Electoral district of Richmond (Victoria)

Richmond Victoria—Legislative Assembly
Location of Richmond (dark green) in Greater Melbourne
State	Victoria
Created	1856
MP	Richard Wynne
Party	Australian Labor Party
Electors	46,690 (2014)
Area	14 km2 (5.4 sq mi)
Demographic	Inner metropolitan

Richmond is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of Victoria. It is currently a 14 km² electorate in the inner east of Melbourne, encompassing the suburbs of Richmond, Cremorne, Burnley, Abbotsford, Collingwood, Clifton Hill, North Fitzroy and Fitzroy. Historically a very safe seat for the Australian Labor Party, Richmond has in recent elections become increasingly marginal against the Australian Greens, who narrowly failed to win it at the 2014 Victorian State election.

Richmond is one of only three electorates (along with Brighton and Williamstown) to have been contested at every election since 1856. It was initially a two-person electorate, but was changed to return only a single member in the redistribution of 1904 when several new districts were created including Abbotsford. It covers a series of traditionally working-class, industrial suburbs, and has been continuously held by the Australian Labor Party with the exception of only one term since 1904. The brief exception occurred amidst the famous Labor split of 1955, when the incumbent Labor member, Frank Scully, joined six other Catholic MPs in breaking away to found the Democratic Labor Party. Scully, as the party's leader, was the only MP to hold his seat at the next election, but was defeated in 1958 by Bill Towers, previously the member for the abolished seat of Collingwood.