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| Adam Carr's Election Archive
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Australian federal election, 2025
Division of Bendigo, Victoria
Named for: City of Bendigo (the site of the city was originally
called Bendigo's Creek, named for a local prize-fighter whose
nickname Bendigo was derived from the English boxer William Abednigo
Thompson (1811-80), known as Bendigo.)
Central Victoria: Bendigo, Castlemaine, Heathcote, Kyneton, Maldon
Enrolment at 2019 election: 112,755
Enrolment at 2022 election: 112,354 (-00.2)
1999 republic referendum: No 61.8
2018 same-sex marriage survey: Yes 68.7
2023 Voice referendum: No 59.5
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Sitting member: Lisa Chesters (Labor):
Elected 2013, 2016, 2019, 2022
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2007 Labor majority over Liberal: 6.1%
2010 Labor majority over Liberal: 9.5%
2013 Labor majority over Liberal: 1.3%
2016 Labor majority over Liberal: 3.7%
2019 Labor majority over Liberal: 9.0%
2022 Labor majority over Liberal: 12.1%
2025 notional Labor majority over Liberal: 12.1%
Status: Fairly safe Labor
2022 results
Statistics and history
Announced candidates:
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Lisa Chesters
Australian Labor Party |
Matthew Evans
Liberal Party |
Andrew Lethlean
The Nationals |
Division of Bendigo
Bendigo has existed since Federation and has always occupied a block of territory in central Victoria around the historic
goldfields city. Like most country seats, it combines a fairly low income level with a very low proportion of people
born in non English speaking countries. From 1937 to 1949 it included Echuca and the Murray Valley and was a safe
Country Party seat, but for the rest of its history it has been politically marginal.
In recent times the seat has been trending towards Labor as the area is colonised by wealthy professionals from
Melbourne: even in the Liberal landslide year of 1996, the Liberal majority was less than 1%. Labor's strength lies
in the city of Bendigo and also in Castlemaine. The Liberals win most of the smaller rural booths.
Bendigo's most distinguished member was Nationalist Prime Minister
Billy Hughes, who held the seat from 1917 to 1922
before moving back to Sydney.
John Brumby, later Premier of Victoria, held Bendigo for Labor from 1983 to 1990.
Steve Gibbons won the seat for Labor in 1998 and held it until his retirement in 2013, although he had a close call in 2004.
Lisa Chesters, Labor MP for Bendigo since 2013, was an organiser with the left-wing union United Voice for ten years before her
election. At the 2013 election she survived a sharp swing to the Liberals, but this ground was partly recoverted in
2016. Chesters was a shadow assistant minister 2016-19, but returned to the back bench after the 2019 election.
With a majority of 3.7% in 2016 this was still a marginal seat, but a further swing to Labor in 2019 put the seat into the
"fairly safe Labor" category. It is now 28 years since the Liberals won this seat. Like the rest of central Victoria, it
has become increasingly solid for Labor at state and federal level. The 2024 redistribution has left it politically unchanged.
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