The electoral district of Northcote is an electoral district of the

Victorian Legislative Assembly The Victorian Legislative Assembly is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Victoria in Australia; the upper house being the Victorian Legislative Council. Both houses sit at Parliament House in Spring Street, Melbourne. The presidin ...

. It covers the suburbs of Alphington, Fairfield, Northcote, Thornbury, and part of Preston. It lies on the northern bank of the

Yarra River The Yarra River or historically, the Yarra Yarra River, ( Kulin languages: ''Berrern'', ''Birr-arrung'', ''Bay-ray-rung'', ''Birarang'', ''Birrarung'', and ''Wongete'') is a perennial river in south-central Victoria, Australia. The lower s ...

between the Merri and Darebin creeks. The seat was created in 1927 as a replacement for Jika Jika, and has been a safe

Labor Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the la ...

seat for most of its existence. It has only been held by seven members. The seat's most historically prominent member is 34th Premier

John Cain (senior) John Cain (19 January 1882 – 4 August 1957) was an Australian politician, who became the 34th premier of Victoria, and was the first Labor Party leader to win a majority in the Victorian Legislative Assembly. He is the only premier of Vict ...

. Upon Cain's death in 1957, he was succeeded by

Frank Wilkes Frank Noel Wilkes (16 June 1922 – 20 August 2015) was an Australian politician who served as the Leader of the Labor Opposition in Victoria from 1977 to 1981. Early life Wilkes was born in Melbourne and educated at Northcote Primary and Se ...

, who went on to become state Labor leader from 1977 to 1981. Former

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

newsreader

Mary Delahunty Mary Elizabeth Delahunty (born 7 June 1951) is an Australian journalist and politician with the Labor Party. Early life Delahunty was born in the Victorian town of Murtoa and educated at Loreto College in Ballarat.''Who's Who in Australia ...

was elected in a 1998 by-election. As the electorate was safe for the Labor Party, the Liberals declined to nominate a candidate. However, partly due to the presence of a One Nation candidate, the Liberals took the unusual step of campaigning for the

Australian Democrats The Australian Democrats is a centrist political party in Australia. Founded in 1977 from a merger of the Australia Party and the New Liberal Movement, both of which were descended from Liberal Party dissenting splinter groups, it was Austral ...

, issuing a '

How to Vote How may refer to: * How (greeting), a word used in some misrepresentations of Native American/First Nations speech * How, an interrogative word in English grammar Art and entertainment Literature * ''How'' (book), a 2007 book by Dov Seid ...

Liberal' card which advocated voting Democrat, and then Premier Jeff Kennett also wrote to voters urging them to vote Democrat.ABC
/ref> While the law has since been changed stopping political parties campaigning directly for other political parties, that the seat has been traditionally safe for Labor has meant the Liberals have often run dead. Since the turn of the millennium, they have often been pushed into third place on the primary vote, allowing other parties, like the Greens in 2002, to become the main challengers to Labor. The Greens eventually won the seat in a 2017 by-election following the death of Labor member

Fiona Richardson Fiona Catherine Alison Richardson (22 November 1966 – 23 August 2017) was an Australian politician. She was a Australian Labor Party (Victorian Branch), Labor Party member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly from 2006 until her death in 20 ...

. However, Labor regained the seat at the following election in 2018.

Members for Northcote

Election results

References

External links

Electorate profile: Northcote District, Victorian Electoral Commission
Electoral districts of Victoria (Australia) Constituencies established in 1927 1927 establishments in Australia City of Darebin Electoral districts and divisions of Greater Melbourne {{VictoriaAU-gov-stub