McEwen – Australia 2016

For almost its entire existence, McEwen has been the quintessential “bits and pieces” seat. Basically, it’s all the parts of outer northern Melbourne and central Victoria that don’t fit in any of the surrounding seats. There’s really no connection between the west (which would fit better in Bendigo and Calwell), east (which belongs with Jagajaga and Scullin) and the centre of the seat.

It’s also a seat that tends to get knocked around a lot at redistributions. As you can see from the map, even a small change in boundaries can cause a big shift in the margin, so good luck trying to be an MP here for the long term.

Interesting that the Coalition are the favourites for this seat. Anyone willing to clue me in? I can’t see the Liberals being favoured to flip any seats they don’t already have, and there aren’t any real special factors (e.g. retiring MP’s, scandals [AFAIK]) to make it otherwise. Anyone have any ideas?

Morgieb
Ben’s assessment was that it could go either way.
I’d say the Libs have a slight advantage from the very large number of new voters/homeowners, with large mortgages.
The re-distribution for this seat in 2010 was a travesty, if not a debacle. This is evidenced by it’s enrolment of 127,000 voters. A full 20 % OVER quota. Without this kindly assistance from the AEC, The libs would have won this seat comfortably in 2013.

I think the Liberals’ favouritism here comes from before the polls started to narrow, plus a general feeling (which I agree with) that the Libs will do relatively better in Victoria under Turnbull.

I agree winediamond that the redistribution was messy, but it is very difficult to draw a logical seat in this part of Victoria unless you abolish one of Murray or Indi. The AEC tried that last time and the locals (led by Liberal MPs) forced them to overturn it.

The bookmaker odds clash with what the parties are telling us. According to a Fairfax article in January, Labor was “not too worried” about McEwen. Similarly, the Liberal Party assessed its own chances as “distant”.

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/liberals-eye-labor-marginals-after-turnbull-ascendancy-20160128-gmg7zr.html

DW
Ahh, the party political propaganda wars !!!!.
Who knows IF they think !!!. Let alone WHETHER they think !!!!.
We are all safest with the the bookies, because for them it is all about the money, & it is after all, their money.

MM
RE; redistribution.
You are right of of course about all the objections to the new seat of Burke.
Yes Murray ought to have been abolished, & so on.
However what disturbs me so greatly is the abject reluctance, if not blindness of the AEC, to recognise, let alone act on long term trends.
This is despite being offered a myriad of DETAILED, & cogent solutions by many people, most notably, your good self.
Instead the AEC invariably chooses minimalist, & stop gap solutions. These usually create more problems, & anomalies, than they resolve.
Mc Ewen is a prime example

Donna Petrovich was a strong candidate in 2013, current Lib candidate going by party website seems to have no community involvement. But surprise in 2013 that Labor did so poorly so perhaps something going on? Does Labor have a ‘field organiser’ working in the seat?

@G R
Labor in Victoria have field organisers for McEwen, Bruce and Chisholm, as well as Corangamite, La Trobe, Deakin and Dunkley.

L96, & GR
Field organisers seem to work very well for labor. Will the libs follow suit ??

Whilst I agree with MM about Turnbull being a better cultural and political fit for Victoria, I still think the ALP will hold this comfortably. If they didn’t lose it in 2013 I doubt it will be lost now, especially since I believe Victoria will revert to form and favour the ALP much more strongly.

W of S
See my post to Morgieb. I’ll put McEwen as my no 2 Vic seat to go against the flow, after Chisholm.

@Winediamond, I don’t know about that. I mean can they really buck the trend that much? The only reason it was not lost in 2007 was because of Fran Bailey. Whilst I do not think very highly of Rob Mitchell, surely as an incumbent he will have a buffer to sustain?

IMO I’d put Bruce as my #2 seat that the Libs have a chance at in Victoria. As with Chisholm, Bruce has a retiring and popular incumbent and this is the best chance for the Coalition to wrest these seats away from Labor before the state trends to far left. The Libs are taking these chances VERY SERIOUSLY by preselecting early and high-profile candidates.

W of S
Yeah Bruce is 3, only because of Helen Kroger, & possibly the E-W debacle. Much tougher IMV.
Mitchell is a donkey, if not an ass.
You have to question the calibre of an MP who can’t manage even junior shadow in the weakest opposition in living memory.
.He really did manage to lose an epic number of votes, in spite of sophomore surge, incumbency, & it being his second campaign. hIS incumbency is already more than factored in.
As for the libs in Victoria. Abbott never really sold them, they just knew Rudd. It really is a very low base IMV.

@WoS & WD
I’d suggest Chisholm is the best chance for the Libs in Victoria followed by McEwen then Bruce. McEwen is plausible but Labor has incumbency, Chisholm is probably the best chance because it naturally Lib territory and Burke was a very popular member. Bruce isn’t likely to change hands, Kroger really doesn’t fit the electorate and being one of the most multicultural seats in the country hurts her as it brings back a few things she has said in the past.
Labor should hold these three, they were worried after Turnbull came to power but now the focus is on gaining Corangamite, which is looking a shoe in, and La Trobe and Dunkley which are toss ups.

@L96 I still think Bruce is quite plausible too. It would have been lost last time were it not for Griffin anyway and despite Kroger’s past ‘difficulties’, I still think she has a profile that will help immensely as the state’s past senator.

I think Chisholm is a genuine tossup, Bruce leans slightly to the ALP and McEwen is a likely ALP retain. IMO I think the Coalition will hold Corangamite comfortably and Dunkley by a small margin. As for La Trobe, I agree that it’s a tossup, maybe Labor slightly favoured.

L96
I’d rate Dunkley way ahead of Corangamite, as a labor gain. BB was such a Dudley Doright, i’d guess his personal vote was awesome.
I’d have thought Chisholm was more multi cultural than Bruce, with the big asian community in Box Hill ??
If there is any justice the E-W link debacle ought to really bite there.
I’ll reaffirm my view on Mitchell, & other arguments in plumping for Mc Ewen as the dark horse.

W of S
Apparently iv’e not influenced you !!!???.

@Winediamond, shocking I know! But in all seriousness, I completely agree with you re: Mitchell’s credentials, he is truly a shocker IMV.

I think though, that if the Libs were not able to pick the seat up whilst the state and national trend was heavily in their favour WITH a strong candidate in Donna Petrovich, I just do not see how they will manage it this time, even with Turnbull at the helm. I think the result 2PP in Victoria will be about 53-54% Labor’s way (that’s even a hopeful prospect based on Turnbull’s more moderate credentials making an impact, far from guaranteed and much more favourable than every poll I’ve seen in the state) which makes getting the seat (without an incumbent of our own) nigh impossible.

To top it all off, I just have this ‘gut’ feeling. I know that it is not evidence but it is like a subconscious belief that Labor will hold it. I hope I’m wrong, because that would be better for my party, but I just don’t feel like that will happen.

The only way I see this seat falling is if the Libs manage to reverse their state-wide decline here and can either win the 2PP or keep it competitive, blowouts like what the polls are predicting are not permissible! They do that, then I say they have a good shot. But in the current climate, I say that is unlikely.

W of S
Then you would like me to be right !!!??? Remember the bookies are with me on this one !!!!

@WD & WoS
Look I’m a member of the ALP and even I concede that Mitchell isn’t much chop, and to be honest I don’t think the Lib candidate is that great either. I agree that Petrovich was a strong local candidate and the fact of the matter is that she failed to win with a strong swing behind her.
The one saving grace for Labor is that the southern end of the electorate, the outer northern suburbs of Melbourne is relatively good for Labor and those booths should be going back to 60-40 territory

@Winediamond, I wasn’t aware. I just checked Sportsbet, it’s 1.60 to the Coalition compared to 2.25 for Labor.

And yes, I hope you (and the bookies) are right 😉

@L96 that’s why I don’t think Labor will lose it. The Libs did everything right last time around and still lost it. The only thing they can do now is improve their 2PP state-wide and that is much harder to do and not likely to happen this time.

L96
WRT the saving grace. 17000+ new voters mostly with BIG mortgages. I wouldn’t count on that 60 – 40. , if i were a betting man. Sooner or later outer Sydney suburban conservatism must be replicated in Melbourne.
Do enlighten us on the inadequacies of Chris Jermyn.

@WD
If you look at the seats to the south of McEwen, Scullin and Calwell are some of the safest Labor seats in the country and I would expect as urban sprawl continues that these outer metropolitan booths continue to swing towards Labor. If you look at seats like Lalor and Gorton, they are similar with huge amounts of new estates and residents with mortgages and they continue to be safe ALP seats. In Melbourne the Labor-Liberal divide is very much based on area of the city, everything north and east of the Yarra is always Labor and everything south of the river is pretty much always Liberal. It’s more of a mindset than anything.
As for Jermyn, he doesn’t seem like he is involved in the community, just from what I’ve heard and seen.
Finally, a 9% swing is quite large and is so big that the swing towards Labor will be larger just as a correction.

L96
You are quite correct on all counts now. Melbourne is a very different city true enough. My point was that this must change, at some point, as it has in Sydney.
Is the north more expensive & aspirational than the west ??. i don’t mean Scullin, & Gorton.
Yes in Victoria everything is a mindset. e.g. the slavish devotion to AFL teams etc !!!.
If Jermyn has any imagination he ought to set about creating some controversy,if not publicity, & quick.

WD
The North is slightly more expensive and there is a real stigma attached to the west. The north and west are both very multicultural, but the north has enclaves of 2nd/3rd generation Italians and Greeks, whilst the West has a far more homogeneous mixture of 1st generation Kurds, Arabs, Burmese, Bosnians, Greeks and Sudanese.
I completely agree that some outer suburban areas are moving towards the Libs, although in Melbourne those seats are Isaacs, Holt, Dunkley and a little bit of Flinders. They have the quintessential mortgage belt areas. Those areas tend to be the marginals that decide state elections, that being said the federal boundaries in Vic are very good for Labor.

Also, let’s not forget that the Coalition is at a notoriously low-ebb in Victoria federally. It has been nearly a half-century since a good, solid Coalition victory in Victoria in the Fraser years If I recall correctly.

Labor were concerned about Bruce last year but they are now reasonably confident as Turnbull has deflated, though aware they will have to campaign hard.

no change this seat

I reckon the $2.25 on Labor for this seat is the bet of the election.

The growth has been in the Craigieburn area which will favour Mitchell and surely Labor can’t do worse than in 2013? Indeed, Poll Bludger has them 4% better off in Victoria.

Mitchell to hold with a few point swing to him.

PJ
You could well be right. However the bookies don’t get it wrong very often. So what do they know that we don’t ???

You misunderstand the bookmaking trade. The bookies will make money no matter who wins in this seat – all the odds show is the weight of money that’s been bet on each outcome – ie. what the punters think, not the bookies.

Labor is from $2.25 to $1.10! $6 for the Lib now, which is probably decent value, though relying on Turnbull improving current fortunes.

I’m kicking myself I didn’t jump on those odds. As I pointed out earlier, it was contrary to the snippets of information released at the time. Further information would appear to have confirmed Labor’s strong position. Certainly the overall dynamics of the election have not changed so much to justify that sort of movement.

Which just goes to show that the bookies’ odds don’t always reflect the true situation. That’s probably particularly true for these sort of markets, which presumably attract only a small number of punters.

The betting odds are a complete joke. They let me put $30 on McEwen and then refused any more – but kept the odds the same for two more weeks. Actually all the seat odds are like that. I used to be able to put down thousands, the but the last few elections have become very restrictive. This time Sportsbet has been restricting the winnings to $30 on each seat, so if the odds were 1.5, I could place $60 to win $30, if they were $1.15, could place $200 to win $30 etc. There is no market, the seat odds simply reflect the bookmakers opinion. Centrebet is even worse, they were only allowing a couple dollars to be placed on most options..literally a couple dollars. I don’t know if this is just for me, I suspect its a general policy. Would be interested if anyone else has tried.

For what its worth, I believe Labor will make a solid rebound here, my tip is back to around 7%.

Sunbury is very strong labor…… expect a swing back to ALP

Peterjk23: That is very interesting information.

This might be veering off topic but in response to the issue raised about the betting markets. In past elections I haven’t had any problems wagering up to $200 with Centrebet on individual seat markets, and win as much as $60 on a bet, but they don’t offer as big a range of markets and tend to only put up individual seat markets closer to the election. They did have some up for this election but there are none up now. I’ve only opened an account with Sportsbet recently, but I noticed they offered me a maximum wager of about $215 on the $1.83 odds for the (unregistered) Australian Communist Party receiving under 0.5% of the Senate vote.

MQ, do you mean Craigieburn?

Sunbury leans Labor but fairly narrowly, at federal and state level. Craigieburn is reliably 60-65% Labor.

Jamie Diaz’s spirit lives on in Jermyn, http://m.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/election-2016-liberal-candidate-chris-jermyn-implodes-at-bill-shorten-event-20160528-gp6536.html

What a dud. Further proof that McEwen is not a top tier target for the Libs.

More bad publicity for the Libs. http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/liberal-candidate-chris-jermyns-missing-millions-after-social-media-flop-20160610-gpg2rl.html

However the Liberals have a couple of things on their side. White-bread Sunbury sees itself as separate from Melbourne and culturally distinct from multicultural Hume. Local Liberals and associated groups are backing a secession of Sunbury from Hume council – something that State Labor has said it won’t do.

More recent and more damaging across the seat has been the state government’s handling of CFA issues. It’s potentially emotional since it concerns how locals see themselves (self-sufficient locally organising community-minded volunteers) and general hostility to union bosses (which Liberals capitalise on). Hence the entry of Malcolm Turnbull into the debate.

Who the hell is Ross Lee? I can’t find anything on him apart from him being a candidate….

Does anyone have any info on how the CFA issue is playing out in this electorate? I’d be very interested to guage Lib prospects here – maybe a surprise on election night?

I think the CFA issue might go some way towards balancing/limiting the negative impact of Jermyn, rather than being a big positive in its own right.

Maybe a stronger candidate + the CFA issue might have tipped the balance here. As it is, the issue is “positive” for the Liberals only in the sense that all the negativity/controversy is no longer only about them.

I am interested in how strong the National will poll here.

I would guess National vote will be minimal – very little genuinely rural areas in it. Only thing that might get their vote above 5% would be if Liberal voters switch because of reservations about their candidate.

I thought it wouldn’t be large, I was wondering if it was in the under 5% range or in the 5-10% range.

The follow up question would be whether they take any swinging voters or former Labor voters then preference the Liberals. It could make a difference here.

WoS – from what I’m hearing the CFA is a white hot issue outside of Inner Melbourne and The Age.

McEwen will stay ALP, it has circa 18,000 new voters, mostly in the ALP inclined south of the electorate, so It’s actual margin is closer to something with a 4 in front of it.