Polwarth

Polwarth covers 8,860.13 square kilometres of south-western Victoria. Torquay, Jan Juc, Anglesea, Aireys Inlet, Lorne and Apollo Bay lie along the Great Ocean Road, with Port Campbell at its western end. Colac sits at the centre of the district, Camperdown, Cobden and Timboon in the dairy country to its west, Winchelsea on the road to Geelong, Lismore and Derrinallum on the plains to the north, and Forrest and Lavers Hill in the Otway Ranges. One hundred and forty-eight localities lie wholly in the district and fourteen in part.

Enrolment stood at 54,763 in September 2026, up 1,699, or 3.2 per cent, on the 53,064 electors at the 2022 close of rolls. Polwarth adjoins Eureka and Ripon to the north, Lowan to the north-west, South-West Coast to the west, and South Barwon and Geelong to the east. At the 2021 Census its localities held 70,765 people on an area-weighted estimate, 22.0 per cent of them aged sixty-five and over, and 19.1 per cent of occupied dwellings were rented.

Richard Riordan was first elected at the 2015 Polwarth by-election, and the Parliament records his service from 1 November 2015, for the Liberal Party throughout. He has been a member of the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee since 12 May 2026 and of the Assembly's Privileges Committee since 31 July 2025. He held shadow portfolios between 18 December 2018 and 30 November 2025 and holds none now. His inaugural speech was on 12 November 2015, and there has been no change of party and no vacancy since 2022. The member and party are as at 17 October 2026, and his record is from his Parliament of Victoria profile, read on 26 October 2026.

Seven candidates stood on 26 November 2022, and Riordan polled 19,540 first preferences, 42.5 per cent, Hutch Hussein of Labor 13,484, 29.3 per cent, and Hilary McAllister of the Greens 7,661, 16.7 per cent; the Nationals did not stand. Of 47,951 votes cast by 90.4 per cent of the 53,064 electors, 1,949 were informal, 4.1 per cent.

The count ran to five exclusions. Denes C. Borsos was excluded fourth with 2,727 votes, 1,833 of them, 67.2 per cent, going to Riordan. McAllister was excluded last holding 9,146 papers: 7,558, 82.6 per cent, went to Hussein and 1,588, 17.4 per cent, to Riordan. The final count was 23,823 to 22,179, 51.8 to 48.2 per cent, a Liberal margin of 1.8 points, which a shift of 823 votes would have reversed. Against the Victorian Electoral Commission's estimate of the 2018 vote on the 2021 boundaries, Labor 48.0 per cent, the result was a swing of 0.2 points to Labor; against the 2018 result on the old boundaries, Labor 44.6, it was 3.6 points.

Of the 47,854 votes in the Commission's two-candidate count, 18,673, or 39.0 per cent, were cast at the 33 voting centres, and they split 53.8 to 46.2 for the Liberal Party, a lead of 1,349 of its 1,680. The other vote types together gave the rest. The 23,429 early votes, 49.0 per cent, split 50.9 to 49.1, a Liberal lead of 404; postal votes, 7.3 per cent, split 51.8 to Liberal, a lead of 120, and absent votes, 4.2 per cent, 54.9 to Labor, a lead of 188.

The Liberal Party led at twenty-two of the 33 voting centres, with Simpson at 86.1 per cent of the two-candidate vote, Scotts Creek at 82.2 and Irrewillipe East at 80.9 its strongest, and Camperdown, the largest booth, at 62.8. Labor led at eleven, with Aireys Inlet at 72.6 per cent, Bellbrae at 66.0 and Anglesea at 64.5 its strongest, and Torquay North at 63.5 and Torquay at 63.0 the largest. Labor's booths are the Surf Coast towns from Torquay to Apollo Bay other than Lorne, the Otway villages from Deans Marsh to Lavers Hill, and Winchelsea South; the Liberal booths are Colac, Camperdown, Cobden, Timboon and the dairy country out to Port Campbell, the plains towns of Lismore, Derrinallum and Beeac, Lorne and Winchelsea. Lorne, at 50.8 per cent to the Liberal Party, Winchelsea, at 50.4, and Winchelsea South, at 50.4 to Labor, were closest to even.

Polwarth has returned Liberal and Country Party and Liberal members since 1949. At each of the three elections before 2022 the Liberal candidate won an absolute majority of first preferences, so the two-candidate figure is the Victorian Electoral Commission's indicative count. In 2010 Terry Mulder polled 55.3 per cent of first preferences and 63.3 of the two-candidate count, a margin of 13.3 points; the district was redrawn in 2013, and in 2014 he polled 55.4 and 60.6, a margin of 10.6. Riordan, first elected at the 2015 by-election, held the seat in 2018 with 51.1 per cent of first preferences and 55.4 of the two-candidate count, a margin of 5.4 points.

The 2021 redivision brought Torquay into the district. The Electoral Boundaries Commission moved Torquay, Jan Juc, Bells Beach and the rural parts of Surf Coast Shire from South Barwon, which supplied 16,575 of the new district's 50,707 electors at 30 November 2020. It moved the Mortlake area, 1,591 electors, to Lowan, the eastern part of Moyne Shire with Terang and Noorat, 3,285 electors, to South-West Coast, and 8,736 electors to Eureka, Geelong and Ripon, 3,071, 5,275 and 390 respectively. Two proposed moves were reversed: Lismore and Derrinallum, 972 electors, were returned to Polwarth, and the Moriac–Gnarwarre area, 1,351 electors, was left in South Barwon. The Victorian Electoral Commission estimated the 2018 vote on the new boundaries at 52.0 per cent to the Liberal and National parties and 48.0 to Labor, a notional Liberal margin of 2.0 points. There has been no by-election since.

Polwarth is the third rung on the Coalition side of the Assembly pendulum: of the 23 seats the Coalition holds against Labor, two have smaller margins, and it sits in the under-2 band. A uniform two-party swing to Labor of more than 1.8 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 the Liberal share in Polwarth rises from 51.8 to 60.8 per cent; the 25 seats the average reaches are all Labor-held, and Polwarth is not among them. Every poll in the average is on the Victorian election polls tracker, and the leaders' ratings are on the Ben Carroll approval and Jess Wilson approval pages.

In 2022 the count turned on the 9,146 papers McAllister held when excluded, which went 82.6 per cent to Labor and 17.4 to the Liberal candidate, after a first-preference vote of 42.5 per cent for Riordan against 29.3 for Hussein.

Polwarth 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 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.