Electoral district of South Barwon

South Barwon Victoria—Legislative Assembly
Location of South Barwon (dark green) in Victoria
State	Victoria
Created	1976
MP	Darren Cheeseman
Party	Independent Labor
Namesake	City of South Barwon
Electors	54,245 (2018)
Area	361 km2 (139.4 sq mi)
Demographic	Urbanised rural
Electorates around South Barwon: Polwarth Geelong Geelong Polwarth South Barwon Bellarine Bass Strait Bass Strait Bass Strait

South Barwon is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of Victoria. Located in a mixed urban and rural area south of the Barwon River, it covers an area of 621 km², including the Geelong suburbs of Belmont and Grovedale, Waurn Ponds and part of Highton, the coastal centre of Torquay and the rural towns of Barrabool, Bellbrae, Connewarre, Gnarwarre, Modewarre, Moriac and Mount Moriac. The electorate had a population of 52,241 at the 2001 census.

South Barwon was created in 1976 as a predominantly rural seat which was considered safe for the conservative Liberal Party. It was won by Liberal Aurel Smith, formerly the member for Bellarine, upon its inception, and retained for the party by Harley Dickinson upon Smith's retirement in 1982. Dickinson held the seat until 1992, when he quit the party and attempted to retain the seat as an independent, but lost to endorsed Liberal candidate and former television newsreader Alister Paterson. The seat underwent significant demographic change during Paterson's tenure as successive redistributions pushed it further into Geelong.

Major population growth in the traditionally Labor-voting areas of Torquay, Barwon Heads and southern Geelong, caused the seat to become progressively less safe for the Liberal Party. These changes came to a head at the 2002 election, when the Labor Party nominated former Geelong mayor Michael Crutchfield as its candidate, and amidst a statewide landslide victory, he succeeded in taking South Barwon for the first time. Crutchfield was re-elected in 2006, but lost in 2010 to local councillor and Liberal candidate Andrew Katos. Katos was re-elected in 2014 but was defeated by former federal MP Darren Cheeseman in 2018. Katos re-contested South Barwon in 2022 in an attempt to win back his former seat, however Cheeseman easily retained the seat with 59.8% of the two-party-preferred vote, on the back of a 6.8% swing towards Labor. This was the strongest result for Labor in the seat’s history.

Members for South Barwon

Member		Party	Term
	Aurel Smith	Liberal	1976–1982
	Harley Dickinson	Liberal	1982–1992
		Independent	1992–1992
	Alister Paterson	Liberal	1992–2002
	Michael Crutchfield	Labor	2002–2010
	Andrew Katos	Liberal	2010–2018
	Darren Cheeseman	Labor	2018–2024
		Independent Labor	2024–present

Election results

Main article: Electoral results for the district of South Barwon

This section is an excerpt from Results of the 2022 Victorian state election (Legislative Assembly) § South Barwon.[edit]

2022 Victorian state election: South Barwon

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labor	Darren Cheeseman	19,969	44.2	+5.6
	Liberal	Andrew Katos	14,516	32.1	−6.5
	Greens	Genevieve Frances Dawson-Scott	5,719	12.6	+4.2
	Family First	Alan Barron	1,338	3.0	+3.0
	Democratic Labour	Leone Bates	1,099	2.4	−0.6
	Animal Justice	Naomi Adams	1,076	2.4	−0.7
	Justice	Jeynelle Marie Dean	891	2.0	+2.0
	Freedom	Simone Tomlinson	576	1.3	+1.3
Total formal votes			45,184	96.5	+1.0
Informal votes			1,637	3.5	−1.0
Turnout			46,821	90.8	+1.9
Two-party-preferred result
	Labor	Darren Cheeseman	27,020	59.8	+6.8
	Liberal	Andrew Katos	18,164	40.2	−6.8
	Labor hold		Swing	+6.8

References

• District profile from the Victorian Electoral Commission