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We’re taking an up-close look at every electorate in the coming state election.

Ereader

Contains all of Bendigo east of the railway line, as well as outlying small towns.

Held by

Labor (10.8 per cent) — Retiring Labor MP and former premier Jacinta Allan, who has held the seat since 1999.

Bendigo East is one of the regional seats that helped Labor win government in 1999 and has been held by the party ever since.

Jacinta Allan is leaving politics after being ousted as premier. (ABC News: Danielle Bonica)

Candidates

Des John – Family First Victoria
Bonnie Dunn – Animal Justice Party
Denali Norsen – Victorian Socialists
Cheryl Hawken – One Nation
Andrew Lethlean – Nationals
Liz Wright – Independent
Kristie Hoskins – Independent
Tim Rickwood – Labor
Michael Tolhurst – Greens

Analysis

Both of the electorates that cover Bendigo have been held by Labor for more than 25 years, but the party’s hold on Bendigo East has been slightly less secure compared with Bendigo West.

The seat was won in 1999 by Labor’s Jacinta Allan, who was just 25 at the time. After a single term on the backbench, Allan was elevated to cabinet following Steve Bracks’s landslide victory in 2002. She served on the front bench of every successive Labor leader. In September 2023, after about a year as deputy premier, she succeeded Daniel Andrews as premier of Victoria.

Allan had little difficulty holding the seat over the course of her career, but even before she was deposed as premier in July 2026, there were warnings that Labor could face a difficult contest to retain the seat.

Bendigo East has significant overlap with the federal seat of Bendigoand at the 2025 federal election the Nationals slashed Labor’s margin there by almost 10 percentage points. The Nationals’ federal candidate, local publican Andrew Lethlean, is now contesting the state seat at this election.

While Jacinta Allan had become a deeply unpopular leader of the state by the end of her time in office, she undoubtedly built up a personal profile in this seat over a quarter of a century that Labor now loses. Labor’s candidate for Bendigo East is Tim Rickwood, a teacher from Allan’s socialist left faction of the party.