Isaacs – Australia 2019

The assessment says xxx – just letting you know.

On another note, on these boundaries, this is one the Liberals should definitely target, especially in 2022 if Shorten gets in next year.

This is my seat. Dreyfus should hold with an average or slightly above swing. He’s active – I’ve seen him this year at my local station, my sporting club and my son’s school, so he does the small stuff.

Last time around the Libs ran a ridiculous campaign on a state issue, claiming that the state labor government was going to raise the entire Frankston line four storeys in the air – with these crazed flyers about how everyone’s house price was about to collapse – so people should vote for the federal Libs. If it sounds a bit strained that’s because it was, and it of course never happened, but it did cause some local angst. I’d expect swings along the train line to Labor as progressives who fell for the scare campaign last time come back to to Dreyfus. (Who knows, the Libs may find a federal issue to campaign on, but I won’t hold my breath).

If nothing else the Libs should have preselected by now. I’m pretty sure they’ll be sandbagging Dunkley this time around and if they hold that, looking north for 2022.

2019 though, safe Labor hold.

This seat will become the bellwether in Victoria, although whilst Dreyfus is here I can’t see Labor losing.
I also agree with @PJ he should have above average swing to him as he quite an active local member and relatively uncontroversial.

this seat remains labour as long as it doesn’t expand into the area covered by Goldstein.. a major expansion into that area would shift the seat to Marginal Liberal… Dreyfus is a quality candidate who will be ag in a future Labor Government

I will NEVER forget that Dreyfus asked an empty room for questions! I can only laugh when I see him…

High up the list of possible Liberal gains off Labor (necessary to win the election) but the other comments here are testing my assumptions.

I thought he would be an inactive local MP due to being a front bencher and not living in the electorate – PJ says otherwise.

PJ, what does the state level campaigning look like in this seat? Mordialloc is a key seat for the next election.

John,
It’s swinging seat territory both at a federal and state level. There plenty of past MLA and LHR who have worked very hard for their seats here (ALP and lib ….and both in Dunkley and Hotham and their respective underlying state seats) but have lost it when the swing is on.

Your initial hunch is correct.

Dreyfus hasn’t left Isaacs by 2022 I expect the voters will do it for him.

State campaigning is pretty heavy here. Isaacs is basically parts of the bellwether sandbelt seats plus a bunch of quite good Labor booths in the state seat of Clarinda and then a smaller handful of excellent Labor booths in the city of greater Dandenong. Put it like this, on these boundaries, Labor would still have won Isaacs in the 2013 Abbotslide by a handful of votes. What that says to me is the Libs can win it in landslide wins, but not in normal elections.

Of course, there’s likely to be another redistribution between the 19 and 22 elections and that will have a big mark on this seat (if it goes back into Dandenong, Carrum Downs or up to Clayton South it will become pretty safe for Labor. If it moves into Beaumaris or Bentlegh it would become much more likely to go Lib.) It’s pretty telling that the last time the Libs held Isaacs it was because it included Beaumaris and Black Rock.

I reckon the Libs will sandbag Dunkley this time around and see what 2022 holds for Isaacs. If the next redistribution helps them and/or Dreyfus retires, it’ll be game on. But I can’t see the Libs winning this time (and as they haven’t even chosen a candidate yet, presumably they feel much the same.)

My old seat prior to redistribution, and some 20 years before at my old address.
Mark Dreyfus is certainly active in the local community and is often out and about in the local shopping strips and railway stations.

The state seats of Carrum and Mordialloc basically cover this, and they will be a major battle ground of the state election.

I’d have to agree that as long as Dreyfus remains, his personal vote will help keep Labor in here.

When he leaves, it will depend how much further redistributions have pushed into Bentleigh, or west into Goldstein.

PJ. L96 & Darren Mc
Please tell me what i am missing ?. To me Dreyfuss comes across as insufferably smug, self satisfied, superior, arrogant, & absolutely unlikeable.

Yes i know he is an SC, very bright, probably very capable.

Here’s my problem – Dreyfuss is a highly fixated Type 1
examples of enlightened 1’s Mandela, Gandhi, M.L. King.
Examples of Fixated 1’s Ayatollah Khomenei, Thatcher, Robespierre

I don’t trust 1’s because they re always Certain they are right, & will never admit they have done wrong. Mrs Winediamond MK1 (my x ) is a type 1

@winediamond
I understand where you’re coming from. Dreyfus is quite well off and the epitome of upper class elitism and as I believe the wealthiest Labor MP.
That being said he would go to the opening of an envelope in his electorate and he is quite well known and respected.
Ultimately he is in the wrong electorate, the perfect fit would be MacNamara. He may live in Higgins, which is just a stones throw away, although he is both a moderate and a Jew.
That being said he won’t move there, the only seat that is plausible would be Bruce and that would set off a factional war.

WD – What can I say, I respect active MPs who know what they’re doing. Dreyfus iscertainly the most active rep I’ve had and probably the most active in the South-East (though admittedly there are some pretty dud MPs down this way). A few years ago I had a chat to him at the station about the (then) impending closure of the local CSIRO, which was later saved, and he seemed knowledgeable and genuine. Sure, one could say that all MPs should be like that, but in my experience many aren’t, so I was pretty impressed to see one who was.

Anyway, that’s just anecdotal, but I think the general view down this way is that he works hard. As Sandbelter noted, this area has a history of hard working MPs who still got swept away when the swing was on, but I can’t see a Lib sweep happening this time around (I mean, really, does anyone think a 3% swing to the Libs is on the cards?)

@PJ while I can’t comment on Dreyfus’ activity or lack thereof, I agree with everything else you say. The small margin means it ought to be a target, but that doesn’t mean the Libs are actually going to win it.

However, it is worth noting that Antony Green has the margin at 2.2% – far more manageable a a feat. As you say though, I doubt they’d get it.

@winediamond, when he first won the seat, he certainly appeared absent (although that could have been the location of his electoral office in Keysborough – maybe he was more active in that area) and didn’t see him, or hear much from him at all.

I think maybe once he became a minister and then had a swing away at 2010-2013 he may have realised that it wasn’t the easy seat promised to him originally.

His efforts at being a local member seemed to increase after that, the office moved to Mordialloc, and he seemed to be involved in multiple community activities.

L96 says he would attend any opening in the electorate, which is true, but he does also make a lot of effort to attend local schools, and unlike certain former state members in the area, actually seems to know which school he is at. I think that increases his profile among families and the school communities.

Having said that, I’ve actually never met him in person, so others experiences may vary.

PJ, L96, Darren Mc, & W of S
Thanks for your comments, & response . Some interesting facts, & opinions. Nothing wrong with anecdotal, or otherwise.

Perhaps Dreyfuss has offset a demographic swing ? If so, to what extent. There is a vague possibility that some Victorian MP’s will be unexpectedly vulnerable from the aftershocks of the demise of the the Red Dan govt. This is one. Wait & see !!. Could be fun !!

I’d love to see this smart arse tossed, & return to paying taxes ( SCs pay lots of tax !) instead of consuming them.

“There is a vague possibility that some Victorian MP’s will be unexpectedly vulnerable from the aftershocks of the demise of the the Red Dan govt. This is one. Wait & see !!. Could be fun !!”

@winediamond

Oh winediamond how wrong did you get it on the Daniel Andrews government election prospects. lol 🙂

Liberals are actually struggling to find a candidate for this seat it was reported in the Fairfax despite the 3% margin. There were also other marginal seats such as Bendigo and McEwen that they are fishing for candidates and lowering the application fee to entice someone to stand. The general feeling outside looking in is unless something miraculous happens the Liberals will be hit hard in Victoria. I also think if Mark Dreyfus smashes through then the 2022 predictions of the Liberals winning will look very dubious indeed.

Labor retains easily.

yes the boundary change that improved Dunkley weakened this seat… but alp returned with an increased majority………..Beaumauris used to tilt this seat the liberals way

It beggars belief that the Libs don’t yet have a candidate for this seat and others that could be winnable. Prior to the Turnbull dumping, my view was that the Libs could have been in with a chance here. Two months out and no candidate – they are on the road to a hiding to nothing. Remember all of these Sandbelt seats swing savagely against the Libs in the state election. Will be – but shouldn’t have been – ugly for the Libs.

Historically this has been swingy territory but the reality is that LAB has held it for the past 23 years, albeit on variable margins. Going off Vic election results, and the fact Libs are still without a candidate, there looks little chance of this one shifting with it being far more likely to see the LAB margin extend considerably. Unless this seat is redistributed significantly further north along the bay, its hard to see this seat switching hands barring a major landslide election as redistributions east/north east or even north inland are taking it into turf that is either LAB favourable or marginal at best.

This is my electorate – Dreyfus will easily win!

The Liberal candidate is a guy named Jeremy Hearn.

Originally ran for Higgins preselection, lost and is now running for Isaacs.

I guess the good news for the Libs is they didn’t preselected this peanut for Higgins.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-01/jeremy-hearn-scott-morrison-liberal-candidate-calls-to-quit/11060598

Jeremy Heard like all sacked candidates will still be shown on the printed ballot papers with the Liberal logo. Is he one of those right wing conservative Christians I wonder? Other parties are having problems with some candidates like ALP, One nation etc. These dummies don’t realist how the anti social media can cause you to become unstuck after you use it. Better not to use facebook, twitter etc.

In part due to the Skyrail issue subsiding, the disendorsement of the Liberal candidate and the general swing to Labor in Victoria, expecting a BIG ALP margin here.

Maybe close to 10%?

Even before today’s problems, it seemed as if the Libs had given up in the area. I’ve seen nothing on houses, nothing on shops and no billboards. I haven’t seen active party presence at shops etc. Hardly any direct mail.

Hearn is not local (like Dreyfus). But unlike Dreyfus he has no profile. He only became candidate after losing Higgins. A couple of months isn’t enough to build a profile.

The state election result, with Inga Peulich’s Chelsea office closing probably wouldn’t have helped local party activity.

Wreathy of Sydney – Skyrail is a state ALP government project but yes its a bigger win for the incumbent.

And? That didn’t stop the Libs from campaigning on it last time.

“No Skyrail” was largely an Astroturf noise generation project created by the Vic Libs. It was never as unpopular as the Liberal media machine wanted to make it seem – there was maybe 40% genuine grassroots anger and 60% astroturf. The state seats where Skyrail was being built at the time (from Caulfield to Dandenong) as well as the bottom end of the sandbelt where it was about to be built (Frankston and Carrum) were all held pretty easily by Labor. Carrum and Frankston had two of the biggest Labor swings in the state.

Having said that, they did chicken out in the Chelsea area, where they’re going to go rail-under, despite that meaning the rails will be below sea level, only a stone’s throw from the beach.

Reservoir is being Skyrailed now, and there will be some longer Skyrail sections through Preston/Coburg area also in the next few years.

That’s a nice little rant Expat, but you completely missed the point. I’m not saying the issue had cut-through. Simply that it was an easy stick with which to beat Labor in Victoria. State and local issues are always easy to make resonant within a community, even if the issue is overblown. I’m simply saying that because the issue has subsided in prominence, the Libs have much less to campaign on, NOT necessarily that the issue was ‘explosive’.

Two rail lines in this electorate (St Kilda and Port Melbourne lines) were converted to light rail in about 1987 by the state ALP government. The bridge over Clarendon St near the Casino was demolished and the rail bridge to Flinders St Station was turned into a pedestrian bridge were loony cyclist travel at speed on terrorising pedestrians.

CORRECTION – the light rail conversions are in Macnamara not Issacs.

Quite right Wreathy.

For what it’s worth, I hadn’t seen or heard a thing from Hearn before Monday, so the seat was never on the Libs radar. Obviously this and a lack of scare campaigns on state issues won’t help the Libs. Margin could well be ten points.