2014 Victorian state election

The 2014 Victorian state election, held on Saturday, 29 November 2014, was for the 58th Parliament of Victoria. All 88 seats in the Victorian Legislative Assembly and 40 seats in the Victorian Legislative Council were up for election. The incumbent centre-right Coalition minority government, led by Liberal Party leader and Premier Denis Napthine and National Party leader and Deputy Premier Peter Ryan, was defeated by the centre-left Labor Party opposition, led by Daniel Andrews. The Greens won two lower house seats, their first Legislative Assembly seats in a Victorian state election, whilst increasing their share of upper house seats. The new Andrews Ministry was sworn in on 4 December 2014.

Voting is compulsory in Victoria. Elections for the Legislative Assembly use instant-runoff voting (called preferential voting in Australia) in single-member electorates (called districts). Elections for the Legislative Council use partial proportional representation, using single transferable vote (also called preferential voting) in multi-member electorates (called regions). Members of the Legislative Council are elected from eight electoral regions each returning five members, making the quota for election in each region 16.67%. The election was conducted by the Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC).

The election marked the first time since 1955 that a Victorian state government had been defeated after only one parliamentary term. Furthermore, the Nationals were reduced to a total of ten seats in the Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council, one short of official status in the legislature. Following the election, both Napthine and Ryan resigned as leaders of the Liberal and National parties, respectively.

Terms are fixed at four years unless dissolved earlier by the Governor. The election occurred in line with the fixed-term provisions laid out in the Electoral Act 2002.

Key dates for the election were:

The Coalition won the 2010 Victorian state election, winning 45 seats in the 88-member lower house, a swing of 12 seats, defeating the 11-year Labor government which won 43 seats.

Labor suffered a swing of 5.96 percent, a larger swing than the 1992 landslide that brought the Jeff Kennett-led Coalition to power. This led Paul Austin of the Sydney Morning Herald to speculate that Labor was headed for a long period in the political wilderness. However, by 2012, Labor had gradually whittled away a large Coalition advantage in opinion polling. By the time the writs were dropped, Labor had been leading most opinion polls for almost two years, though Andrews consistently trailed as preferred premier.

With a Coalition MP as Speaker, the government operated with a one-seat margin of 44 seats, until the resignation of Geoff Shaw, the member for Frankston, from the Liberal Party on 6 March 2013. This meant the government had only 43 votes on the floor of the parliament, equal to Labor's total. Partly due to Shaw's defection, Premier Ted Baillieu resigned later on 6 March and was succeeded as Liberal leader and Premier by Ports Minister Denis Napthine. Shaw initially guaranteed the Napthine Government support on matters of supply and confidence, allowing it to stay in office as a minority government, although later statements indicated that he had rescinded that earlier statement and was considering assisting an ALP Opposition vote of no confidence in the Napthine administration. If this had happened, his actions could have precipitated an early state election.