Victorian state redistribution – margin estimates

1. Albert Park looks a lot safer than it probably is going forward, the 2018 swing blew the margin out a lot more than usual. Based on the new margin being 3.9% better for the Liberals, they would have won the seat in both 2010 and 2014 on these boundaries.

   Prahran on the other hand wouldn’t have been won by the Liberals since 1992 (and only very narrowly) on the proposed boundaries, it no longer becomes even remotely competitive for them so it’d be interesting to see how that impacts the chance of them dropping to third if they divert resources from it.

   Also, if I recall correctly, the Greens got the biggest share of the smaller parties’ preferences (mainly thanks to Animal Justice coming 4th) in Prahran so given there’s only 0.6% between the Greens and Liberals there, the Greens could possibly make the 2CP even on the primary votes above.

   Labor’s biggest threat in Prahran is still in the 3PP count. As long as they make the 2CP they comfortably beat either the Liberals on Greens preferences, or the Greens on Liberal preferences, but the 3PP race is the competitive one where realistically they could finish anywhere from 1st to 3rd because those new St Kilda booths could vote differently with a Greens incumbent in Prahran than they did with an ALP incumbent in Albert Park, and they do vote a lot more Greens in federal elections already.

   Also, while Brighton’s 2018 result was definitely an outlier, Labor should at least put some effort and a strong candidate into it next year unlike 2018…

2. @Trent

   Do you think VIC ALP will make gains like the QLD and WA ALPs did next year? They’re going for a third term, and honestly, I can see it ending up like VIC 2006 as a whole (seats like Hawthorn/Box Hill should go back to the Liberals, but Labor should hold the southeastern bellwethers).

3. Thats pretty much exactly what I think will happen too.

   I think 2018 was a high watermark, they’ll lose a bit of ground – in particular seats like Hawthorn – but should pretty comfortably hold the sandbelt and still win around 52-54 seats.

   They should go on the offensive though and make the Liberals have to defend seats like Brighton, Sandringham and Caulfield. I think the Liberals’ best case scenario is to win back some of the east and cut into the margins in the sandbelt and Albert Park to make them competitive in 2026.

   I don’t think Labor will gain any new seats except the notional gains from redistribution, but I think the Greens will hold Prahran (unless the Liberals drop to third) and possibly win Northcote back.

4. I more or less agree with you (aside from Hastings being re-gained by the Liberals), also I can see the ALP member for Bass transferring to Pakenham.

   2026 will be a must-win for the Coalition.

5. I think that the Liberal Party has an opportunity for gain in Melbourne’s western suburbs (especially the more middle class electorates like Point Cook and Sunbury). They by in large barely swung to the ALP in 2018 compared to many of the Eastern suburbs and Inner City seats and these are the seats that would be affected the most by the COVID lockdowns.

6. John Sunbury swung 10% to the ALP in 2018 and the redistribution increases it. Pakenham maybe but these seats aren’t going to the other side of the column any time soon.

7. Point Cook, Sunbury are the most likely targets for the Liberal Party in the western suburbs, with maybe Nidddrie and/or Essendon as second rank. The Liberals will probably target Melton as well, however, the margin rom last time is artificially low (various member and candidate issues, unfocused rage driving a high combined vote for several independents, which in turn drove the informal vote through the roof) and the likely loss of Bacchus Marsh in the redistribution, I expect the ALP margin to increase. With Melbourne`s western suburbs making up an increasing proportion of the state population, the Liberals need to work on having some seats in the west to be competitive in state elections. I think I have read something in the media somewhere about the Liberals targeting some western suburbs seats more seriously at the coming election.

8. The Liberal Party really need to regain most of, if not all of, the eastern suburb seats they lost in 2018 in order to have a shot at forming government in 2026. They also need to improve their margins in traditionally marginal seats like the Frankston line seats, Ivanhoe, Eltham, Albert Park, the new Pakenham and some of the ALP-held regional seats so they are in position to gain them in future elections. In the more middle class western suburb seats like Point Cook, the Liberals really have to work to improve their margins to compensate for the declining enrolments in their traditional eastern suburb territory.

9. If Point Cook included Williams Landing instead of Altona Meadows it will be more winnable for the Liberals if they put in a good effort. It is much more middle class than other Western Suburbs seats. Sunbury is also more middle class than for example Melton.

10. Reading the Stage 2 submissions, I have a feeling the Albert Park and Prahran swap might go the way of Macnamara / Higgins and be reversed.

    There are lots of submissions objecting to moving the balance of St Kilda into Prahran, due to it being such a unique community of interest that identifies with the bayside.

    What I find bizarre though is that they are written as though all of St Kilda is already in Albert Park and moving it will just tack it onto Prahran, but in reality the suburb is already broken up into 3 pieces, each of which is just tacked onto the corner of Albert Park, Prahran and Caulfield and isn’t a focal point of any of them.

    If St Kilda is such a unique and prominent community of interest in itself – which I agree that it is – surely uniting the suburb into a single electorate would serve the community of interest better than simply ensuring half the suburb remains tacked onto Albert Park, while the rest is in another electorate.

    Some of the objections indicated that Prahran has “no history” with St Kilda’s unique interests, but a significant portion of the suburb (including all its public housing) has already been in Prahran since 1992.

    Ideally a seat would be anchored around St Kilda, Balaclava and Elwood but the numbers just don’t work with the surrounding electorates so at least uniting St Kilda into one electorate – and Prahran works best numbers & demographics wise – is the next best outcome I think. It’ll be interesting to see what happens but I do question the reasons behind St Kilda & Port Phillip groups campaigning to keep the suburb split.

11. The Liberals are looking at an annihilation after likely reinstalling Matthew Guy as leader. I can list 14 seats they will lose at the next state election.

    Brighton,Sandringham,Caulfield,Kew,Powarth,Ripon,Bass (notionally), Evelyn, Warrandyte,Croydon,Ferntree Gully, Forest Hill,South West Coast, Eildon.

    Hastings is already notional Labor and don’t even think about suggesting Hawthorn going back Liberal under Matthew Guy, anyone who suggests that is a Liberal hack.

    Why would any conservative support Matthew Guy leading them again after 2018? We are in the middle of a pandemic which is certain to give Andrews a boost once vaccine rates are up and Australia is likely fully vaccinated at the end of 2022.

    I don’t know the logic of bringing back Matthew Guy is but it will backfire horribly on his party and only be left with 3-4 seats at most which would leave the Nats bigger than the Liberals.

    They are not winning with Matthew Guy and I’d love to see the arguments on why anyone thinks otherwise or believes they will do better than in 2018 with his leadership. Even his seat is at risk but probably narrowly retains.

12. Matthew Guy’s problem was the Victorian Liberal party and its supporters spent so much energy talking up an election they were never going to win. It’s always rough when results fall so far short of expectations. In some ways, the 2018 Victorian election wasn’t that dissimilar to the 2013 election. Fortunately, Mark McGowan kept his job and went on to two thumping landslide victories.

    Is Guy another McGowan? Probably not. But they don’t seem to have anyone better.

13. * 2013 election = 2013 WA election

14. Good point but remember the federal government was different in 2013 than in 2017 and Gillard hurt Mcgowan just as much Turnbull hurt Barnett in 2017

    If Morrison is still pm when the Victorian election is held then they are certainly not gaining seats. An Albanese victory might give the Victorian Liberals some hope of clawing back support.

    Morrison was to blame for the 2018 result in Victoria if they had kept Turnbull the result would have been much closer than OTL

15. I think it’s rather premature to write off seats that weren’t even lost during the 2018 landslide. If those seats didn’t fall then when Matthew Guy was opposition leader, not sure why they’d fall now with Guy returning as opposition leader – certainly I don’t expect the likes of South West Coast of all seats to fall. The pandemic has helped cement existing state government positions for the most part (NT being the exception although they were coming off a historical high), but regardless of your political views, the constant lockdowns in Victoria have taken a toll on people – that includes those who come the state election would still view the state government as better than the opposition.

    At the moment, I’m still expecting a 2006 kind of result – Labor winning again, but an improvement for the Libs. I would expect the low hanging marginals (e.g. Hawthorn, Bayswater, Nepean) to flip and then larger swings in much safer ALP seats in the north, west and outer south east where WFH isn’t as viable (by contrast, I think more areas where voters have been able to much better do WFH will swing a lot less). However, as the Libs have very poor resourcing in those very safe Labor seats, they will not be able to take much advantage of it.

16. Daniel Andrews could do a Bob Carr & hold on to all the seats with not picking up any extra although I do think it’s unlikely. It seems to be widely accepted at this stage that labor will win another term at this stage of time.

17. However, If the Liberal party keep changing leaders things could continue going backwards for them. Labor don’t need a very big swing to gain more seats which as small as 0.1-2, whereas the liberal party need 10.5 to get into office.

18. I think the biggest factor that will impact the state election in November 2022 will be the Federal Election that precedes it (obvious I know). If the Morrison-Joyce Government is re-elected then Andrews & Victorian Labor will have someone relative unpopular to play off. The Federal Election is 50-50 at the moment IMO, but if Albanese & Labor win, it will give a Guy led Victorian Liberals a fighting chance.

    I don’t see much of East (Deakin, Chisholm, Higgins ect.) or South (Flinders, La Trobe, Dunkley ect.) Melbourne voting for either Labor or the Coalition twice.

19. Well, at least Daniel’s finally given up pretending to be a bullish Liberal and gone back to being a one-eyed Labor man……

20. WL: you’re pretty much describing the 2014 SA election. A 12 yr old Labor govt got a hefty swing against it – everywhere except their own marginal seats, and they fell over the line in minority govt despite getting belted on the 2pp vote. (SA Labor’s weird skill at courting indies probably helped there.) The Vic 2022 version would be the Libs getting a 15% swing in seats like Tarneit and Brighton, while not winning back Box Hill.

21. BOP, this occurred at the 2006 Victorian state election as well. There was a big swing to the Liberals in seats they already held like Doncaster, Scoresby, Sandringham and Nepean. While very marginal labor held seats such as Gembrook, Mount Waverley had virtually no swing. In fact, Bentleigh and Eltham had a swing to Labor. Ferntree Gully is interesting at that election as it was next to Scoresby but was almost retained by ALP (only 27 votes made the difference) despite much of the same issues such as Eastlink Tolls being at play. In 2022 we may see a sophomore surge in Ringwood but a big swing to Liberals in Croydon.

22. Well it’s official as of this morning. I can see another Lib wipeout on the horizon. O’Brien was ineffective and didn’t cut through but wasn’t as toxic to swinging voters. Guy fires up the Lib base who would never vote Labor anyway but repels moderate voters, and Victoria is overwhelmingly progressive to moderate.

    I can see Caulfield, Sandringham and Brighton all going to Labor this time. Firstly, if the proposed boundaries hold up that already further cuts into the margin in Brighton and Sandringham. But most importantly, Labor didn’t even try in those seats in 2018 because they didn’t expect to do so well. They ran an unknown 19 year old in Brighton! With margins under 1% they would actually put resources into all 3 this time. They can afford to go on the offensive while they have double digits in the sandbelt, which won’t be swinging back to Guy.

    I’m not sure how liked O’Brien is in his own seat of Malvern, despite living pretty close to it (I’m in the seat of Prahran), but if his electorate do like him then I expect Malvern would have had a pro-Lib swing with him leading the party, gaining back some of the 11% the Libs lost there under Guy, and will now probably have a further swing against (although not enough to lose the seat) as a backlash against the coup.

    The Libs might win back a couple of the eastern seats with Guy. Probably more likely the outer ones (Bayswater & Ringwood) than the middle ones (Ashwood/Burwood and Box Hill) but all of them are probably the Libs’ best chance for gains in Melbourne, along with Nepean which they will win. The pandemic will hurt Labor there because the Mornington area has hated being included as metro Melbourne in lockdowns.

    I agree with a few comments above though that the federal election result will be one of the biggest factors.

    If we have a Labor PM come November next year, I don’t think seats like Brighton & Sandringham fall to Labor, more if the eastern seats will be won back, and Hawthorn probably flips too. But Labor still wins relatively easily holding the sandbelt.

    If Morrison is still PM, then the prospect of a combination of him as PM and Guy as Premier hands Labor a landslide at least on par with 2018 (where I can see at a minimum just a swap of seats, eg. Libs gain Bayswater, Ringwood, Nepean; Labor gain Brighton, Caulfield, Sandringham).

    Hawthorn will be interesting now. I would have put it as a certain Lib gain under O’Brien, especially if Pesutto runs, as a campaign to get him back in parliament to be the new opposition leader after the loss. But can Hawthorn voters stomach voting for Guy, when that area keeps trending more left?

23. To be honest I think the labor will hold on to Ringwood as redistribution has benefited them as well as the changing demographics in the seat with lots of apartments & units being put through there.

24. I’m not too familiar with that area, just know it’s in the vicinity of the “bible belt” suburbs, so you’re probably right there.

25. In 2018, there were four big factors against Matthew Guy:
    1. The tough on crime rhetoric was just seeming more and more ridiculous as every day went on.
    2. The Libs had no money and what little they did have was being saved for the Federal campaign that had to happen in 6 months.
    3. Malcolm Turnbull had just been dumped and he was very popular in Victoria. There was a lot of anger against the Federal Libs.
    4. The Andrews Government was spending big and with the level crossings was seen to be delivering.

    At the moment, Covid has sucked the life out of everything but by mid next year there might be some clear air to look at other issues such as big project overruns and cost blow outs, and the running sores emanating from union influence over the government. The other issue that cannot be underestimated is that Victorians (especially Melbournians) are just exhausted by the lockdowns. With this lockdown, you can just tell talking to people that they are tired, close to cracking and are really over it. There may be a situation in Victoria next year similar to Britain in 1945 – It would “Thanks Dan you did a great job but we really feel that it is time for a change”.
    And like him or loathe him, at least Matthew Guy will put a lot more energy into the job.

26. New boundaries released.

    As I expected as a result of all the objections, the Prahran & Albert Park swap has been ditched. It’s a shame because it made sense. That’s two electoral commissions in one year now, who proposed an excellent and I think much needed change in that area, and both were reversed due to objections that in neither case held much weight at all.

    The state objections were basically that:
    – St Kilda Road is too strong a barrier to breach (this ignore that Princes Highway runs through Prahran and that’s no problem, and that the barrier was already breached for 22 years from 1992-2014 when Barkly St was the border.
    – It would be harder for organisations like CAPP (Community Alliance of Port Phillip) to provide services in St Kilda if it’s not united with most of Port Phillip in Albert Park; but this ignores that St Kilda Town Hall itself isn’t even in Albert Park, there are already parts of not only Port Phillip in the Prahran District but St Kilda itself, and the part of St Kilda that has its most vulnerable residents and most services is already in the district of Prahran and has been since 1992. This includes ALL of St Kilda’s public housing, some of its last remaining rooming houses like Redan Apartments, Launch Housing, St Kilda PCYC, Betty Day Community Centre, Pinaroo Village and more. So the objection implies they have not been able to provide services to to that part of the suburb for the last 30 years..?
    – That the part of St Kilda on the other side of the highway is “not really St Kilda” so it’s not important to unite it, but again this just ignores everything already mentioned above, plus things like St Kilda Library, St Kilda Primary School, etc all of which are east of the highway.

    Like with the federal redistribution, I’m disappointed the change didn’t go ahead as it would have made a lot of sense. But I’m not surprised that it didn’t.

    As for the margins, both Albert Park & Prahran will still go in the same direction as what was predicted above as a result, but just far less so. I think Labor will lose about 1% instead of 4% in Albert Park resulting from the change; and the Liberals will lose about 3% instead of 6% in Prahran (but it will remain very tight between ALP & Greens).

27. I am satisfied that my submission on the Rowville/Bayswater Boundary was accepted on the final boundaries just released today. There was multiple submissions that requested the same suggestions. However, disappointed that Dingley Village is still in the Clarinda electorate and not the Mordialloc electorate and that Williams Landing is not in the same seat as Point Cook.

28. Also a bit disappointing that they retained Laverton as that very odd “take all the bits that can’t fit anywhere else and join them together” District. I thought there were some better options there.

29. @ Mark Mulcair
    Good point about Laverton, there is a huge industrial area in Laverton North with no people which divided this electorate geographically in two. There was some submissions to have Braybrook, Sunshine etc to be included into the Foostcary electorate. However, as the Footscary becomes gentrified and trendy, Ashley street is increasingly a class divide separating the gentrified inner west from the traditional working class Western Suburbs (Like Bell street in the Inner North). I requested that Altona Meadows be included in Laverton and Williams Landing in Point Cook due to demographic similarities although this would have created an oddly shaped electorate it would allow Laverton to represent a seat that was more industrial and working class while Point Cook would be a middle class aspirational seat.

30. I wonder if Bayswater is still notionally Liberal on the revised boundaries released today? Wantirna South south of Burwood Hwy is probably one of the most Liberal areas in Victoria, whereas the part of Ferntree Gully that replaces it is very much marginal.

31. Laverton has my nomination for the most unfortunate boundaries in this redistribution.

32. From what I can see so far, Morwell would probably go into the Labor Column, Bass go down to the wire and maybe still just Liberal and Narracan end up very comfortably Liberal.

    And for what it is worth, I have been redistributed again – this time at a state level – off to Ringwood!!

33. @redistributed

    I was wondering if people like you would have preferred Ringwood to have been renamed “Mitcham”.

34. Nicholas, the very thought crossed my mind today but the proposed Ringwood goes much further east than Mitcham used to go so Ringwood is a good mid point.

35. Fair enough. Perhaps a bit of bias on my part as I am a former Whitehorse resident myself. 😉

36. Is Bayswater notionally Liberal after the changes or is it still Labor?

37. Bob, from the table and also from analysis by Anthony Green, Bayswater becomes a notional Liberal seat.

38. Now that Dustin Halse, the MP for Ringwood is pulling the pin after one term, it will be interesting to see if Jackson Taylor (the current MP for Bayswater) moves to Ringwood.

39. @redistributed
    He won’t, he has been out campaigning in Ferntree Gully and Wantirna which have been transferred into the Bayswater district. He is a former City of Knox councillor so he will stay in Bayswater.

Comments are closed.