Bayswater

Bayswater covers 38.76 square kilometres in the City of Knox, south of Dandenong Creek. Bayswater, Boronia and Wantirna lie wholly in the district, which also holds 56.4 per cent of the gazetted locality of Ferntree Gully and 20.7 per cent of The Basin, shared with Monbulk, and 16.6 per cent of Wantirna South and 8.3 per cent of Knoxfield, shared with Rowville.

Enrolment stood at 51,197 in September 2026, up 1,490, or 3.0 per cent, on the 49,707 electors enrolled in 2022. The district adjoins Croydon across Dandenong Creek to the north, Ringwood to the north-west, Glen Waverley to the west, Rowville to the south and Monbulk to the east. At the 2021 Census its localities held 69,624 people on an area-weighted estimate, 18.7 per cent of them aged 65 and over, and 25.4 per cent of occupied dwellings were rented.

Jackson Taylor has been the member for Bayswater since 24 November 2018, when he won it for Labor from Heidi Victoria of the Liberal Party, the winner in 2010 and 2014. He was an Acting Speaker from 3 March 2020 to 14 October 2025 and Secretary to the Parliamentary Labor Party from 7 February 2023 to 2 June 2026, and he has been a member of the House Committee since 23 February 2023. His inaugural speech was on 19 December 2018; his profile lists a valedictory speech on 26 August 2026. There has been no change of party and no vacancy in Bayswater since the 2022 election. His record is on his Parliament of Victoria profile, read 26 October 2026; the hub lists him as the member as at 17 October 2026.

Nine candidates stood on 26 November 2022. Taylor polled 17,609 first preferences, 41.3 per cent, and Nick Wakeling of the Liberal Party 15,174, 35.6. Nadia Sirninger Rankin of the Greens polled 3,151, 7.4 per cent, and the six other candidates between 2.0 and 3.9 per cent each; the Nationals did not stand. Of 45,111 votes cast by 90.8 per cent of the 49,707 electors, 2,512 were informal, 5.6 per cent.

The count ran to seven exclusions. Coombes went out sixth with 3,009 votes, 1,931 of them, 64.2 per cent, to Wakeling. Sirninger Rankin went out last with 5,285 votes: 3,926, 74.3 per cent, to Taylor and 1,359, 25.7 per cent, to Wakeling. The final count was 23,101 to 19,498, 54.2 to 45.8 per cent, a Labor margin of 4.2 points; a shift of 1,802 votes at the last exclusion would have reversed it. Against the Victorian Electoral Commission's estimate of the 2018 vote on the 2021 boundaries, Labor 49.4 per cent, the result was a swing of 4.8 points to Labor; against the 2018 result on the old boundaries, Labor 50.39, it was 3.8 points to Labor.

Booth shares come from the Victorian Electoral Commission's indicative two-candidate count by voting centre, 23,124 to 19,596, a few votes off the distribution's 23,101 to 19,498. Of its 45,118 votes, 15,875, or 35.2 per cent, were cast at the 19 voting centres, and they split 57.0 to 43.0 for Labor, a lead of 2,091, Labor's largest by vote type. Early votes, 22,068 or 48.9 per cent, split 53.0 to Labor, a lead of 1,258; absent votes, 4.6 per cent, gave Labor its highest share, 57.3, a lead of 283. Postal votes, 10.9 per cent, were the one type the Liberal Party led, 51.4 to 48.6, a lead of 133.

Labor led at 17 of the 19 centres, with Boronia East at 63.2 per cent of the two-candidate vote, Boronia West at 62.3 and Bayswater at 61.8 its strongest. The Liberal Party led at the two smallest, Ferntree Gully Central, 43 votes with Labor at 44.2 per cent, and Heathmont West, 28 votes with Labor at 46.4. Labor's share falls from north to south. It was 60.9 per cent or more at Boronia East, Boronia West, Boronia North, Bayswater and Bayswater South, between 54.6 and 58.5 at Knox, Studfield East, The Basin, Templeton, Bayswater West and the three Wantirna booths, and from 53.1 to 51.6 at Ferntree Gully West, Mountain Gate, Fairhills and Knoxfield North.

Bayswater was Liberal from 1992 to 2002, Labor from 2002 to 2006, Liberal from 2006 to 2018 and Labor in 2018 and 2022. In 2010 Heidi Victoria won 52.9 per cent of first preferences, an absolute majority, and the indicative two-candidate count gave her 60.6 per cent, a margin of 10.6 points. The district was redrawn in 2013, and in 2014 the distribution of preferences stopped when Victoria passed an absolute majority at 51.2 per cent with Tony Dib of Labor, James Tennant of the Greens and Robert Smyth of the Animal Justice Party still in the count, a margin of 1.2 points on that figure. In 2018 Taylor won 50.39 to Victoria's 49.61 after the distribution, a margin of 0.39 points.

The 2021 redivision moved the district south. The Electoral Boundaries Commission found Bayswater close to the permitted threshold below quota and abolished the neighbouring Ferntree Gully District to supply electors. The northern boundary moved to Dandenong Creek, sending 8,434 electors to Croydon and 7,531 to Ringwood, and the report describes a section of Boronia and all of The Basin as moving to Monbulk; on the Vicmap boundaries 20.7 per cent of the gazetted locality of The Basin lies in Bayswater. The final Rowville boundary, moved from High Street Road to the Burwood Highway and Scoresby Road, sent 5,366 electors in Wantirna South to Rowville and brought 6,957 in Ferntree Gully to Bayswater. The final district held 50,010 electors: 26,739 from the old Bayswater, 21,821 from Ferntree Gully and 1,450 from Rowville. The Victorian Electoral Commission estimated the 2018 vote on the new boundaries at 50.6 per cent to the Coalition and 49.4 to Labor, a notional Liberal margin of 0.6 points. There has been no by-election since 2022.

Bayswater is the sixth rung on the Labor side of the Assembly pendulum: of the 52 seats Labor holds against the Coalition, five have smaller margins, and its 4.2 points sit in the 2 to 6 band. A uniform two-party swing to the Coalition above 4.2 points changes the seat. The polls' average since the change of Premier stood at 54.0 to 46.0 to the Coalition on 26 October 2026, from ten polls, against a 2022 statewide result of 55.0 to 45.0 to Labor, an implied uniform swing of 9.0 points to the Coalition. At that swing Labor's 2022 share in Bayswater falls from 54.2 to 45.2 per cent, and Bayswater is one of the 25 Labor-held Labor–Coalition seats the average reaches. Every poll in the average is on the Victorian election polls tracker, and the leaders' ratings are on the pages for Ben Carroll's approval rating and Jess Wilson's approval rating.

The roll held 51,197 electors in September 2026, against 49,707 in 2022.

Bayswater is one of the eleven districts of North-Eastern Metropolitan Region, which elects five members of the Legislative Council. In 2022 the quota was 80,147 votes, and the members elected, in order, were Shaun Leane (Labor), Matthew Bach (Liberal), Sonja Terpstra (Labor), Nick McGowan (Liberal) and Aiv Puglielli (Greens). Richard Welch (Liberal) filled the casual vacancy left by Bach during the term, and the five sit as at 17 October 2026. The region and its members are set out in the Council section of the hub.

Results, enrolment, boundaries and the timetable are from the Victorian Electoral Commission; the 2022 result is its distribution of preferences and the booth shares its two-candidate-preferred count by voting centre. Members are from the Parliament of Victoria as at 17 October 2026; enrolment is as at September 2026. Boundaries, localities and postcodes are Vicmap Admin, © State of Victoria, CC BY 4.0, matched to the district by area. Population figures are the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2021 Census, area-weighted by locality. The polls' average is the Victorian election 2026 hub's register, updated 26 October 2026.