If you are under 25, Chisholm is probably identifiable to you by Zero Mode in the suburb of Box Hill and Glenny Kebabs in Glen Waverley—other than these two joints, there’s really not much else happening there.

This seat was a major focus of the 2022 election with the Liberals holding on by a sliver of just 0.5 percent or 1090 votes. Carina Garland, the Labor candidate for this election, won the electorate by a swing of 7 per cent.

Just after the 2019 election, Gladys Liu (former member for Chisholm) and Kooyong candidate (and Australias’ favourite treasurer) Josh Frydenberg were questioned over the posting of misleading AEC inspired signage which signalled that voting one for the Liberal party was the “correct” way to vote. The signs were printed in Mandarin and utilised the AEC colour scheme of purple and white—a sure fire way of misleading voters. This fact is especially troubling as more than 50 percent of voters in Chisholm were born overseas with around 15 percent of them coming from China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. 

The importance of cultural connections is especially prominent in Chisholm, where many immigrants find solace in their ethnic and religious communities. In 2019, Gladys Liu was crafty in spreading information about the Labor party's stances on issues through the widely used WhatsApp. SafeSchools was a very important debate during the 2019 election and Labor’s pro stance on it possibly deterred some conservative immigrant voters. For the 2022 election, it is fair to say that the focus is primarily on climate change and the establishment of an ICAC rather than socially progressive issues. This could mean that the Labor party could get away by winning the electorate. 

Carina Garland is the Labor candidate that ran in the 2022 election and is very unlike Gladys. She hasn’t done much of note, except for dragging Kevin Rudd to the Box Hill Shopping Centre in late April. Whether this was her most successful play is up to debate as most people at the centre didn’t even recognise him. When she’s not dragging past PMs into random shopping centres, she’s doing her utmost to appear at every public forum she can be at—something that the Liberal candidate has pointedly avoided. The two candidates' approach at polling centres was also vastly different, Gladys Liu screaming her name at every person who walked by whilst Carina Garland stood almost quivering in the corner. 

Much to no one's surprise, the seat was swept out from under the feet of Liu when Garland gained a 7 per cent advantage and secured it for herself. Additionally, unlike much of Australia and Victoria, Chisholm can still be considered a swing seat as the vote for the major parties remained largely unchanged since the last election. Despite all this, it does call into question, did Garland win due to her policies and her ability to campaign or was Liu just too unpopular for the people of Chisholm?

Image from Carina Garland Labor for Chilsholm.