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“I mean, have you seen how many candidates are running?” one of them asks me.
It’s like a Melbourne Cup field, I say.
They shake their head. “It’s going to be an absolute sea.”
A crowded field of colourful candidates. A level of unbottled suburban fury. Collapsing infrastructure and looming data centres, and a genuine three-way contest. Welcome to Sydenham.
Hey, I’m Bridget McArthur, The Age’ s sports affairs reporter. For the next month, I’m swapping the politics of sport for the sport of politics – and in Ringwood, it’s game on.
Though it was among the red wave of electorates that Labor picked up in 2018, the Liberal Party is hungry to win back its lost territory in Melbourne’s outer east, including this historically centre-right leaning seat.
Compared to neighbouring electorates, Ringwood should have been one of the seats Labor was least anxious about holding on to. Four years ago, it pocketed a comfortable 7.5 per cent two-party preferred margin thanks to Will Fowles.
With the writs issued, the petrol tanks of the political buses full, and the sausage sizzles set for Saturday, November 28, the starting gun for the state election has officially been fired.
Welcome to our hot seats blog, where over the next month we will offer in-depth coverage on the issues looming large in Victorian voters’ minds.
As we head into what many believe could be an unprecedented race for Victoria, The Age will be paying special attention to four electorates across the state – Hawthorn, Ringwood, Sydenham and Shepparton.
Across these seats, our reporters will be on the ground to deep dive into the candidates and their policies, take a pulse check on how Victorians are feeling as they head into the polling booth, and report on what all of this means for the shape of our next state parliament.
Stay tuned to meet the team, learn more about the major issues within these electorates, and why we chose them for our 2026 hot seats.
