliament, the number of enrolled voters in each district and region must not vary by more than 10% (up or down) from the quota.”. This why some seats run so massively over quota by the time the next redistribution rolls around as seats are likely to grow fast rather than slow fast.

John, the redistribution committee put out projections up to 1 July 2026, which I have compared to actual enrolments and then forwarded calculated to what I believe is the start of the next redistribution

Currently there are 14 seats above the 1 July 2026 enrolment figure

There are similar number above the 10% on actual enrolments and none b10% below. Some fo the seats in these 2 areas are different

Sorry last comment should of been directed to redistributed

I’d say they do provide projections but this isn’t taken into account when drawing seats. Like in Queensland. It does though help them draw seats. So seats with high growth can be drawn at the lower end and seats with slower growth can be drawn at the higher end. So by the time the next one comes along they are close to quota. Essentially it’s just an educated guess.

Which is why I think for equity sake they should move to a redistribution to every 4 years rather then 8

in big states like nsw vic and qld thats not necessary. the population simply doesnt move around enough to create such a deviation that would warrant the expense of resources, time and money