Goldstein is anchored around Melbourne’s City of Bayside and some of the surrounding suburbs of the City of Glen Eira and the City of Kingston.

From Melbourne the electorate starts at the golden sands of Brighton and the kaleidoscope of its world-famous beach boxes. It travels along Port Phillip’s coastline made famous by the Heidelberg school of Australian impressionist painters including iconic cliffs such as Red Bluff, and the bays later captured by Australia’s most famous female en plein air painter Clarice Beckett. The electorate’s most southern tip is the marine sanctuary at Rickett’s Point in Beaumaris. 

Goldstein’s eastern border runs along Australia’s premier golf courses in Cheltenham and Sandringham, including Royal Melbourne and Victoria, before taking in the industrial precinct of Moorabbin. Travelling North it juts around the residential retreats of Bentleigh to Glen Huntly, with its Northern border celebrating the leafy streets that run off the cosmopolitan vibe of Glen Huntly Road. Australia’s smallest suburb, Gardenvale, is also nestled in in its heart.

Uniquely the coastal suburbs of Melbourne are not an extension of Melbourne, with both Brighton and Sandringham being separate settlements from Melbourne that were originally accessed by water, until Melbourne eventually grew to them. It has always had its own distinct let-and-let-live vibe of long-time locals, new families and retirees looking for a balance of lifestyle, work and play and has attracted aspirational small business owners and young professionals, that aspire for economic and social progress and environmental stewardship. With a strong community culture of hard work and enterprise, Goldstein is a caring community that also understands each resident has a responsibility to each other, and a larger contribution to the betterment of Australia.

The Division of Goldstein, established in 1984, was created following the abolition of the former Division of Balaclava. The boundaries of the electorate have changed over time, but has traditionally been anchored around the changing configurations of Brighton, and in more recent years the City of Bayside. Over 150 thousand people call Goldstein home.

Who was Vida Goldstein?

The division of Goldstein is named in honour of Vida Goldstein (pronounced: Vye-da Gold-styne), Australia’s pioneering suffragette. Thanks to the efforts of Vida and her peers, Australia was proudly the first country in the world to give women the right to vote and seek public office, and she was the first woman to seek political office in the British Empire when she ran for Australia’s Senate for Victoria in 1903. She was a formidable advocate for equality before the law, property rights for women, and a marriage equality advocate by fighting for women to be able to enter the institution on the same terms as men.  

The Hon Tim Wilson MP is the current federal member for Goldstein. As the fourth generation of his family who has called Goldstein home, he has a deep passion for the community, its values, outlook, and influence over the future direction of Australia.