Electoral district of Richmond (Victoria)
| Richmond Victoria—Legislative Assembly | |
|---|---|
|
Location of Richmond (dark green) in Greater Melbourne | |
| State | Victoria |
| Created | 1856 |
| MP | Richard Wynne |
| Party | Australian Labor Party |
| Electors | 46,690 (2014) |
| Area | 14 km2 (5.4 sq mi) |
| Demographic | Inner metropolitan |
Richmond is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of Victoria. It is currently a 14 km² electorate in the inner east of Melbourne, encompassing the suburbs of Richmond, Cremorne, Burnley, Abbotsford, Collingwood, Clifton Hill, North Fitzroy and Fitzroy.
History
Richmond is one of only three electorates (along with Brighton and Williamstown) to have been contested at every election since 1856.[1] It was initially a two-person electorate, but was changed to return only a single member in the redistribution of 1904 when several new districts were created including Abbotsford.[1] It covers a series of traditionally working-class, industrial suburbs, and has been continuously held by the Australian Labor Party with the exception of only one term since 1904. The brief exception occurred amidst the famous Labor split of 1955, when the incumbent Labor member, Frank Scully, joined six other Catholic MPs in breaking away to found the Democratic Labor Party. Scully, as the party's leader, was the only MP to hold his seat at the next election, but was defeated in 1958 by Bill Towers, previously the member for the abolished seat of Collingwood.
Though a traditionally safe Labor seat, it has become progressively marginal in recent years due to increasing support for the Australian Greens in the area. This first occurred at the 2002 state election, when union organiser Gemma Pinnell nearly won the seat on Liberal preferences, taking 47 per cent of the two-party preferred vote. The Green surge was seen as a reaction to the conservative policies of the then federal Labor leader, Kim Beazley, by the generally progressive inner city constituency. Labor polled slightly better in the 2006 state election, taking 54% of the two-party preferred against Greens candidate and local councillor Gurm Sekhon. It remains a marginal seat, however, and was strongly contested by Greens candidate, Kathleen Maltzahn, at the state elections in 2010 and 2014.
The current member is the Labor Party's Richard Wynne, who served as the state Minister for Housing and Minister for Local Government in the Bracks and Brumby governments from 2006 to 2010, and is the current Minister for Planning in the Andrews government. Wynne gained the seat in 1999 after the former Labor member, Demetri Dollis, was disendorsed for extended absence overseas.
Historical maps
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Location within Greater Melbourne area, 1859
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Map of Richmond district (etc.), 1856[1]
- ^ "Central Province and Electoral Districts of Melbourne, St Kilda, Collingwood, South Melbourne, Richmond and Williamstown." (map). State Library of Victoria. 27 November 1855. Retrieved 12 May 2013.
Members for Richmond
| 1856–1904, 2 members | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Member 1 | Party | Term | Member 2 | Party | Term | ||
| George Evans | Unaligned | Nov. 1856 – Aug. 1859 | Daniel Campbell | Unaligned | Nov. 1856 – Aug. 1859 | ||
| James Francis | Unaligned | Oct. 1859 – Nov. 1874 | Alfred Woolley | Unaligned | Oct. 1859 – July 1861 | ||
| Thomas Lambert | Unaligned | Aug. 1861 – July 1864 | |||||
| Archibald Wardrop | Unaligned | Nov. 1864 – July? 1866 | |||||
| Ambrose Kyte | Unaligned | Jan. 1867[b] – Dec. 1867 | |||||
| James Harcourt | Unaligned | June 1868 – June 1871 | |||||
| Louis Smith | Unaligned | Apr. 1871 – Mar. 1874 | |||||
| Joseph Bosisto | Unaligned | Dec. 1874[b] – Mar. 1889 | Robert Inglis | Unaligned | May 1874 – Apr. 1877 | ||
| Louis Smith | Unaligned | May 1877 – Feb. 1880 | |||||
| William Walker | Unaligned | May 1880 – June 1880 | |||||
| Louis Smith | Unaligned | July 1880 – Feb. 1883 | |||||
| Charles Smith | Unaligned | Feb. 1883 – Mar. 1889 | |||||
| George Bennett | Unaligned | Apr. 1889 – Sep. 1908 | |||||
| William Trenwith | Labor | Apr. 1889 – Nov. 1903 | |||||
| George Roberts | Labor | Dec. 1903[b] – May. 1904 | |||||
| 1904–present, 1 member | |||||||
| Ted Cotter | Labor | Oct. 1908[b] – Oct. 1945 | |||||
| Stan Keon | Labor | Nov. 1945 – Oct. 1949 | |||||
| Frank Scully | Labor | Dec. 1949[b] – May 1955 | |||||
| Democratic Labor | June 1955 – May 1958 | ||||||
| Bill Towers | Labor | May 1958 – Mar. 1962 | |||||
| Clyde Holding | Labor | May 1962[b] – Nov. 1977 | |||||
| Theo Sidiropoulos | Labor | Dec. 1977[b] – Aug. 1988 | |||||
| Demetri Dollis | Labor | Oct. 1988 – Sep. 1999 | |||||
| Richard Wynne | Labor | Sep. 1999 – present | |||||
b = by-election
Election results
| Victorian state election, 2014: Richmond[2] | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
| Labor | Richard Wynne | 13,349 | 33.3 | −3.9 | |
| Greens | Kathleen Maltzahn | 12,615 | 31.5 | +2.9 | |
| Liberal | Weiran Lu | 8,308 | 20.7 | −2.0 | |
| Independent | Stephen Jolly | 3,407 | 8.5 | +8.5 | |
| Sex Party | Nevena Spirovska | 1,336 | 3.3 | +0.5 | |
| Animal Justice | Miranda Smith | 578 | 1.4 | +1.4 | |
| Independent | Tom Keel | 192 | 0.5 | +0.5 | |
| Total formal votes | 40,102 | 96.3 | −0.1 | ||
| Informal votes | 1,550 | 3.7 | +0.1 | ||
| Turnout | 41,652 | 89.2 | +1.4 | ||
| Two-candidate-preferred result | |||||
| Labor | Richard Wynne | 20,798 | 51.9 | −4.5 | |
| Greens | Kathleen Maltzahn | 19,304 | 48.1 | +4.5 | |
| Labor hold | Swing | −4.5 | |||
References
- 1 2 "Re-Member (Former Members)". State Government of Victoria. Retrieved 12 June 2013.
- ↑ State Election 2014: Richmond District, VEC.
External links
Coordinates: 37°48′45″S 144°59′40″E / 37.81250°S 144.99444°E