The seat of Wills shares many similarities with its neighbour Cooper – the electorate is predicted to be the site of another tight contest between Labor and the Greens, and skews young and diverse.

Perhaps fittingly, its most notable MP was former Prime Minister Bob Hawke, who passed away this week and was known for his abhorrence of bigotry and divisive politics.

In April 1955, the first MP in the seat of Wills, Bill Bryson, was expelled from the Labor party along with six other members of Parliament. He lost re-election to Labor candidate Gordon Bryant.

He was followed by Hawke, who won the seat five times between 1980 and 1990 – the latter four times, as Prime Minister.

Hawke resigned after losing a leadership spill to Paul Keating, and Phil Cleary was elected in 1992 as the seat’s single non-Labor election winner.

Kelvin Thompson took the seat back for Labor in 1996, and retired in 2016.

The winner of the first preference vote has been elected in every election besides 1993 when Phil Cleary won despite finishing 12.5 percent behind Labor in first preferences.

Current Greens leader Richard Di Natale ran unsuccessfully for the seat in 2001.

Wills’ demographics have been observably influenced by significant migration in the past two generations. 40% of Wills’ population is foreign born compared to 33% of Australia’s population as a whole.

What’s more, 48% of Wills residents have two foreign born parents, compared with 34% of Australian residents as a whole. In 44% of Wills households, a language other than English is spoken at home, while that figure is just 27% for Australia in general.

Wills was historically working-class, but has grown increasingly gentrified, corresponding with a continuous rise in the Greens’ vote every election since 2001.

Though median age in Wills is very close to Australia as a whole, the population pyramid has one notable difference in the 25-34 year old age group, who form almost 22% of Wills’ residents but barely 14% of Australians in general. More than thirty per cent of Wills residents over 15 have bachelor’s degrees, as opposed to just 22% for Australians as a whole.

The demographic peculiarities of Wills are unsurprising for an electorate that skews so much more towards the Greens than Australia does in general.

It’s an inner metropolitan Victorian bloc of educated, young voters – the sort of voters to whom the Greens’ social and environmental policies appeal, along with the Greens’ pro-immigration stance which seems likely to meet the approval of the division’s immigrant communities.

Though never won by a party besides Labor, the seat of Wills is now considered a marginal Labor seat, needing a 4.9% swing for it to fall to the Greens.

The northern two thirds of the electorate tend to lean Labor, while the southern third is more inclined toward the Greens.

While the Greens leaning part is more densely populated, its two-party preferred vote averages 3:2, while the rest of the electorate leans Labor at close to 2:1.

Notably, the Greens’ only seat in the House of Representatives is Melbourne, which lies directly to the south of Wills.

All other electorates bordering Wills are held by Labor, though the Greens have their eye on Batman to the east – it is on the Greens’ four seat shortlist to try to flip.