The electoral district of Brunswick is an electorate 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 presiding ...

. It covers an area of in inner northern

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

, and includes the suburbs of Brunswick,

Brunswick East Brunswick East is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, north of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Merri-bek local government area. Brunswick East recorded a population of 13,279 at the 20 ...

Carlton North Carlton North is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, north of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the Cities of Melbourne and Yarra local government areas. Carlton North recorded a population of 6,177 ...

Fitzroy North Fitzroy North is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, north-east of Melbourne's Melbourne central business district, Central Business District, located within the Cites of City of Merri-bek, Merri-bek ...

, Princes Hill and parts of

Brunswick West Brunswick West is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, north of Melbourne's Melbourne central business district, Central Business district, located within the City of Merri-bek Local Government Areas of ...

. It lies within the

Northern Metropolitan Region Northern Metropolitan Region is one of the eight electoral regions of Victoria, Australia, which elects five members to the Victorian Legislative Council (also referred to as the upper house) by proportional representation. The region was create ...

of the upper house, the Legislative Council. Historically a very safe seat for the Labor Party, Brunswick has in recent elections seen an increase in support for the Greens, who won the seat at the 2018 election. The seat has had three periods of existence. The seat was first formed in 1904 and abolished in 1955, recreated in 1976 and abolished again in 1992, and again re-established in 2002. It has always been held for Labor, apart from two months in 1955 when incumbent MP Peter Randles defected to the

Australian Labor Party (Anti-Communist) The Democratic Labour Party (DLP), formerly the Democratic Labor Party, is an Australian political party. It broke off from the Australian Labor Party (ALP) as a result of the 1955 ALP split, originally under the name Australian Labor Party ...

in the

Australian Labor Party split of 1955 The Australian Labor Party split of 1955 was a split within the Australian Labor Party along ethnocultural lines and about the position towards communism. Key players in the split were the federal opposition leader H. V. "Doc" Evatt and B. A. S ...

. Brunswick was first won in 1904 by Labor candidate

Frank Anstey Francis George Anstey (18 August 186531 October 1940) was an Australian politician and writer. He served as a member of the House of Representatives from 1910 to 1934, representing the Labor Party. He was Minister for Health and Minister for ...

. Anstey resigned to enter federal politics in 1910, forcing a

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...

which was won by former Brunswick mayor James Jewell. Jewell was member for Brunswick for 39 years, and served for 25 years as either Government or Opposition

Whip A whip is a tool or weapon designed to strike humans or other animals to exert control through pain compliance or fear of pain. They can also be used without inflicting pain, for audiovisual cues, such as in equestrianism. They are generally e ...

. Jewell died in office in 1949, necessitating a

, which was won for Labor by Peter Randles. Randles resigned from the Labor Party and joined the new Australian Labor Party (Anti-Communist) in the 1955 Labor split, but Brunswick was abolished that year and he contested and lost the new seat of

. The Brunswick seat was re-established in 1976, and was won by Tom Roper, the Labor member for abolished Brunswick West, who would hold it until it was abolished again in 1992. Roper held a number of prominent ministries in the Cain government, including Minister for Health (1982–1985), Minister for Transport (1985–1987) and Minister for Planning and Environment (1987–1990), and was then promoted to

Treasurer A treasurer is the person responsible for running the treasury of an organization. The significant core functions of a corporate treasurer include cash and liquidity management, risk management, and corporate finance. Government The treasury o ...

in the Kirner Ministry (1990–1992). Upon the abolition of Brunswick, Roper contested and won the adjacent seat of

Coburg Coburg () is a town located on the Itz river in the Upper Franconia region of Bavaria, Germany. Long part of one of the Thuringian states of the Wettin line, it joined Bavaria by popular vote only in 1920. Until the revolution of 1918, it was ...

at the 1992 election. In 2002, Brunswick was re-created for a third time, and was won by Carlo Carli, who had succeeded Roper as member for Coburg; Carli represented Brunswick until his retirement at the 2010 state election.

City of Yarra The City of Yarra is a local government area (LGA) in Victoria, Australia in the inner eastern and northern suburbs of Melbourne. It is the second smallest LGA in the state with an area of , and in June 2018 it had a population of 98,521, ma ...

mayor

Jane Garrett Jane Furneaux Garrett (16 March 1973 – 2 July 2022) was an Australian politician. She was the Labor Party member for Brunswick in the Victorian Legislative Assembly from 2010 until 2018, when she transferred to the Victorian Legislative Cou ...

held the seat for Labor despite a high-profile campaign by the Victorian Greens, who received a significant swing in their favour. Garrett retained the seat in 2014 in the face of a similarly strong campaign. Labor won government under Daniel Andrews at the 2014 election, and Garrett was promoted into the new Andrews Ministry as Minister for Consumer Affairs, Gaming and Liquor Regulation and Minister for Emergency Services. The seat was won by Greens candidate

Tim Read Tim Read is an Australian politician. He has been a Greens member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly since November 2018, representing the seat of Brunswick. A former general practitioner, and medical researcher with a PhD on the epidemiol ...

at the 2018 Victorian Election.

Members for Brunswick

Election results

External links

Electorate profile: Brunswick, Victorian Electoral Commission

Notes

Electoral districts of Victoria (Australia) 1904 establishments in Australia 1955 disestablishments in Australia 1976 establishments in Australia 1992 disestablishments in Australia 2002 establishments in Australia City of Yarra City of Merri-bek Fitzroy, Victoria Electoral districts and divisions of Greater Melbourne {{VictoriaAU-gov-stub