Melton

Melton covers 332.02 square kilometres west of Melbourne. Melton, Melton West, Melton South, Kurunjang, Brookfield and Harkness make up the town; Cobblebank, Weir Views, Strathtulloh and Thornhill Park lie beyond it, Thornhill Park on the eastern boundary with Kororoit and Strathtulloh to the south; Toolern Vale, Long Forest, Merrimu, Hopetoun Park and Exford complete the whole localities. Four gazetted localities lie partly in the district: 52.4 per cent of Eynesbury's area, 56.8 of Grangefields, 34.6 of Parwan and 32.2 of Mount Cottrell.

Enrolment stood at 59,471 in September 2026, up 9,320, or 18.6 per cent, on the 50,151 electors at the 2022 close of rolls. The district adjoins Macedon to the north, Sunbury to the north-east, Sydenham to the east, Kororoit and Tarneit to the south-east, Werribee to the south and Eureka to the west. At the 2021 Census its localities held 81,434 people on an area-weighted estimate, 10.7 per cent of them aged 65 and over, and 28.3 per cent of occupied dwellings were rented.

Steve McGhie has been the member for Melton since 24 November 2018, when he won the seat for Labor; Don Nardella had won it for Labor in 2010 and 2014. He was Parliamentary Secretary for Health from 22 December 2020 to 4 July 2022 and Cabinet Secretary from 4 July 2022 to 15 April 2026, and he chaired the Integrity and Oversight Committee from 21 March 2019 to 8 June 2021. His profile lists no current position as at 26 October 2026. There has been no change of party and no vacancy in Melton since the 2022 election, as at 17 October 2026. His record is on his Parliament of Victoria profile, read 26 October 2026.

Fourteen candidates stood on 26 November 2022. McGhie polled 14,193 first preferences, 37.7 per cent, and Graham Watt of the Liberal Party 9,155, 24.3 per cent. The independents Ian Birchall and Jarrod James Bingham polled 9.0 and 5.8 per cent, and the ten other candidates between 0.3 and 4.5 each. The Nationals did not stand. Of 42,335 votes cast by 84.4 per cent of the 50,151 electors enrolled, 4,716 were informal, 11.1 per cent.

The count ran to twelve exclusions, and McGhie reached an absolute majority only at the last. The Greens' 2,553 votes went 1,361 to McGhie, 53.3 per cent. Blackborrow's 3,181 votes went 1,626 to Birchall, 51.1 per cent, and Bingham's 3,688 went 1,484 to Birchall, 40.2 per cent, so Birchall was excluded last with 7,143 votes, with McGhie on 18,227 and Watt on 12,249. Of Birchall's votes, 4,832, 67.6 per cent, went to Watt and 2,311, 32.4 per cent, to McGhie. The final count was 20,538 to 17,081, 54.6 to 45.4 per cent, a Labor margin of 4.6 points; a shift of 1,729 votes would have reversed it. Against the Commission's estimate of the 2018 vote on the 2021 boundaries, Labor 55.0 per cent, the result was a swing of 0.4 points to the Liberal Party; against the 2018 result on the old boundaries, Labor 54.3 per cent, it was 0.3 points to Labor.

Booth shares come from the Commission's two-candidate-preferred count by voting centre, which it describes as indicative: 20,774 to 17,420 for Labor, 54.4 per cent, against the distribution's 20,538 to 17,081. Of the 42,340 votes in that count, 26,075, or 61.6 per cent, were cast at the two early voting centres, and they split 53.5 to 46.5 for Labor, a lead of 1,622 votes. The 10,557 election-day votes, 24.9 per cent of the total, split 55.5 to Labor, a lead of 1,049; postal votes, 9.1 per cent, split 57.0 to Labor, a lead of 508; absent votes, 3.5 per cent, split 55.7 to Labor, a lead of 145.

Labor led at nine of the 11 voting centres, with Strathtulloh at 65.8 per cent of the two-candidate vote, Coburn at 60.8 and Kurunjang at 59.2 its strongest. The Liberal Party led at two: Toolern, where Labor polled 42.8 per cent, and Eynesbury, by 411 votes to 410. Labor's closest booths were Bulmans, the largest, at 51.0 per cent of 1,399 two-candidate votes, Brookfield at 51.5 and Melton at 51.8. Labor's widest margins are at Strathtulloh and in the town, and the two Liberal booths sit at the district's ends, Toolern at Toolern Vale in the north and Eynesbury on the southern boundary with Werribee.

Melton has returned a Labor member at every election since 1992. In 2010 Don Nardella polled 49.4 per cent of first preferences, and the distribution stopped when he passed an absolute majority at 50.24 per cent with four other candidates still in the count, Braidy Kean of the Liberal Party second, a margin of 0.24 points on that figure. In 2014, after the 2013 redivision, Nardella won 50.5 per cent of first preferences, an absolute majority; the indicative two-candidate count gave him 61.2 per cent, a margin of 11.2 points. In 2018 McGhie, listed on the Commission's results page as Stephen John McGhie, won from 34.9 per cent of first preferences; the distribution gave him 54.3 per cent, a margin of 4.3 points.

The 2021 redivision took Bacchus Marsh out of a district that stood 18.53 per cent above the average enrolment on 30 November 2020. The Commission transferred Bacchus Marsh, 13,215 electors, to the district it named Eureka, and in its final boundaries moved the balance of Parwan, 43 electors, the same way. It brought in Thornhill Park and parts of Grangefields and Mount Cottrell, 1,089 electors, from Kororoit, and Toolern Vale, 641 electors, from Macedon, which had held it since 2013. The district went from 57,634 electors to 46,106, 5.18 per cent under the quota of 48,625. The Commission estimated the 2018 vote on the new boundaries at 55.0 per cent to Labor and 45.0 to the Liberal and National parties, a notional Labor margin of 5.0 points. There has been no by-election since 2022.

Melton is the eighth rung on the Labor side of the Assembly pendulum: its margin of 4.6 points, in the 2 to 6 band, is the eighth-smallest of the 52 seats Labor holds against the Coalition. A uniform two-party swing to the Coalition of more than 4.6 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 Melton falls from 54.6 to 45.6 per cent, and Melton is one of the 25 Labor-held Labor–Coalition seats the average reaches. The polls are on the Victorian election polls tracker, and the leaders' ratings on the Ben Carroll approval and Jess Wilson approval pages.

In 2022 the count turned on the independent Ian Birchall's 7,143 last-exclusion votes, of which 67.6 per cent went to the Liberal candidate.

Melton is one of the eleven districts of Western Victoria Region, which elects five members of the Legislative Council. In 2022 the quota was 82,036 votes, and the members elected, in order, were Jacinta Ermacora (Labor), Bev McArthur (Liberal), Gayle Tierney (Labor), Sarah Mansfield (Greens) and Joe McCracken (Liberal). All five sit as at 17 October 2026. The region and its members are 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.