Electoral district of Ballarat East

Ballarat East Victoria—Legislative Assembly
Location in Victoria, 1859
State	Victoria
Dates current	1859–1927, 1992–2014
Electors	40,578 (2010)
Area	3,323 km^2 (1,283.0 sq mi)
Demographic	Urbanised rural

Ballarat East (initially spelt Ballaarat East^[1]) was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of Victoria. Prior to its abolition, it was a 3,323 km² part-urban and part-rural electorate covering areas to the east of the regional centre of Ballarat. It included the Ballarat suburbs of Ballarat East, Bakery Hill, Golden Point, Eureka, Canadian, Mount Pleasant, Mount Clear, Mount Helen and Warrenheip, and the rural towns of Ballan, Buninyong, Bungaree, Creswick, Daylesford, Dunnstown, Hepburn Springs, Kyneton, Lal Lal, Malmsbury, Meredith and Steiglitz. The electorate had a population of 54,127 as of the 2006 census, with 40,578 enrolled electors at the 2010 state election.

Ballarat East was one of the earliest districts of the Legislative Assembly, having been created for the second Assembly election in 1859. It was initially a two-member seat, and as with the rest of the Assembly, was largely non-partisan until 1889, when it became a one-member electorate and began to be held by more partisan figures. It was held by successive early liberal parties until they merged into the Nationalist Party of Australia in the late 1910s, but fell to the Australian Labor Party in 1924, one term before being abolished in 1927. It was recreated as a marginal seat in 1992, when it was won by Liberal Barry Traynor, but was regained for Labor by Geoff Howard when the party won office at the 1999 election. Howard was re-elected at the 2002 election, 2006 election and 2010 election.

Ballarat East was abolished in 2014 after a redistribution of Victoria's electoral boundaries, with much of its territory going to the new district of Buninyong.

Members for Ballarat East

First incarnation (1859–1927)
Member 1		Party	Term	Member 2		Party	Term
	John Humffray	Unaligned	1859–1864		John Cathie	Unaligned	1859–1864
	Charles Jones	Unaligned	1864–1867		Charles Dyte	Unaligned	1864–1871
	John Humffray	Unaligned	1868–1871
	John James	Unaligned	1871–1886		Robert Walsh	Unaligned	1871–1874
				Townsend McDermott	Unaligned	1874–1877
				Daniel Brophy	Unaligned	1877–1880
				James Russell	Unaligned	1880
				Daniel Brophy	Unaligned	1880–1883
	Edward Murphy	Unaligned	1886–1889		James Russell	Unaligned	1883–1889
	John Dunn	Comm Liberal	1889–1894	One Member (1889–1927)
	Robert McGregor	Comm Liberal	1894–1924
		Nationalist
	William McAdam	Labor	1924–1927

McAdam went on to represent the new Electoral district of Ballarat from 1927.

Second incarnation (1992–2014)
Member		Party	Term
	Barry Traynor	Liberal	1992–1999
	Geoff Howard	Labor	1999–2014

Election results

Victorian state election, 2010: Ballarat East
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	Ben Taylor	15,758	43.40	+9.80
	Labor	Geoff Howard	14,076	38.77	-4.18
	Greens	Linda Zibell	5,363	14.77	+3.01
	Family First	Gary Greville	1,109	3.05	-2.03
Total formal votes			36,306	95.69	-0.47
Informal votes			1,636	4.31	+0.47
Turnout			37,942	93.50	+1.58
Two-party-preferred result
	Labor	Geoff Howard	18,702	51.51	-5.13
	Liberal	Ben Taylor	17,604	48.49	+5.13
	Labor hold		Swing	-5.13

References

1. "An Act to alter the Electoral Districts of Victoria and to increase the number of Members of the Legislative Assembly thereof." (PDF). Australasian Legal Information Institute. 1858. Retrieved 4 February 2014.

• District profile from the Victorian Electoral Commission
• District map from the Victorian Electoral Commission (PDF)