Western Victoria

Western Victoria encompasses Melton at Melbourne’s western fringe, Geelong and its surrounds, Ballarat, and the state's south-western reaches out to the South Australian border. Labor won eight of the seat's eleven lower house seats in 2006, seven in 2010 and six in 2014, redistribution contributing towards the loss of Ripon on the latter occasion. The region has uniquely returned micro-party members at two of the three elections under the current system, with the DLP winning a seat in 2006 and Vote 1 Local Jobs doing so in 2014. The Nationals won a seat in the intervening election in 2010, while the Liberals and Labor have both consistently held two.

Swings against the major parties did not prevent either from reaching two quotas in their own right in 2014, though the Coalition had only a modest surplus, and Labor hardly any. The last seat developed into a race between the Greens, who absorbed preferences from Palmer United and Animal Justice; Vote 1 Local Jobs, whose feeders included the Coalition, the Sex Party, Family First and the Australian Country Alliance; and the DLP, who had Shooters and Fishers, the Liberal Democrats and Australian Christians. The DLP went out first, with 35,553 votes to Vote 1 Local Jobs' 42,250, and their votes then went en bloc to Vote 1 Local Jobs, who finished with 75,348 votes to the Greens' 61,116.

Labor candidates

Labor has maintained the remarkable continuity of the two order of its ticket, which has now been unchanged over four elections starting after the upper house reforms of 2006. In top position is Jaala Pulford, a former official with the Right faction National Union of Workers. Pulford held parliamentary secretary status from 2007 until the election of the Andrews government in 2014, when she was promoted to cabinet as Minister for Agriculture and Regional Development.

Second position on the ticket is reserved to the Left, and is held by Gayle Tierney, a former official with the Vehicle Builders Union, which later merged with the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union. Tierney became a shadow parliamentary secretary in February 2012, then won promotion to cabinet after the 2014 election as Minister for Training and Skills and Corrections.

Coalition candidates

The Coalition agreement grants the Liberals the safe two positions on the top of the ticket in Western Victoria, and the Nationals the loseable third. The top position fell vacant when Simon Ramsay, who was elected from second in 2010 and first in 2014, announced his impending retirement shortly after being charged with a high-level drink driving offence. It now goes to Bev McArthur, Corangamite Shire councillor and wife of Stewart McArthur, the federal member for Corangamite from 1984 to 2007. MacArthur is a party activist of long standing, and has lately been identified as part of the social conservative tendency that has been courted by the party's state president, Michael Kroger. The preselection was determined by the party's administration committee rather than a membership ballot, as it was deemed the proximity of Ramsay's announcement to the election allowed insufficient time.

Maintaining his second position on the ticket is Josh Morris, a former Ballarat mayor who won preselection in 2014 following the withdrawal of Aaron Lane, an Institute of Public Affairs research fellow who fell foul of homophobic slurs and other crudities he had expressed on social media.

The Nationals' position at number three is occupied by Jo Armstrong, an Ararat councillor, who won preselection ahead of Andrew Black, a 27-year-old postgraduate and teacher in law. Black reportedly accrued more votes in the party vote, but their placement in the ticket order was determined by a party committee that favoured Armstrong.

Other candidates

James Purcell, the former Moyne Shire mayor who won a seat under the Vote 1 Local Jobs banner in 2014, is contesting the lower house seat of South West Coast, rather than hoping that lightning might strike twice for him in Western Victoria.