A spotlight on Brighton

In the lead up to the Victorian State election, The AJN spoke to the candidates vying for the seat of Bayside in Melbourne’s southeast which includes Elwood, Brighton, and the northern half of Hampton. Liberal candidate James Newbury has held the seat since 2018 and will be running again this year. Newbury has also served as Shadow Attorney-General since 2025.

“When first elected as the local voice for our community, I committed to working seven days a week on our community’s behalf. I have done that for eight years and will continue to do that if re-elected. This community deserves the strongest voice, and I hope to have always been that,” Newbury told The AJN.

Campaigning against Newbury are Labor candidate Bridget Mullahy and One Nation candidate Alexander Fagan. Libertarian candidate Anthony Hain was interviewed in last week’s AJN.

Mullahy has lived and worked in Brighton for many years including volunteering locally supporting older residents. She believes that safety, security and social cohesion are important issues to the Jewish community and affirmed her support for the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism and spoke to Labor’s incoming laws to ban face coverings used to conceal identity while engaging in criminal or dangerous behaviour.

“The right to protest is important, but so is everyone’s right to feel safe … Antisemitism has no place in Victoria, and Labor will continue working closely with the Jewish community to ensure people feel safe, supported and respected,” she said.

Fagan, relatively new to politics, has lived in Melbourne’s south-east his entire life. A conservative at heart, Fagan attributed his alliance with One Nation to a failure of government following the December 14 Bondi attack.

“I was incensed that this barbarism was allowed to occur here. The weak and dismissive response from both state and federal Labor governments made security my top priority,” he said.

For Fagan, law and order come first.

“The goal is straightforward: a Jewish family in Brighton or anywhere else should be able to go into the city on a Sunday, or to their synagogue or school, without fear. That used to be normal. It needs to be normal again.”

The Victorian State election will take place on November 28.