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| Adam Carr's Election Archive
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Victorian state election, 28 November 2026
Yan Yean District
Location: Mernda, Plenty, Whittlesea
Legislative Council:
Northern Victoria Region
Enrolment 2022 election: 47,327
Enrolment June 2026: 55,862 (up 18.0%)
Relevant demographics (2021 census)
High income: 25.5% (Aust average 22.6%)
Renting: 19.2% (Aust average 30.6%)
Paying a mortgage: 55.0% (Aust average 35.0%)
Couples with children: 68.0% (Aust average 43.7%)
Born overseas: 22.1% (Aust average 27.7%)
No religion: 39.3% (Aust average 38.9%)
University graduate: 23.4% (Aust average 26.3%)
Professional / managerial: 31.6% (Aust average 37.7%)
Sitting member: Lauren Kathage (Labor): Elected 2022
2018 Labor majority over Liberal: 17.0%
2022 Labor majority over Liberal: 04.5%
Status: Marginal Labor
Yan Yean was created in 1992, on the fast-growing northern fringes of Melbourne, in roughly the southern half of the old seat of Whittlesea. Subsequent redistrictings have cut it back to the area running from Plenty in the south to Wallan in the north. The seat still includes Whittlesea, once a country town and now an outer suburb, but its population centres are now Doreen and Mernda. These are new suburban subdivisions full of young families paying off mortgages.
Yan Yean is one of the fastest-growing seats in the state. Labor's vote is very solid in Doreen and Mernda, while the Liberals retain support in the more rural areas in the north of the seat such as Wandong. The 2021 redistricting removed Diamond Creek and Wattle Glen at the southern end of the seat without making much political difference.
When it was created Yan Yean had a Labor majority of 8%. Labor's Andre Haermeyer did well to retain it in the Kennett landslide of 1992. He went to become a minister in the Bracks government. The 2002 redistricting made Yan Yean a notionally Liberal seat, and Haermeyer shifted to the new safe seat of Kororoit. He was succeeded in Yan Yean by Danielle Green, who easily retained it in the Bracks landslide, and held it until her retirement in 2022. She was on the Opposition front-bench from 2010 to 2014, but missed out on a spot in the Andrews Ministry. She was later a Parliamentary Secretary.
Labor went into the 2022 election with a notional majority of 17.0% on the new boundaries, and came out with a majority of 4.5%, a 12.5% swing. This may have been in part due to the loss of Green's personal profile, but it fit the statewide pattern of large swings against Labor in its previously safe seats. The new member is Lauren Kathage, who, according to her website, "spent more than 20 years as a community worker in Australia and abroad." She has had four years to entrench herself in the seat, which is now a frontline marginal.
2022 results
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Boundaries following
2021 redistricting |
See full-size map
Candidates:
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Andrew Bell
Victorian Socialists |
Lauren Kathage
Australian Labor Party |
Amanda Dow
Liberal Party |
Gufran Mohammed
Australian Greens |
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