Adam Carr's Election Archive

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Victorian state election, 28 November 2026
Bendigo West District

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< Bendigo East Previous seat | Next seat Bentleigh >
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Location: Bendigo, Castlemaine, Eaglehawk
Legislative Council: Northern Victoria Region

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Enrolment 2022 election: 47,808
Enrolment June 2026: 49,375 (up 3.3%)

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Relevant demographics (2021 census)

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High income: 12.8% (Aust average 22.6%)
Renting: 26.1% (Aust average 30.6%)
Paying a mortgage: 33.0% (Aust average 35.0%)
Couples with children: 51.0% (Aust average 43.7%)
Born overseas: 10.6% (Aust average 27.7%)
No religion: 50.9% (Aust average 38.9%)
University graduate: 20.9% (Aust average 26.3%)
Professional / managerial: 33.1% (Aust average 37.7%)

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Sitting member: Hon Maree Edwards (Labor): Elected 2010, 2014, 2018, 2022

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Speaker of the Legislative Assembly

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2018 Labor majority over Liberal: 18.6%
2022 Labor majority over Liberal: 14.4%

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Status: Safe Labor

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Bendigo West was created in 1985, when the old seats of Bendigo and Midlands were abolished and new seats of Bendigo East and West were created. Bendigo West takes in the central and western parts of the city of Bendigo, plus the regional towns of Castlemaine and Harcourt. Like all country seats, it is very monocultural, with low levels of graduates and high-income earners. Bendigo is a regional administrative and economic hub and a major tourism centre, increasingly colonised by exurbanites from Melbourne. These trends have made the area increasingly solid for Labor. The Liberals have not won a Bendigo seat, state or federal, since 1996.

Bendigo West has generally been the safer for Labor of the two Bendigo seats. It was won by the Liberals only in the Kennett landslide year of 1992. Labor's Bob Cameron won it back in 1999 and was a minister in the Bracks government. He retired in 2010, and Maree Edwards has held the seat fairly easily since, gaining a large swing in 2014.

Maree Edwards, Labor MLA for Bendigo West since 2010, was a staffer for Bob Cameron for eleven years before succeeding him as the Labor candidate. She became Deputy Speaker in 2017 and Speaker in August 2022.

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2022 results

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Boundaries following 2021 redistricting

See full-size map

Candidates:

Hon Maree Edwards Australian Labor Party	Tayne Shalevski Victorian Socialists	Liza Shaw Australian Greens

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Candidate websites

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Hon Maree Edwards (Labor)

Tayne Shalevski (Vic Socialists)

Liza Shaw (Greens)

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