Higgins – Australia 2019

I cant see why Costello would want to contest Higgins now, seeing as he refused to take on the leadership after the 2007 election and left Parliament in 2009 and the Liberal party now are more divided and unlikely to regain power than they were in 2007. Even if he wants to re-contest it’s far from certain he’d be elected.

agree Malcolm ….. Costello will not be contesting Higgins

Agree, not a chance.

Whoever commissioned that poll was clearly clutching at straws to try to whip up some numbers hoping it might make him consider the idea, but the results no doubt had the exact opposite effect. Why would he make a return to run for a seat that could go either way and he might lose?

Another reason why Costello probably wouldn’t run, in 2007 it made sense for him to stay and become opposition leader because it was always possible the ALP would only last a term or two, whereas now the Liberals have burned many bridges with their traditional base that they potentially face a decade out of office. Costello should stick to enjoying his lunch time walks along Collins St.

Peter Costello will not want to be in opposition again either which is likely after the next election. Move on and lets get new blood in parliament following the resignation of some serving MP’s. Parliament should not be a career or job for life. Three or four terms (9 to 12 years) at most is enough for any backbench MP and perhap a term or two longer for a minister (15 to 18 years).

Costello is something like 60 to 62 years old…… this would be a bad choice for him even if only for lifestyle reasons. I don’t like the idea of fixed terms for mps…….. but now especially with the liberal party they cannot guarantee a safe election of their candidate……… so if they make poor or inappropriate choices then the voters may decide otherwise…….. this is the issue with Tony Abbott..he was first elected in 1994……. something like a quarter of a century in parliament. He is seen as destructive to his own party…… some one who is out of step with his electorate on issues like gay marriage and climate change….. his back ground goes back to the dlp…. ncc issues of the 1950s as he saw them in the 1970s. But now as there is no dlp he joined the catholic conservatives in the liberal… He I think is a similar age to Costello but a bit older…. times up?

The greens selected a different candidate than 2016, what are some of you on about, Source if you think im wrong, and don’t post the Greens website, That was from 2016 list of candidate’s

Jason Ball was definitely the candidate in 2016. I didn’t live in Higgins at the time, but was in neighbouring Melbourne Ports and remember his posters everywhere around Windsor/Prahran.

2016 – https://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2016/guide/higg/
2019 – https://greens.org.au/candidates/vic

I know you said don’t post the Greens website, but that page is specifically for 2019 hence why only 4 lower house and 1 upper house candidates are on there so far, and also Steph Hodgins-May is listed as “Macnamara (formerly Melbourne Ports)”.

Jason Ball’s page makes reference to building on the 2016 result also.

Jason Ball is definitely the same Greens candidate, I don’t know what you’re on about Daniel.

If Greg gets the Liberal preselection, this would be an ALP gain, because there would be allot of backlash replacing a woman with a man, the media will slam them hard over this and i also see many liberal party members resigning, but this is a big if, if the liberals lose it and select him, Hibbs will likely get it though

I agreed with PvO when he said on Insiders that Oliver Yates might have been better off running in Higgins.

I think that is pure speculation from PvO – trying to said like he is super intelligent – again. It would be more of a lottery in Higgins than Kooyong. Any IND in Higgins needs to reduce LIB vote by approx 9% from 52% to 43% and get over the Greens (probably) into 2nd place. A swing from LIB to the Left will help on the first count, but may make the 2nd more difficult. The soft LIB vote and the soft Green vote available to an IND, may be similar constituency and simultaneously able to be harnessed with the one campaign, but it also may not be. I think it likely that an IND in Higgins will be in a very close 3 way race for 2nd (of the last 4 candidates remaining) and a high chance of being excluded before ALP and Greens. The bar to get into 2nd is lower in Kooyong – its really a replay of Wentworth but with a 5% head start on the task of reducing the LIB vote.

close result if 6% swing …..low liberal first preference less than 47%……… put liberals last strategy

I agree with High Street. A lot of people have said Higgins would be a good electorate for a Phelps-like independent to run but the different between Higgins and seats like Wentworth & Warringah is that there will be significantly bigger Greens & ALP primary votes to overcome for second place in Higgins.

In Warringah, ALP & Greens both polled under 15% in 2016. That’s a low bar for an independent to surpass. In Wentworth, Phelps only had to compete with 2016 primary votes of under 18% to get into second place. ALP & Greens never have a chance of winning either seat, so progressive voters are more likely to throw their support behind an independent with more chance of winning.

Higgins is very different. Labor may have only polled 16% last time, but the swing they’ll get across Victoria combined with the fact the redistribution gave Higgins more ALP-friendly turf in Hughesdale & Murrumbeena should comfortably put their primary vote over 20% again. The Greens are already starting from a 24% primary vote, and hold a state seat within the electorate.

On top of that, a combined ALP/Greens vote of around 45% and a Liberal vote expected to drop under 50% makes the seat very winnable for either ALP or the Greens, meaning both parties will campaign strongly and progressive voters have more reason to stick with them.

Additionally, without a high profile independent, more of the usual ALP/Green vote in seats like Wentworth & Warringah is a teal/centrist protest voters ripe who probably align more with a centrist. Higgins is more diverse and has more pockets of genuine left-wing support that make up the ALP/Greens vote, making them less likely to switch to a centrist even when the seat wasn’t winnable. This makes it a lot harder for an independent to pick up votes from ALP & Greens to put them in second place.

I agree with High Street that Kooyong fits the Warringah/Wentworth profile a lot better for an independent than Higgins does.

Thanks for backing me in, Trent. You’ve added a few extra good issues I hadn’t thought of (and I agree with – from experiences of living in North Sydney but having spent a week in Higgins over the holidays). One caution on ALP and GRN vote and LIB vote in Warringah in 2016. There was already an IND that got 12% or so. That has sort of had the effect of their being half a credible IND already baked into the PV figures.

High Street – I wouldn’t even call it pure speculation since Oliver Yates has indicated he will be running in Kooyong however my reason for thinking Yates might have been better contesting Higgins is that I think the bar might be lower than in Kooyong.

1) Frydenberg has a good rep as a local MP, this is something missing in Higgins
2) I am not sure the Green’s candidate Jason Ball is a strong candidate for a seat like Higgins particularly outside of Prahran/South Yarra

The question mark next to Ball is how does he perform in an election favoring the ALP when he seems to be a limited candidate with his strength being marriage equality which has been successfully resolved.

I agree with Trent’s assessment of Higgins however Kooyong is more difficult than it looks due to the ALP vote which was only 20% in 2016, but that was a soft result due to

1) Frydenberg being an active MP
2) Turnbull was Liberal leader
3) There was a strong Green vote
4) The ALP ran a poor candidate

Both Higgins and Kooyong will be interesting.

The Australian ran an article and the Greens vote is generally down. Liberal sources have revealed Labor is the biggest threat in Higgins and Kooyong and not the Greens. Liberal sources also believe Adam Bandt could be toppled in Melbourne however Labor has played that prospect down suggesting Bandt is too entrenched in the seat.

Local Paediatrician Katie Allen has been preselected for the seat of Higgins

The Liberals seem to have this one right but only time will tell if Katie is able to hold it for the Liberals.

Proof?

Golly…a moderate woman selected as a candidate…
all those extreme, right wing, conservative,religious blokes…Abbott,Abetz,Andrews,Dutton,Morrison,Kelly…
must be turning in their graves

Katie Allen, a good choice.

Very good choice and the only Liberal candidate I think who can hold the seat for them.

Could be 51-49 here between Lib v Greens

Liberal Hold, But only Just, I doubht the Greens can come 2nd place. Since you would think by the polls the Labor vote is up, And tactical voting might just put Labor ahead of the greens here,

Daniel
Why? Something other than your opinion would make your comment more credible.
Andrew Jackson

Katie Allan was the Liberal candidate for the seat of Prahran for the state election last year. Definitely a moderate compared to the rest of her ilk.

I tend to agree that the ALP will be more of a threat this year than the Greens. The unions have even appointed an organiser in this area and they consider Higgins an outlier seat, which will help the ALP. Jason Ball is pretty prolific on social media, but that doesn’t win elections.

There just isn’t as much of a ground effort this time around and if a mammoth effort for several months leading into the 2016 election netted only a ~2% swing on two party preferred terms against a 9% margin, combined with the party going backwards generally as well as internal scandals, I am not at all confident that they will gain ground this year. The only seat I am even slightly confident that the Greens can gain this year is Melbourne Ports/Macnamara and even then I’m doubtful.

Union campaigning doesn’t necessarily help the ALP over the Greens. In 2016 their materials were “put Liberals Last”. There are some unions that will put good money into opposing Greens (eg the CFMEU were active in supporting Labor in the Northcote and Batman byelections), but they’re far less likely to do so in a blue ribbon seat, especially when there are marginal seats to be won.

The union campaign will be put the liberals last this will only disavantage labour if the greens outpoll them which will not occur in Melbourne except for The Melbourne electorate

The core of this seat is Liberal/Coalition, Greens and/or Labor will not be favored. On an interesting comment it is strange seeing that Sportsbet market has such a low likely hood of Liberal being a favourite, Coalition at 1.95 and Labor at 2.20 – Crazy!

Anthony

Under usual circumstances you are totally right in writing that this should be an easy Liberal hold however this area has a strong preference for Turnbull style Liberalism/Conservatives politics over the the more reactionary policies put forward by the likes of Abbott/Morrison.

The ALP are a chance here for several reasons.

1) Unlike many safe seats, this electorate has a number of strong ALP lending booths

2) The Liberals scored only 52% primary in 2016, this I believe was their lowest primary in the seat’s history and if the polls are correct then it looks like going to primaries, two things that add to this likelihood is that the government is seeking a third term so we should see a swing against it and it doesn’t have an incumbent

3) The combined non-Liberal vote is high enough for it to become at least marginal or lost in what looks like being a poor election result for the Liberal Party

For me the Malvern booths will be critical because in the state election there was a 10% swing against the Liberals in the state seat of Malvern, if that is repeated and the ALP do okay in areas around Ashburton, Murrumbeena and South Yarra/Prahran then this seat looks like a possible gain, however if the Liberals can limit any swing to under say 5% across Malvern then they could hold on.

I discount the Greens at this stage on the bases of Windsor being removed from the electorate in the last redistribution and the adding of areas that prefer the ALP over the Greens.

Fairfax has reported Labor has replaced their candidate Josh Spiegel with high-profile lawyer Fiona McLeod. The party believes they have a better chance with her as the candidate. The party’s internal polling has Labor ahead by a fraction in Higgins it was reported.

https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp.smh.com.au/politics/federal/labor-dumps-higgins-candidate-in-favour-of-high-profile-lawyer-20190321-p516ae.html

Labor must be taking the seat quite seriously if they are changing to a high profile candidate. The libs have preselected well which they needed to to hold the seat, but still think this seat is in play. If a former safe seat like Higgins is in play, then you’d imagine that the government will probably lose the election in Victoria alone

On paper they pre-selected well but she had a woeful showing in the state election.

Prahran may be the state seat that’s least representative of Higgins’ profile, but the worrying fact for Katie Allen would have to be that the biggest swing against her didn’t happen in the Greens heartland that overlaps Macnamara or even in the more progressive Prahran & South Yarra. The most savage swing of -19% happened in Toorak which is not only the Liberal heartland of Higgins but also her home suburb.

A lot of that swing went to Labor, and it happened with a far weaker ALP candidate than they are running in Higgins…

When I say weaker, I mean lower profile. I think Neil Pharaoh was actually a very good candidate.

Obviously the off-set to that is that Daniel Andrews is a much more popular leader than Bill Shorten, and state policies have far less impact on what matters to the wealthy than federal policies. So rich Liberal voters happy to vote for a state Labor government may be less willing to vote for a federal Labor government.

This seat has never returned an alp member since Holt’s days… but then again the greens did not exist either then.in recent times the libs have been returned in this seat with 7 to 10% margin obviously not the super safe seat it once was. I suspect Kelly would have retained the seat but now she has gone the liberal position is weaker…..but is it enough for the seat to change hands? The state election figures suggest reason’s to worry. But the liberal s must be favourites. May depend on the vic swing…..
In play

Polling is heavy in this seat.

I’ve participated in 3 seat polls specifically referring to Higgins candidates’ names in just the last 2 weeks.

The three main candidates (Lib, Lab, Grn) were on ABC Radio Melbourne on the John Faine morning program today and they all spoke well however the Labor candidate said she had been a member of the ALP for a week.

Katie Allen is about as good a Liberal candidate as you can get, however it didn’t help her when she suffered a -10% swing in Prahran last year. It’s going to be an interesting seat to watch I think but I’d still consider her the favourite to win, in a very close race.

My prediction is that Higgins will be similar to Prahran 2014 in regards to being a genuine 3 way race with close counts at both the 3PP and 2PP stages; and Macnamara will be more like Prahran 2018 where the 3PP count will be interesting but whoever finishes higher out of Labor & Greens will win the seat easily.

There was a drive by shooting on Sunday morning in Higgins Electorate, in Chapel St Prahran, which is a shopping and night club precinct and pretty shady at time too. The shooting saw 4 men shot with one security guard murdered and two other guards and a patron wounded.

Perhaps law and order may be an election issue and lockout laws too as the shooting happened at 3am and people were still queuing to get into “The Love Machine” night club. There have been many other incidents and violent in Chapel St over the decades. Booze, drugs, prostitutes and gangs spoil this shopping strip at night.

As I said earlier the three main candidate (Lib, Grn, Lab) were on ABC Radio Melbourne this morning on the John Faine show. Roving mics were in the crowd and the UAP candidate spoke up but he was howled down by Faine and the afternoon presenter Raf Epstein. This was ridiculous as the UAP candidate could not have a democratic say as his platform probably did not suit these two ABC grubs agenda I assume.

Thankfully Faine is retiring at the end the year and good riddance. Faine is arrogant, repetitive, talks over people or often talking about himself. I never listened to any afternoon radio.

Yeah that was a few blocks from where I live, I walked my dog past the scene the next morning. It appears to be bikie related and I doubt it will sway votes one way or another. Crime was a big campaign angle at the state election but fell flat for the Coalition, and local crime isn’t a federal issue so I don’t see it coming up much.

I also think with Higgins being such a bigger seat than Prahran, Katie Allen’s priority this time will be containing the swing in the Liberal heartland around the state seat of Malvern which is really all they need to do to hold the seat. Second priority would be the swinging area around Murrumbeena. Winning over territory already dominated by the Greens around Chapel St likely won’t be a focus for her this time.

On Higgins, I suspect the Liberals will suggest to the AEC that it implement its 2010 purposed boundary changes for Higgins/MacNamara.

I agree. Although Higgins should return to relatively safe Liberal after this election anyway, that boundary change will lock it up for them and make it unwinnable for anybody else, albeit at the expense of Macnamara which they’ll pretty much lose any chance of winning by swapping out its strongest Liberal area for Higgins’ least Liberal voting area.

Liberal hold, But only just

Trent that would depend on how much of St Kilda East/Balaclava was in the seat because a seat based just on the City of Port Phillip and the western half of Stonnington with Docklands added would probably become a hotly contested marginal seat.

If Docklands was included and Stonnington crossed the Williams Rd boundary, you’re right it would be closer than I’m giving credit for, but it would still be worse for the Liberals than it is on current boundaries. While areas like Docklands and South Yarra are pretty marginal 50/50 territory in a good election for the Liberals, gaining 50/50 territory in place of Caulfield booths where they get over 60% 2PP will still increase Labor’s margin, albeit by a lot less than if only South Yarra & Prahran west of Williams Rd was added.

Especially now that the seat is no longer named Melbourne Ports I don’t see any reason for the river to be breached and Docklands being added, and with the high rise boom around Southbank & St Kilda and the Fisherman’s Bend development planned, I think it’s more likely that Macnamara will lose more electors than it gains, so with the dense population in South Yarra & Prahran it’s unlikely Macnamara could gain too much from Stonnington in return for the Caulfield area.

I think the most suitable boundary between Macnamara & Higgins would be Williams Road north of Princes Highway, and Orrong Road south of the highway. Those roads are really where the character changes most from busy inner-city to leafy inner-suburban and for the most part it follows suburb boundaries too (apart from splitting Prahran in two).

I did some numbers around the most recent redistribution time and it worked out very well with a small section in the south between Glen Eira Road & Glenhuntly Road transferring to Goldstein instead of Higgins.

Once again too much faith in the state results, they have nothing to do with federal issues and federal results.
The NSW election demonstrated just that, Labor won on state issues and Turnbull is now a distant memory.
In the Victorian election, Liberal voters did not mind the state Labor Government. However, federal issues are different and there are more negatives for Labor at the federal level.
As long as the Liberals campaign hard and do not take the seat for granted, Higgins will be retained in a tough battle.

Stan

The NSW election was a different campaign than the Victorian one. Both the Victorian and NSW governments were seen as good performers with poor oppositions and the feedback at the booths during the Victorian election was that the voters were angry with the Liberals over the leadership and policy direction.

Higgins is only being talked about due to how the local area performed, the Liberal base in Victoria reacted strongly in November unlike in the NSW election that saw the well heeled Liberal base besides in a few cases mostly voted as usual.

The Liberals should hold Higgins but these current boundaries do offer the ALP some confidence with being competitive

There’s an essential poll that has the Greens ahead 52-48 against the LNP. Primaries of Lib 36%, ALP 30% and Greens 29% however the sample size was pretty small at only 400.

Think you can say this seat is in play, although I wouldn’t be calling anything based on that seat poll