Ripon

Ripon covers 14,444.11 square kilometres of central western Victoria, from the edge of Ballarat to the edge of the Mallee. Lucas, Miners Rest, Cardigan and Invermay lie on Ballarat's fringe, with Smythes Creek, Haddon, Smythesdale, Scarsdale, Linton and Snake Valley along the Glenelg Highway. Creswick and Clunes lie to the north of the city, Beaufort to the west and Ararat at the western end. Avoca lies in the Pyrenees, and Maryborough, Dunolly, Inglewood, Wedderburn and St Arnaud spread across the old goldfields and the farming country to the north. The district holds 85.4 per cent of the gazetted locality of Carisbrook, shared with Bendigo West, and 10.7 per cent of Great Western, shared with Lowan.

Enrolment stood at 54,114 in September 2026, up 3,301, or 6.5 per cent, on the 50,813 electors at the 2022 close of rolls. Ripon adjoins Lowan to the west, Mildura to the north, Murray Plains and Bendigo East to the north-east, Bendigo West and Macedon to the east, Wendouree and Eureka at Ballarat to the south-east, and Polwarth to the south-west. At the 2021 Census its localities held 69,434 people on an area-weighted estimate, 23.6 per cent of them aged 65 and over, and 16.0 per cent of occupied dwellings were rented.

Martha Haylett has been the member for Ripon since 26 November 2022, when she won the seat for Labor from Louise Staley, who had held it for the Liberal Party since the 2014 election. She has been Parliamentary Secretary for Rural and Regional Development since 7 August 2026 and a member of the Legislative Assembly's Environment and Planning Committee since 23 February 2023. Her inaugural speech was on 20 December 2022. There has been no change of party and no vacancy in Ripon since 2022, as at 17 October 2026. Her record is on her Parliament of Victoria profile, read on 26 October 2026.

Nine candidates stood on 26 November 2022. Haylett polled 16,321 first preferences, 38.5 per cent, and Staley 15,305, 36.1 per cent; the Nationals did not stand. Luke Smith of the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers polled 3,606, 8.5 per cent, and Earl James of the Greens 2,524, 6.0 per cent. Of 45,452 votes cast by 89.4 per cent of the 50,813 electors, 3,111 were informal, 6.8 per cent.

The count ran to seven exclusions. The 3,261 papers the Greens candidate held at exclusion (2,524 first preferences) went 2,345 to Haylett, 71.9 per cent, 553 to Smith and 363 to Staley. Smith was excluded last, and the 5,845 papers the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers candidate held (3,606 first preferences) went 3,161, 54.1 per cent, to Staley and 2,684, 45.9 per cent, to Haylett. The final count was 22,438 to 19,903, 53.0 to 47.0 per cent, a Labor margin of 3.0 points. Against the Commission's estimate of the 2018 vote on the 2021 boundaries, Labor 52.8 per cent, the result was a swing of 0.2 points to Labor; against the 2018 result on the old boundaries, Labor 49.98, it was 3.0 points to Labor.

Early votes carried the widest lead. Of the 45,453 votes in the Commission's indicative two-candidate count, 18,812, or 41.4 per cent, were cast early, and they split 56.0 to 44.0 for Labor, a lead of 2,105 votes. The 19,256 election-day votes, 42.4 per cent, split 52.8 to Labor, a 1,012-vote lead. Postal votes, 12.5 per cent, split 43.7 to Labor, a Liberal lead of 691, and absent votes, 3.3 per cent, split 52.8 to Labor, a lead of 77.

Labor led at twenty-one of the 41 voting centres, with Scarsdale at 71.6 per cent, Lucas at 65.5 and Creswick at 64.2 its strongest. The Liberal Party led at twenty, with Marnoo, where Labor polled 18.1 per cent, Bridgewater at 34.7 and Smeaton at 35.0 its strongest. Of the three largest voting centres, Labor led at Creswick, 64.2 per cent, and Miners Rest, 59.4, and the Liberal Party at St Arnaud, where Staley polled 62.5.

The Liberal Party held Ripon from 1976 to 1999 and Labor from 1999 to 2014; Louise Staley won it for the Liberal Party in 2014 and 2018, and Labor won it in 2022. In 2010 Joe Helper held it for Labor with 52.7 per cent after the distribution of preferences, a margin of 2.7 points. The district was redrawn in 2013, and in 2014 Staley won from 32.8 per cent of first preferences, behind Daniel McGlone's 35.1; the distribution gave her 50.75 per cent, a margin of 601 votes. In 2018 a recount gave Staley 20,035 votes to Sarah De Santis's 20,020, 50.02 per cent and a margin of 15 votes.

The 2021 redivision moved the district's edges in three directions. The Commission moved Stawell, Great Western and Glenorchy to Lowan, 5,585 electors in its proposal and 49 more east of Glenorchy in the final boundaries, 5,634 in all (Electoral Boundaries Commission report, paragraphs 61, 449 and 450), and Donald and Charlton, 2,252 electors, to Mildura. Its proposal to bring 11,299 electors in Alfredton, part of Wendouree, Mount Rowan, Invermay and Nerrina into Ripon was reversed for the 10,188 south of the Western Freeway, who went to the district renamed Wendouree, and Mount Rowan, Invermay and Nerrina, 1,111 electors, moved to Ripon as proposed. The final boundaries also brought in the Glenelg Highway towns from Skipton to Smythes Creek, with Ross Creek and Napoleons, 6,233 electors, from the proposed Buninyong District. The district went from 49,198 electors on the 30 November 2020 roll to 48,807, 0.37 per cent above the average. The Commission estimated the 2018 vote on the new boundaries at 52.8 per cent to Labor and 47.2 to the Liberal and National parties, a notional Labor margin of 2.8 points, so the seat Staley held by 15 votes became notionally Labor. There has been no by-election since 2022.

Ripon is the fourth rung on the Labor side of the Assembly pendulum: of the 52 seats Labor holds against the Coalition, only Bass, Pakenham and Hastings have smaller margins, and 3.0 points is in the 2 to 6 band. A uniform two-party swing of 3.0 points to the Coalition 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, a uniform swing of 9.0 points to the Coalition. At that swing Labor's 2022 share in Ripon falls from 53.0 to 44.0 per cent, and Ripon 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.

Ripon is one of the eleven districts of Western Victoria Region, which elects five members of the 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 is 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.