Electoral district of Melbourne

Melbourne Victoria—Legislative Assembly
Location of Melbourne (dark green) in Greater Melbourne
State	Victoria
Dates current	1856–1859, 1889–present
MP	Ellen Sandell
Party	Australian Greens
Electors	43,801 (2014)
Area	27 km2 (10.4 sq mi)
Demographic	Central Metropolitan

The Electoral district of Melbourne is an electorate of the Victorian Legislative Assembly. It currently includes the localities of Carlton, North Carlton, Melbourne, East Melbourne, West Melbourne, North Melbourne, Parkville, Newmarket, Kensington and Flemington, and includes Melbourne University. The district has been in existence since 1856 (it was abolished in 1859 and reestablished in 1889).

The electorate was won in 2014 for the first time by an Australian Greens candidate Ellen Sandell.

Melbourne was one of the inaugural districts of the first Assembly in 1856. Its area was defined by the 1855 Act as:

Melbourne was abolished in 1859, its area was split into the new Electoral district of East Melbourne and Electoral district of West Melbourne, each having two members.

Melbourne was re-created as a single-member electorate by the Electoral Act Amendment Act 1888 which took effect at the 1889 elections.

Since 1908 the seat had been traditional Labor territory since 1908, but had become increasingly marginal against the Australian Greens since 2002. Senior Labor minister Bronwyn Pike successfully held the seat against strong Greens challenges at three subsequent elections, defeating future Greens Senator Richard Di Natale in 2002 and 2006, and prominent lawyer Brian Walters in 2010. Pike resigned in 2012, and Labor candidate and City of Melbourne councillor Jennifer Kanis retained the seat after a closely contested by-election, which saw her finish second on primary votes to Greens candidate Cathy Oke but win on preferences. Kanis lost the seat to Greens candidate Ellen Sandell at the 2014 election. Along with the seat of Prahran it was the first win for the Greens in the Victorian Legislative Assembly.