Brindabella – ACT 2020

This is often talked about like 3 in the bag for Liberals. Major party resources line up with that perception too (far more resources in Yerrabi and Murrumbidgee, and even Kurrajong). However the final seat was quite close last time.

The resentment in the southside over light rail going to Gungahlin first will still be a factor, but less of one. The Labor MPs are still duds but at least Joy Burch has stayed out of trouble in the last 4 years. And in general the “its time” factor is less than last time owing to Covid.

All this points to a small leftward swing. So who picks it up? While the Greens are building off a low base, they seem to be trying a lot harder this time if social media is any indication. They got overtaken by “other” last time, but not federally despite a strong independent. I think they’ll take it.

I’m predicting 2-2-1 here (Green gain from Liberal)

Hi Ben, I think the comments are not available on the Yerrabi page.

Cheers,
JM

One presumes the Greens will benefit the most from the lack of Sex Party?

I don’t think 2-2-1 is impossible here.

Bennee, Sex Party seemed like a placeholder for “don’t like either major or the Greens” rather than actual support. The ACT has full data available so it would be possible to see how much of that vote would have ended up with Greens; I suspect nowhere near enough. A quick look at election results has the Greens doing well enough against “other” in Tuggeranong (Jaime Christie independent+Australian Progressives+Palmer), but not by a huge amount. Looking at the list of parties I expect Sustainable Australia to do better here than in other electorates, and Greens won’t be able to assume they’ll emerge on top of the agglomerated non majors.

I am just getting the impression the Greens are far less hated this time around now that light rail has already happened. In fact the Green candidate is campaigning on eventually bringing light rail to Tuggeranong, while the Liberals are inconsistent about wanting to extend the light rail south at all. You might see the “light rail vote” boost the left on the southside (though more in Murrumbidgee than here).

Additionally the 2016 federal election results leading into the last ACT election pretty much confirmed that Greens didn’t have a chance in Brindabella and the Greens campaign last time was limited with resources being diverted to Murrumbidgee and Ginninderra. This time they did much better and the Brindabella campaign has regular campaign events.

Also Johnathan Davis is very well known in Tuggeranong, particularly in Kambah from his high school campaigning days (which I think explains the very high Green vote in the Kambah South booth in Bean last year). Mazengarb lived in the Inner North. From what I hear, Amanda Bresnan lived and campaigned in the inner north despite representing Tuggeranong, so being very local will be important, as will more time passing from then.

Anyway 2-2-1 though I might be a bit biased.

Looking at the Others Vote, AJP + Sustainable got up to their maximum in this electorate at 3.9% while Lib Dems got second best at 2.7% here last time. This was also the Greens weakest electorate last time. With SXP 7.9%, LCBR 0.9% and IND 4.2%, a total of (13%) at play for this election I’m going out on a stab for a few assumptions…
Vote to stay around the same.
Sustainable 1.5%
AJP 2.5%
Lib Dem 2.5% (I think this will actually drop to about 2% due to SFF/FED influence)

So divvying up:
SFF 2% (this electorate makes sense to run for ‘rural’ part but don’t seeing it going to high)
FED 0.5%

That gives 10.5% to play with. Greens are coming indeed off a low base…
I see them getting 8-10%. And the other 5% absorbed by lib/lab or possibly rest.
Let’s say approx 0.8 Quota GRN/SUST/AJP vs 0.3 Quota (SFF/FED/LDM) and with Libs 0.48 over quota and u get 0.78. It’s just so close.

All this points to really is the 2ALP 2LIB with a final shoot out between 3rd Lib and 1st Grn. It will depend on the feeders right (FED,LDM,SFF) to Libs vs feeders left (SUST,AJP) to Green. [EDIT: Also on any swings too/from ALP and LIB. ALP surplus would help GRN unless they’re spread too much.]

3 incumbents for the liberals is going to make it hard for the greens, but with less left splintering (sxp) it should help the greens. I’m not confident either way, but if push comes to shove, I’d say it leans to a GRN Gain.

Greens MLA Johnathan Davis has been stood down and referred to police over underage sex charges.

https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8418682/greens-mla-investigated-over-teen-sex-allegations/

Assuming his resignation is coming in short order, is it Ellerman or Nuttall who will be elected on countback?

Wilson, it would depend on how voters ranked the 3 Greens candidates. Assuming an even split of intraparty preferences, Laura Nuttall would be favoured to win a countback as she started with a higher primary vote. However, if a larger proportion of Davis’s votes flowed to Sue Ellerman than she would win instead.

Overall, his potential departure from the Assembly on unfavorable terms would probably mean the Greens are a now an underdog to hold his seat and thus the Liberals are in a better position to recover their third seat in this district.

You An you would be able to tell from publicly available data who’d win the countback (after doing number crunching that’s a bit beyond me).

If Davis steps aside and allows another Green to replace him and recontest, they should be able to hang on. The goal before the scandal would be to take that personal vote and see if a 2nd seat is feasible on the back of it (1+1 strategy). As ridiculous as that sounded before, it’s now completely shot to hell. But it would be hard to argue that Davis’ electorate work was despite his party and I don’t see Greens going back to a 2016 result.

This will completely change the Greens strategy for the whole election. At the very least Davis was doing lots of media appearances and would have been one of the main campaign spokespeople

@John you make some interesting points there and that can be a bit reflected in the article (when looking at the comments) released by the Canberra Times (Link: https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8402043/all-six-act-greens-will-seek-party-endorsement-for-2024-election/#comments). Davis was definitely building a profile and it also made sense that [until recent events transpired] all 6 would want to re-contest. If Davis was to resign, that would at least give the next Greens MLA time to take advantage of incumbency to build a profile to give the GRN a best shot of retaining their seat at the next election (ala Brisbane City Council tactic). Looking at the votes here and in Yerrabi, this would seem to be the most marginal seat and could go to either ALP/LIB/GRN this far out from the election.

John, I presume are you a Canberra local and thus have more background info about Davis. If he was and is currently seen as a credible MP with strong leadership characteristics, then his ‘scandal’ may be seen as less disturbing and is probably just a lapse of historical judgment, thus minimising any damage to the Greens as a party.

You An yes I am Canberra based. All I can say is that this whole saga is a huge shock to me and I won’t speculate in a public forum on what I think happened.

The Greens immediately reported the allegations to the police and “stood down” Davis. They have not even remotely engaged in any kind of cover up as far as I can tell. Davis regularly engaged in bipartisan and tripartisan initiatives and it will be hard for any party to pretend they never liked him. I don’t see the scandal actively hurting the Greens outside Brindabella and I’m mainly thinking in terms of lost opportunities.

I don’t have any hard data on his personal vote but it is my firm my view that he is the reason Greens were able to win a seat in Brindabella that year, and he didn’t slow down after being elected.

Greens have been able to manage enormous sophomore surges in other parts of the country (e.g. Michael Berkman in Maiwar), which would be the basis of the Greens being able to go from 1 to 2 in each seat the way they did in Kurrajong 2020. That would make Greens the 2nd largest or even equal largest party. Consolidating one seat is still a challenge and the Greens can’t count on extremely efficient votes like they got on 2020.

Brindabella is not natural Green territory and even has booths that voted No to the voice (unusual for the ACT). 2020’s results showing a big right to left swing surprised me.

Yerrabi will also be a challenge as Braddock was the lowest profile of the 6 Greens – though perhaps it’s different on the ground in Yerrabi.There should be a Liberal to Labor wing there without Coe’s leader bonus so agree with Politics Obsessed that it’s a 3 way contest for the 3rd seat.

If Lee”s “moderate” pitch actually gets any traction then Greens are at risk in Kurrajong (which generally seems to have moved even further left – my money is on Greens retaining both). So that puts the range for the Greens as I see it from 3 seats to 9 (last week I would have said 3 to 10), though a year is a very long time in politics.

I lived in Canberra for a short while and Brindabella is more of a traditional, suburban type area that would make it lean more to the right compared to the rest of the city as a whole. I see it somewhat like Loudon County, Virginia (part of the Greater Washington DC metropolitan area) that is more of a swing region instead of solid Democratic area.

The suburbs in this district are also generally more dependent on private car-based transport, with only two rapid bus routes into Tuggeranong unlike other districts which have more frequent public transport (buses and light rail).

Doubt the Greens will lose a seat. No way I see it being 3-2. If anything Labor could drop to 1 seat. I see no circumstance where the Greens are shut out.