In short:
Once considered Labor heartland, Werribee is now one of Victoria’s most unpredictable marginal seats after just 693 votes decided the 2025 by-election. With shifting support, a growing electorate and preferences set to play a major role, the battle for Werribee is far from settled.
Every Vote Matters In Marginal Seat
If state politics were purely a popularity contest, Steve Murphy would be the Werribee MP right now.
The former cop and Liberal candidate received 28.98 per cent of first preferences at the 2025 Werribee by-election, just ahead of Labor’s then-teacher John Lister on 28.89 per cent.
But Murphy’s 39-vote lead was not what counted in the end.
When the dust settled, or more accurately, when the preferences flowed, Lister was ahead 50.82 per cent to 49.18 per cent on the two-candidate-preferred count and was Werribee’s new MP.
Labor had done enough to win, but with just 693 votes separating the two major parties after preferences, what was once a decades-long safe seat and Labor heartland had become anyone’s for the taking.
It was a vastly different picture just two years earlier at the last state election in November 2022, when long-time Werribee MP and Treasurer Tim Pallas won with 45.36 per cent of first preferences.
A 16.47 percentage point primary vote swing against one major party should have been the other’s delight.
(Steve Murphy’s campaign in Werribee last year.)
Liberals Struggle To Capitalise
Labor’s collapse was hardly a Liberal breakthrough, with Murphy’s by-election run only a 3.65 percentage point improvement on Mia Shaw’s 25.33 per cent primary vote in 2022.
In fact, 42.13 per cent of Werribee voters gave their first preference to someone other than Labor or Liberal at the by-election.
You would be mistaken for thinking the Liberals sniffed blood and went all-in on flipping the now-marginal seat.
Instead, the party has been riddled with turmoil, haemorrhaged local membership and had trouble securing a candidate to take on Lister.
Shaw put her hand up again, only to withdraw in the aftermath of the character reference scandal that rocked the party following Moira Deeming being dumped for Dinesh Gourisetty for an upper house spot in late March.
By May, the Liberals had found their answer in 30-year-old local Reece Clark to take on 33-year-old Lister, setting up a contest between two younger millennials representing the major parties.
(The West Party Founder Paul Hopper.)
Paul Hopper: The Show Stopper
Hopper was the biggest winner as voters jumped off the Labor ship, with the then-independent surging from about 5.9 per cent in 2022 to 14.56 per cent at the by-election and emerging as a potential kingmaker.
But Hopper, no longer an independent and now captain of the nascent West Party, passed up a political opportunity some would give their right leg for, choosing not to deal in preferences at the by-election, an approach he is taking again.
“Paul Hopper has traditionally chosen not to issue a how to vote card in Werribee, as he trusts voters to make their own choices,” a West Party spokesperson said.
“All other West Party candidates are currently deciding the approach for their seat with some already planning to issue how to vote cards.”
For Clark, that means there will be no helping hand from Hopper to knock Lister off.
(One Nation Victorian leader Warren Pickering.)
One Nations Looms Large Before Launching Candidate
That helping hand for Clark could instead come from One Nation.
The party is yet to unveil a Werribee candidate, but the orange wave is already reaching Melbourne’s west, with an upper house candidate for the Western Metropolitan Region and a candidate confirmed in neighbouring Point Cook.
With various Victorian pollsters putting One Nation’s primary vote at around 23 to 24 per cent statewide, it would be almost inconceivable for the party not to put a horse in the race for an outer suburban seat as vulnerable as Werribee.
A One Nation candidate could eat into Clark’s primary vote and potentially skim support from Hopper, but preferences could send some of that support back Clark’s way when it counts.
Such is the razor-thin margin in Werribee that a party without a candidate is already casting a shadow over the race.
Who Will Win Werribee?
(Werribee electoral boundaries.)
Preferences From The Left Will Benefit Incumbent
Minor left-wing parties could again provide the lifeblood for Lister’s fight against the Liberals and a potential One Nation challenge, with Victorian Socialists candidate Sue Munro returning in Werribee and the Greens fielding Tushar Kumar.
At the 2025 by-election, the Greens took 7.57 per cent of first preferences, Victorian Socialists 7.14 per cent, Legalise Cannabis 5.50 per cent and Animal Justice another 0.95 per cent. Together, those four parties accounted for 21.16 per cent of the primary vote.
If those preferences again favour Labor over Liberal or One Nation, that gives Lister a sizeable pool to draw from when the field narrows, while Family First’s 4.34 per cent at the by-election shows there is also some preference weight on the other side.
Lister should not be underestimated in the contest. A Werribee local with longstanding involvement in the Labor Party, he is an experienced political organiser and has had more than 18 months as the sitting member to build his profile and prepare for the election.
(Labor MPs Natalie Suleyman, Anthony Carbines, John Lister and Dylan Wight.)
Werribee Is Changing In Real Time
When notified about this article, Lister’s team provided background about his connection to Werribee and major infrastructure projects he was helping to broker. Clark elected not to comment and The West Party provided the aforementioned response.
One Nation’s media team did not respond when asked whether the party intended to field a candidate in Werribee.
The only certainty heading into November is that Werribee’s political future is uncertain.
Between the 2022 state election and the 2025 by-election, Werribee’s electoral roll grew from 49,962 to 56,464, an increase of 6,502 electors, or about 13 per cent, in little more than two years.
The electorate is also relatively young. At the 2021 Census, the Werribee state electorate had a median age of 34. Within the seat, the median age was 30 in Mambourin, 31 in both Manor Lakes and Wyndham Vale, 35 in Werribee and 42 in Little River.
The 2026 Census was held last month, with its results set to provide a more current picture of how much Werribee and its rapidly growing communities have changed over the past five years.
For now, it would appear Werribee is still making up its mind. Only time will tell what decision its voters collectively make.
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