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| Adam Carr's Election Archive
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Australian federal election, 2025
Division of Wills, Victoria
Named for: William Wills (1834-61), explorer (with Burke) of central
Australia
Northern Melbourne: Brunswick, Coburg, Fawkner, North Fitzroy, Pascoe Vale
Enrolment at 2019 election: 110,682
Enrolment at 2022 election: 108,402 (-02.0)
1999 republic referendum: Yes 58.7
2018 same-sex marriage survey: Yes 70.0
2023 Voice referendum: Yes 64.9
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Sitting member: Peter Khalil (Labor): Elected 2016, 2019, 2022
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2007 Labor majority over Liberal: 22.4%
2010 Labor majority over Liberal: 22.6%
2013 Labor majority over Greens: 15.2%
2016 Labor majority over Greens: 4.9%
2019 Labor majority over Greens: 8.2%
2022 Labor majority over Greens: 8.6%
2025 notional Labor majority over Greens: 5.2%
Status: Fairly safe Labor (versus Greens)
Labor two-party vote 1983-2022
2022 results
Statistics and history
Announced candidates:
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Peter Khalil
Australian Labor Party |
Samantha Ratnam
Australian Greens |
Division of Wills
Wills was created in 1949, in Melbourne's working-class northern suburbs, originally based on Coburg. Successive
redistributions have expanded it, mainly to the north, without changing its social or political character. The southern
part of the seat is now being colonised by upper-income professionals, which explains the seat's relatively high median
family income, and also its high level of graduates and of people in professional and managerial occupations. The seat
has a high proportion of non English speaking households, and in recent years has acquired a significant Muslim population,
mainly Turkish-Australians. Wills has always
been a safe Labor seat and has never been won by the non-Labor side, although it has elected an independent.
The most eminent member for Wills has been
Bob Hawke, the longest-serving Labor Prime Minister, who held it from
1980 to 1991. Hawke never lived in the electorate and neglected it while he was PM. Following his
resignation it was won by an independent,
Phil Cleary, a popular local figure. Cleary's election was found to be
invalid, but he returned to win again in 1993. He was defeated in 1996 by Labor's
Kelvin Thomson. Thomson was a
Parliamentary Secretary in the Rudd-Gillard government and retired in 2016.
Peter Khalil, Labor MP for Wills since 2016, is of Egyptian Christian background,
and served in Iraq as Director of National
Security Policy for the Coalition Provisional Authority, for which he was awarded the Australian Overseas Humanitarian
Service medal. He was a foreign policy and national security adviser to
Kevin Rudd, and then Director of
Corporate Affairs, Strategy and Communications at SBS, and an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Centre for International
Security Studies at Sydney University.
In 2013 the Greens came second in Wills, although Labor's margin was a hefty 15.2%. In 2016, with a new Labor candidate, that
margin was cut to 4.9%, rose again to 8.2% in 2019, and was cut to 5.2% in 2022. As in neighbouring Cooper, the Greens have
benefitted from the increasing gentrification of the southern part of the seat, around Brunswick, but have so far been unable to
extend their appeal to the more working-class and multicultural voters in northern suburbs such as Fawkner, Glenroy and Pascoe Vale.
The Greens candiate in 2025 will be Samantha Ratnam, a Greens state MP 2017-24.
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