Werribee by-election, 2025

Cause of by-election
Sitting Labor MP Tim Pallas retired as Treasurer of Victoria and Member for Werribee in December 2024.

Margin – ALP 10.9%

Incumbent MP
Tim Pallas, since 2014. Previously member for Tarneit, 2006-2014.

Geography
Western Victoria. Werribee covers the suburbs of Werribee, Werribee South and Wyndham Vale, and areas to the west of Werribee. The entire electorate lies in Wyndham City.

History
Werribee previously existed as an electorate from 1976 to 2002.

Werribee was won in 1976 by Liberal candidate Neville Hudson, but he lost in 1979 to the ALP’s Ken Coghill.

Coghill held Werribee from 1979 to 1996, and served as Speaker of the Legislative Assembly from 1988 to 1992.

Labor’s Mary Gillett won Werribee in 1996, and was re-elected in 1999.

In 2002, Werribee was replaced by Tarneit, and Gillett was re-elected in the newly named seat.

Tarneit was won in 2006 by Labor candidate Tim Pallas, and he was re-elected in 2010.

Werribee was restored in 2014, and Pallas shifted to the restored seat, winning re-election comfortably. Pallas was re-elected in 2018 and 2022. Pallas served as Treasurer from Labor’s return to power in 2014 until his retirement at the end of 2024.

Candidates

Assessment
Werribee is a reasonably safe Labor seat but if the party is doing quite badly it’s the kind of seat that could fall at a by-election.

2022 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Tim Pallas Labor 17,512 45.4 -0.6
Mia Shaw Liberal 9,779 25.3 +8.7
Jack Boddeke Greens 2,613 6.8 +0.3
Paul Hopper Independent 2,278 5.9 +5.9
Sue Munro Victorian Socialists 1,391 3.6 +3.6
Matthew Emerson Family First 964 2.5 +2.5
Kathryn Breakwell Democratic Labour 767 2.0 -1.2
Josh Segrave Animal Justice 730 1.9 +1.9
Patricia Wicks Derryn Hinch’s Justice 709 1.8 +1.8
Mark Strother Freedom Party 663 1.7 +1.7
Trevor Collins Transport Matters 360 0.9 +0.9
Prashant Tandon New Democrats 319 0.8 +0.8
Karen Hogan Health Australia 260 0.7 +0.7
Patrizia Barcatta Independent 213 0.6 +0.6
Heni Kwan Independent 45 0.1 +0.1
Informal 4,156 9.7

2022 two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Tim Pallas Labor 23,517 60.9 -2.4
Mia Shaw Liberal 15,086 39.1 +2.4

Booth breakdown

Booths in Werribee have been divided into three parts. Most of the electorate lies in a small cluster around Werribee, Wyndham Vale and Hoppers Crossing. Polling places in this area have been divided into Werribee North and Werribee South. The small number of polling places outside this area have been grouped as “Outer”.

Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 61.3% in Werribee South to 64.7% in Werribee North.

Voter group ALP 2PP Total votes % of votes
Werribee South 61.3 5,374 15.7
Outer 62.3 2,560 7.5
Werribee North 64.7 2,347 6.8
Pre-poll 58.9 20,249 57.6
Other votes 63.6 4,371 12.5

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

Become a Patron!

232 COMMENTS

  1. Werribee electors are voting early in droves, unlike in Prahran.

    How much credence one places on this is doubtful, but word I have from the early voting yesterday was that many were enthusiastic about voting Liberal, unlike two or three days previously.

  2. Labor’s vote here might hold up better than expected (around 40% primary). A general reduction in the number of candidates helps. Labor, by far, has the better candidate quality and has appeared to have had a much more expansive ground campaign than people give it credit for, IMO.

  3. In an electorate like Werribee that has voted Labor for a very long time, I would hesitate to be too optimistic about some of the factors that have driven a rightward shift in traditional marginal seats. In particular:

    * Minor party voters are more likely to preference ALP than usual. Right wing micro voters actually split 50/50 in Lalor (federal) in 2022.
    * The tribal/habitual voting patterns of prepoll and postal voters help Labor. Labor actually did better in postal votes than election day votes in Lalor.

    Having said that, I think turnout will have the effect on dynamics people are predicting that will advantage the Liberals, as will the typical by election bias against incumbents . Politically tuned out voters who vote for the major party they always have are the most likely not to turn up, Labor more so than Liberal. Still you can also see the civic minded retirees, long term residents, that will definitely show up being more Labor leaning in Werribee than in e.g. Ashwood or Prahran.

    I think Labor narrowly hangs on with a post count that isn’t quite as strong as it needs to be for the Liberals in a nail biter of an election

    I rhink

  4. I’m not that surprised the Liberals didn’t show up as they generally lean towards prioritising more car-centric infrastructure.

  5. @Trent While Labor have a better record than the Coalition on building PT infrastructure, there are other cases where the Libs do well. Eg the biggest increases in metropolitan train frequencies have often been under the Liberals. Even Jeff Kennett improved train and tram frequencies at certain times more than Dan Andrews. Both the Kennett and Baillieu Liberal governments improved metropolitan train reliability compared to the previous Labor government. Labor have generally added more bus service (especially during the Brumby era) but Liberals have been bolder on service reform. So the record from both sides is a bit more nuanced.

  6. Based on what I’ve seen and heard, I wouldn’t rule out a narrow Liberal win. I see this as lineball and it will be more interesting to watch.

    Brad Battin and the Liberals shouldn’t be underestimated. They’ve poured political capital here and they have a vested interest in cracking through the red wall as a path to government. He’s one of the few Liberal leaders who isn’t from the inner or middle ring of eastern Melbourne so he’s a different breed.

    As with by-elections, voters can cast a “send a message” vote without changing the government. There’s the Jacinta Allan factor. There has been a decline in her personal and statewide party popularity. By-elections can be referendums on the incumbant party in government. I also mentioned the ballot order that favours the Liberals as well as the low voter turnout. The voter turnout is even lower amongst younger, more mobile or transient and less politically engaged voters. This means that if the Liberals win then they might only hold on for 18 or so months.

  7. @Peter Parker, your blog also makes a good point that having the opposition make commitments pushes the government to match it.

  8. On Thursday 6 February, 1,471 voted early in Prahran compared to 2.962 in Werribee.

    This brings total early votes to 9,136 in Prahran and 19.526 in Werribee.

    So far, the VEC has received 4,788 postal votes in Prahran and 3,739 in Werribee, the latter (partly) being lower because they were mailed out later by the VEC.

  9. It should be remembered that for a long time a key voting block for the Liberals was professionals who got the train to their high paying jobs in the city. The antipathy we see the Libs have for PT stems really back to the early 90’s which was both the period the CBD was most hollowed out and the recession of the late 80’s early 90’s severely constrained Government spending. Note that even Labor Governments didn’t really start serious PT spending until the 2000’s.

    I do also think that trains in particular, while important to the overall economy, are a lot less important around places like this than roads, as a lot of employment is fairly dispersed and not concentrated as per CBD jobs. I am reminded of Joe Tripodi (ALP member for around Fairfield) when asked about spending on rail infrastructure said ‘we don’t travel on trains’. Everyone mocked him for travelling in his chauffer driven car, but what he was saying was his (then) outer suburban voters travelled to diversely located factory jobs that could not be reasonably connected by rail.

  10. @Mostly Labor Voter Agree there’s variations between seats. Areas like Point Cook have more of a white collar CBD workforce skew than Werribee. As for connections to local jobs, this is where grouping jobs around train stations and improved buses to homes and jobs can help (since most people are beyond walking distance of a station).

    Buying and owning cars is expensive and improvements to bus and train services, by working existing infrastructure harder especially off-peak can make a big difference. Because the current govt’s policy has been 99% infrastructure/1% service this sort of stuff hasn’t got the attention it needs. This is particularly in the City of Wyndham where (a) there are areas like Tarneit/Truganina where car ownership is lower than you might imagine and (b) bus routes are highly productive relative to the rest of Melbourne. If you can run buses until say midnight instead of 9pm and boost frequency you’d make them much more useful with big savings for those households who might otherwise have needed to buy another car (which might cost $10k/year to run). Some stats on relative bus usage in Wyndham here: https://melbourneontransit.blogspot.com/2019/10/melbournes-10-most-productive-bus.html

    There’s also no reason for the east-west divide in train services given high train usage in the west – eg lines like Werribee and Craigieburn are every 20 min interpeak versus every 10 min for the Frankston line (which has had more marginal seats). Interestingly while Labor builds more rail infrastructure the Liberals (even Jeff Kennett) have the better record on boosting metropolitan train frequencies.

    Both Labor and the Coalition have been disappointing so far on PT in this campaign. With professionals tending away from Liberal and towards Labor, the ALP could have been more active here. And the Liberals need to have been more vocal on Labor’s failings re being too slow to upgrade buses and PT if they are serious about winning (since their primary vote is weak).

    Not sure if the Libs have fully shaken off their eastern suburbs stigma as they haven’t proposed anything significant on buses (even though it is known that the few western Liberal MPs there are eg Trung Luu & Moira Deeming would back improvements – and have said so in parliament).

  11. Did anyone see that Aidan McLindon’s campaign materials feature a photo of him with gangland figure Mick Gatto?

    Just when McLindon’s bizarre political journey couldn’t get any stranger..

  12. @Peter,

    I sort of agree, and I actually think if Batten had made his first policy to scrap the SRL (comfortably the biggest boondoggle in my lifetime) and proposed say

    – Duplicating the Alton Loop
    – Linking the Werribee line to the RRL
    – Electrify the RRL and create a terminus at Sunshine
    – Electrify to Geelong and restore Geelong-Werribee-City
    – every 20 minutes Geelong to city express
    – every 20 minutes Sunshine-Werribee-Altona-city all stations

    Which would create a far better Western Suburbs rail service, and indeed a far better service than the SRL could possibly ever provide.

    However, I would argue that cars are not that expensive – while they are not cheap, most people (like they do with houses) take out a loan to amortise (?) the cost over the life of the car, and most people buy used cars so the up front cost is reduced (at the expense of some increase in maintenance spending). Further, even bus services will struggle when both residences and workplaces are dispersed, which they need to be in an industrial setting. I notice a lot of PT advocates (and this is not directed at you) tend towards having an office job in the city so don’t really get what it is like to have a middle to outer suburban factory/warehouse job and how difficult that can be to have adequate PT.

    I am in Cranbourne and I can guarantee that fixing Thomsons Rd was far bigger for people around here than removing level crossings on the Cranbourne line (important though that was).

  13. I mean I think if Batten proposed those changes the Liberals would probably have won the by election

  14. @Mostly Labor Voter Agree there needs to be some sort of western rail plan that people can believe in. My list would be slightly different, eg:
    * A 2 tier / separated service for RRL Geelong/Wyndham Vale (to allow needed new stations without slowing Geelong and beyond passengers)
    * Extension of Werribee Metro line with 2, maybe 3, new stations (most important being Black Forest Rd)
    * Starting weekend trains to Geelong approx 2 hr earlier and boosting evening service to 20 min max wait (can be done with existing infrastructure – current weekend starts are too late)
    * Boosting Werribee line to run every 10 min off-peak (matching Frankston line – can be done with existing infrastructure)

    Agree that PT is unlikely to be fully car competitive for jobs like in Laverton North. The majority will likely still drive to such jobs. This group is stuck behind the cars of those who might have an option to take PT if the service was better. And there’s scope for PT to instead of being 4-6 times slower than driving to be maybe only twice as slow with relatively cost-effective network improvements.

    Rail usage is also limited by the walking catchment of stations and the land available for parking unless you also have really good feeder buses. Multi-storey station parking looks good initially but is massively expensive per spot and contributes to traffic congestion around stations so there’s only so far you can go on that.

    Cars are depreciating assets so if households own fewer of them (or can even just delay purchase by 1-2 years) then the more money people have to save or pay their mortgage quicker. Thus getting more equity or a better buffer against hard times. A more useful PT network helps with resilience (currently people are somewhat stuck if their car breaks down or for whatever reason are without it) and improves job opportunities for young people.

    So a lot is to be said for a decent PT network in the west with frequencies similar or better than in the east (the latter justified by strong usage of services that do run). And the population density of new suburbs now is higher than new suburbs 30-40 years ago (ie 300-400m2 house blocks instead of 600 – 800m2 blocks) so PT should be proportionately more frequent all day (noting there’s much more weekend/evening travel than there use to be).

  15. Here’s why I don’t think Werribee frequencies will increase:

    With Sandringham taking over the cross-city line from Frankston, that one has to increase to 10 minute off peak frequencies just to accommodate the Werribee and Williamstown lines running every 20 minutes, spaced 10 minutes apart.

    Of course, not every Werribee or Williamstown train has to run all the way through to Sandringham, so that’s an easy fix.

  16. Metro 2 would be amazing for Werribee, basically separating the Werribee line from the other trains in the west allowing for dramatically increased frequency and a faster trip.

    But agree buses are a near term solution. Something Labor could fix between now and the general election. Not sure whether a narrow win or narrow loss will encourage that result more. You could argue a Liberal win would tell Labor to go for more car infrastructure rather than public transport which conservatives are ideologically opposed to.

  17. Don’t hold your breath for any rail improvements. No money. SRL has sucked the bejeezus out of everything. Lots of possible improvements across the network but all on backburner.

  18. @Blue Not john – Loss of the seat would send bigger shockwaves than a narrow hold. Conservatives have varied in their views to PT. Eg it was the Bolte government that started the City Loop. The last Liberal govt in NSW was arguably the best govt for Sydney PT in years. While canvassing a plan to cut quieter metropolitan train and tram lines in its first few years the Kennett govt hugely increased train and tram service, particularly on Sundays. More recently the biggest recent bus upgrades in Brimbank happened under the Napthine government in 2014 – even though Brimbank people were most unlikely to vote Liberal. Liberals also put PSOs in at stations which seem to have been well received and are more likely to be receptive to better using existing assets (eg boosting Metro train frequencies) than Labor.

    But both parties (along with other smaller parties) have sometimes tended to be susceptible to a race to the bottom on fares rather than a race to the top on service. Partly because the Liberals have been a weak opposition on PT service matters, letting Labor get away with doing too little in this area.

  19. If the Liberals win this seat today I believe it will be the first time the Liberals have won a seat in western Melbourne since they won this same seat in 1976.

  20. Depending on what you call ‘Western Melbourne’, they did win Essendon in 1992, and Tullamarine in 1992 and 1996.

  21. A seat like this in this current political environment should be a Liberal gain however a 11% swing is a tall order to achieve.

  22. I’d call Essendon and Tullamarine northern suburbs. The Maribyrnong River is normally the boundary between the north and the west.

  23. I heard Brad Battin say the Liberals haven’t won a by election off Labor sense 1948 so history isn’t on their side.

  24. As long as I have lived in Melbourne – 25 years plus – Essendon has been a western suburb. If you had to draw a line – anything west of the Westgate Bridge and Tulla Freeway would be a western suburb.

  25. This is a tough by-election to predict, mostly because we’ve got limited polling data. If, as the latest Resolve implies, Labor is truly crashing in Victoria, then it should be a goner. But at the same time, it was just one poll and there were 2 previous polls in December with 49-51 results statewide – which would still put this seat in the firing line, but on balance a probable retain. There has also been a seat poll with a 9% swing, hence implying a Labor retain, although seat polls are known for being considerably more volatile.

    It doesn’t seem to me that the Liberals have managed to campaign as strongly as they should, so when it comes down to the fine margins I think it is slightly more probable to be a Labor retain. But as I said previously, I can see a huge range of possible outcomes.

  26. I’m predicting the Little River booth to fall to the Liberals, but that’s the only booth that I’m confident the Liberals will win.

    If they’re gonna win the seat and hold onto it they need to make serious inroads in Werribee itself, since most of the booths in and around Werribee are still voting 60% Labor on TPP.

  27. Yeah Essendon is a Northern Suburb. As a Westie the Maribyrnong River is the border.
    52-48 Labor my prediction for today.

  28. @Adam & @Rob I’d argue that there is a distinct political culture applying in what I’d call the north-western wedge that make it neither ‘west’ or ‘north’. The north-western wedge includes likes of Keilor, Niddrie, Essendon, Moonee Ponds and maybe Tullamarine and Gladstone Park. These areas have very few people without religious faith. They are socially conservative, aspirational and disciplined. There is higher participation in private schooling. This group have done well for themselves, though their parents or grandparents might have been quite working class. Similar groups in the east might skew Liberal but in the north-west this demographic will typically support Right faction Labor MPs. In the past they’d have backed DLP/Santamaria. Bernie Finn, who won Tullamarine, was a socially conservative Liberal.

    In contrast the north (Broadmeadows across to say Reservoir/Preston) and west (then mainly Sunshine – Footscray) was much more industrial worker and left-wing. There are some differences between the two but arguably they’re more similar to each other than they are to the north-west.

  29. I’m not going to rule out anything including a Liberal gain but I’d say this is a toss up slightly favouring Labor retain, though perhaps with a margin of about 1-2%.

    The Liberals campaign here seemed somewhat underwhelming and it appears they’ve focussed a lot of their fight in Prahran. If Battin thinks the Bradbury strategy is going to get him the premiership in the long run he needs to think again. Even if the Liberals win here this time Labor could very well regain it in 2026 (like Ipswich West in QLD).

    And before anyone says by-elections are the be-alls and end-alls, Peter Beattie lost both Chatsworth and Redcliffe at by-elections in 2005 but regained them in 2006 and won a 4th term comfortably. It doesn’t mean anything this far out, though it should give Allan and co food for thought about what on earth they’re up to and to get a move along.

  30. It’s strange that the Liberals would focus more on Prahran, for a few reasons:

    – Werribee is actually a government held seat, Prahran is not;

    – Werribee is closely tied to their outer suburban strategy;

    – Werribee has a smaller margin;

    – If they win Werribee, they are more likely to hold it post 2026 than if they win Prahran, where they would certainly know the win was only a one-off due to low turnout, lack of Labor candidate and factors like Tony Lupton and the Greens would easily win it back in a general election without those factors.

  31. @Trent – I actually feel that the by election in Prahran will be the last time the Liberals could hold Prahran as the seat will continue to get younger, more progressive, and likely become less affluent.

    Western Melbourne overtime will experience a realignment to the right (Liberals), which will make seats like Werribee easier to win. Whereas Prahran and the affluent Liberal suburbs around it will trend away due to the Liberals struggling with younger people and the professional class which are increasing voting Labor and Greens.

  32. I think the message is, Werribee is part of the Liberal strategy under Battin, and if he puts the effort in I think he would win it. But Prahran is a seat that this by-election with the numerous factors involved is a ‘go big or go home’ opportunity for the Liberals.

    While I’m here, I’ll predict a Labor retain as a final prediction; a Liberal win though cannot be counted out in my honest opinion. The pre-poll and postal votes will be critical for the outcome.

  33. My definition of a western suburbs seat would be anything west of the Maribyrnong, which excludes Essendon and Tullamarine. Of course there’s a lot of diversity within that region, in particular which areas do/don’t have significant populations of South Asian origin.

    As it happens, I was in a different part of the outer western suburbs (not my usual territory) this morning, and made the observation that some of the infrastructure problems are not so much in the newer suburbs themselves, they’re at the point where those newer suburbs interface with less new ones – in the case where I was, a traffic bottleneck where a road went from two lanes to one at the point where it left the post-2000 suburbs to enter the 1980s/1990s ones. I haven’t been into Werribee for years but imagine there is a lot of that sort of thing there, too.

  34. The optics of the Liberal candidate are not good – white and male is one thing – but he is 63 and looks 73. You want a first time candidate to exude energy and he exudes …. doddery. I might be being overly harsh and have not heard him speak but the look and back story all scream ‘old dude’.

  35. I agree James, it’s why I think they might be wanting Prahran, but long term, it actually doesn’t help them form government in 2026 because the Greens will easily win it back. Whereas getting incumbency in Werribee will help them hold it in 2026 and contribute towards forming government.

  36. @redistributed also I think I heard somewhere that the Liberal candidate actually lives in Essendon but runs a business in Werribee. So the Liberals managed to find a ‘local’ candidate that lives even further than the last ‘local’ candidate (Pallas was known to live in Williamstown or thereabouts). For all the issues with Labor, their candidate choice isn’t one of them and he actually seems likeable and trustworthy boy from the burbs, which could help Labor in withstanding any swings.

    Nothing is certain but the Liberal candidate will have to have everything go well without issues if they want to win big here.

  37. Minimal swing in 2022
    I don’t think We are like uk where safe seats can shift in a by-election.
    Where does the liberal candidate fit in the liberal party spectrum?
    Left centre right far right?

  38. My prediction for what booths will flip to the Liberals on primaries (and potentially 2PP):
    – Werribee (Werribee Secondary College)
    – Little River (Little River Primary School)
    – Manorvale (Manorvale Primary School)
    – Thomas Chirnside (Thomas Chirnside Primary School)
    – Werribee EVC
    – Wyndham Vale EVC

  39. The liberal candidate is very conservative even by coalition standards. He is a member of a number of conservative catholic organisatIons from what I read.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here