ALP 1.2%
Incumbent MP
Michael Danby, member for Melbourne Ports since 1998.
Geography
Inner south of Melbourne. Macnamara covers the port of Melbourne, St Kilda and Caulfield. Other suburbs include Elwood, Balaclava, Elsternwick, Ripponlea, Middle Park, Albert Park and South Melbourne.
Redistribution
Macnamara is a new name for Melbourne Ports. The seat gained Windsor from Higgins, which reduced the Labor margin from 1.4% to 1.2%. The gap between Labor and the Greens at the key exclusion point was also reduced from 1.1% to 0.3%.
History
Melbourne Ports was an original Federation electorate. After originally being won by the Protectionist party, it has been held by the ALP consistently since 1906, although it has rarely been held by large margins.
Melbourne Ports was first won in 1901 by Protectionist candidate Samuel Mauger, who had been a state MP for one year before moving into federal politics. Mauger was re-elected in 1903 but in 1906 moved to the new seat of Maribyrnong, which he held until his defeat in 1910.
Melbourne Ports was won in 1906 by Labor candidates James Mathews. Mathews held Melbourne Ports for a quarter of a century, retiring in 1931.
Mathews was succeeded in 1931 by Jack Holloway. Holloway had won a shock victory over Prime Minister Stanley Bruce in the seat of Flinders in 1929, before moving to the much-safer Melbourne Ports in 1931. Holloway had served as a junior minister in the Scullin government, and served in the Cabinet of John Curtin and Ben Chifley throughout the 1940s. He retired at the 1951 election and was succeeded by state MP Frank Crean.
Crean quickly rose through the Labor ranks and was effectively the Shadow Treasurer from the mid-1950s until the election of the Whitlam government in 1972. Crean served as Treasurer for the first two years of the Whitlam government, but was pushed aside in late 1974 in the midst of difficult economic times, and moved to the Trade portfolio. He served as Deputy Prime Minister for the last four months of the Whitlam government, and retired in 1977.
Crean was replaced by Clyde Holding, who had served as Leader of the Victorian Labor Party from 1967 until 1976. He won preselection against Simon Crean, son of Frank. Holding served in the Hawke ministry from 1983 until the 1990 election, and served as a backbencher until his retirement in 1998.
Holding was replaced by Michael Danby in 1998, and Danby has won re-election at every subsequent election, although never with huge margins, and a margin as small as 3% in 2004 and 1.4% in 2016.
Candidates
Sitting Labor MP Michael Danby is not running for re-election.
- Ruby O’Rourke (Independent)
- Steph Hodgins-May (Greens)
- Steven Armstrong (Sustainable Australia)
- Kate Ashmor (Liberal)
- Chris Wallis (Independent)
- Craig McPherson (Animal Justice)
- Christine Kay (Rise Up Australia)
- Helen Lucy Paton (United Australia)
- Josh Burns (Labor)
Assessment
Macnamara is a very complex seat with great variations in the vote across different booths. The Liberal Party has a significant lead on the primary vote, but Greens preferences were enough to push Labor ahead in 2016. The Greens are close to overtaking Labor, at which point Labor preferences would decide the result. Any of the three parties could conceivably win. It’s not clear what impact Michael Danby’s retirement will have on the seat – there’s evidence that his presence as an incumbent helped Labor in some parts of the seat and hurt them in others.
2016 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Owen Guest | Liberal | 35,533 | 41.9 | +0.9 | 41.9 |
| Michael Danby | Labor | 22,897 | 27.0 | -4.7 | 26.6 |
| Steph Hodgins-May | Greens | 20,179 | 23.8 | +3.6 | 24.2 |
| Robert Millen Smyth | Animal Justice | 1,685 | 2.0 | +2.0 | 2.0 |
| Henry Von Doussa | Marriage Equality | 1,349 | 1.6 | +1.6 | 1.6 |
| Levi Mckenzie-Kirkbright | Drug Law Reform | 1,348 | 1.6 | +1.6 | 1.5 |
| Peter Holland | Independent | 1,393 | 1.6 | +1.6 | 1.6 |
| John B Myers | Independent | 425 | 0.5 | +0.5 | 0.5 |
| Others | 0.2 | ||||
| Informal | 3,756 | 4.2 |
2016 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Michael Danby | Labor | 43,573 | 51.4 | -2.2 | 51.2 |
| Owen Guest | Liberal | 41,236 | 48.6 | +2.2 | 48.8 |
Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into three areas: Port Melbourne, St Kilda and Caulfield.
Labor won a large 61.7% majority of the two-party-preferred vote in St Kilda, and half of the vote in Caulfield. The Liberal Party polled 51.2% in Port Melbourne.
On a primary vote basis, the three areas look very different. The Greens topped the primary vote in St Kilda, with Labor a distant third. In Port Melbourne and Caulfield, the Liberal Party topped the primary vote, with Labor second and the Greens in third place.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | ALP prim % | LIB prim % | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| St Kilda | 35.3 | 25.9 | 31.1 | 61.7 | 17,712 | 20.0 |
| Port Melbourne | 21.6 | 27.7 | 44.7 | 48.8 | 16,764 | 18.9 |
| Caulfield | 20.1 | 29.4 | 44.7 | 50.0 | 8,550 | 9.6 |
| Other votes | 19.3 | 26.5 | 45.8 | 47.0 | 22,890 | 25.8 |
| Pre-poll | 23.8 | 25.3 | 43.5 | 49.6 | 22,806 | 25.7 |
Election results in Macnamara at the 2016 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes, Labor primary votes, Liberal primary votes and Greens primary votes, as well as a map showing which party topped the primary vote in each booth.
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Greens best chance for a gain on the night. Very close on redistributed votes, deciding factor could be minor party preferences (Reason, Animal Justice, others) Or the Liberals could potentially win thus i think that it is a defiant labor loose the question is whether it is a liberal or a green gain.
Agreed Doug. I think Labor are toast here.
Greens or Libs? Tough to say. However one thing is certain – Turnbull has got to gain this seat if he wants a realistic chance of a third-term.
This will probably be another cliffhanger contest that will take weeks after the election to decide. Greens are a massive chance of winning it. Of all the seats the Greens are realistically capable of winning this is the most likely one. Danby handed out his own HTV cards at the last election asking people to preference the Libs ahead of the Greens, against the wishes of the Labor party too I might add. It was an incredibly stupid thing to do as a Liberal winning instead of a Green could have actually cost Labor a chance to form government. A tiny swig from Labor to the Greens is all it will take for them to win it this time.
Labor have picked a reasonably good candidate, although that being said losing Danby will hurt them in Caulfield, but may help them gain votes in St Kilda.
Whilst this may be Greens best chance for another seat, Labor preferences here may not be as strong as in most other electorates.
My guess is 50.5 – 49.5 Greens over Lib.
I think the Liberals are a good chance here. Loss of Danby’s vote will hurt Labor in Caulfied, and those booths should all go to a 55-60% type vote.
Anyone who voted against Danby because he was “too right wing” and “too pro-Liberal” wouldn’t be voting Liberal anyway, so I don’t see how the loss of his candidacy would improve Labor vs the Liberals. It may improve them vs the Greens, however.
Greens going to win.
The Liberals could getting an even higher portion of the primary from the 10% of the seat that are of the Jewish faith now that Danby isn’t running but the Libs have a massive anchor that is the Turnbull government. Remember that in 2016 Turnbull was actually perceived as a sweetener for progressive voters! Not going to be the case in 2019.
If I remember correctly the post-polling day analysis of the 2016 election indicated Labor preferences to the Greens were only slightly weaker than normal (~77% instead of ~80%?), still strong enough for the Greens to chase down a Liberal that gets 43% or less 3PP.
Labor didn’t pick the kind of candidate who could beat the Greens with their own voters. There’s every chance that the ALP vote was depressed in this area from Danby but preselecting one of his staffers isn’t the way out.
Liberals vs Greens and I think Greens will get it, barring any preference shenanigans.
If Labor manages to hold on here, it’ll be the shock of the night. I’m not sure who’d pick this one up though. If preferences go as normal, however, this should be a Green gain.
I’m expecting the Greens to narrowly edge it out, but I wouldn’t write it off for the Liberals just yet, this, after all, will be hot on their list as one of few gains they can possibly make, alongside Herbert, Lindsay and possibly even Solomon.
Greens at $19 on Sportsbet for this seat…
The Liberals will win this seat eventually. But unless their national poll position improves, I don’t see being the election they win the seat for the first time.
For mine, this is a toss-up between Labor and the Greens. Easily the Greens’ best pick up opportunity and Labor’s most vulnerable seat in Victoria, if not the nation.
PJ – Wow! They are juicy odds indeed. Unfortunately the seat by seat market appears to be unavailable on Sportsbet now.
big picture here, In Dec 2012 Melbourne Ports had 89K voters and was 9% under quota, at the federal election it had 102K voter five years later it had 105K voters and currently it sits with 106K voters. That will be about 8000 new voters since 2016, these are the voters that could determine the outcome on the night. I suspect most new voters are tenants and single, are tenants, there’s a death of schools here that would encourage young families to leave. ALP research on Green voters (google teal greens) indicates that left wing voters tend to vote ALP. Homeowners tend to vote green, there’s also not the student population there is in Melbourne to help the greens.
Also the lesson of the Batman by election is when the ALP removed an unpopular member, it got a swing towards it. But if the Greens do pull past the ALP, leakage of ALP preferences it will be a Lib gain.
This isn’t Prahran, it shares a good bit of the Eruv with Hotham & Goldstein . Many of the voters who voted Michael Danby personally will vote liberal or ALP but not Green. Sportsbet have it right.
So I think Ben nailed it, if the Greens pass ALP lib gain, ALP pass Greens they will hold it….which I think is the likely outcome.
I can’t find any individual federal seat betting on Sportsbet or anywhere else yet, $19 on the Greens would be an absolute steal. Link?
“ALP research on Green voters”
ALP surveying 50 people and saying they’ve cracked “the Green voter” is utter bullshit, they wanted to make a hit piece so they did. Their claim that ALP voters are more left wing than Green voters is bizarre.
“Also the lesson of the Batman by election is when the ALP removed an unpopular member, it got a swing towards it.”
Labor also had the air-time and resources to pump up Kearney as a credible leftist, they won’t get that for Josh Burns and anyway, he’s a Danby staffer… not much of a move-on.
“But if the Greens do pull past the ALP, leakage of ALP preferences it will be a Lib gain.”
There is little evidence for this. ALP preferences usually go as strong to Green as they do Green to ALP, so whoever is in 2nd will be equally competitive against the Liberals. The theorised slightly lower Labor to Green flow than usual here is centred around the idea of people of the Jewish faith voting Danby 1 and Greens last, but as you say they are likely to 1st preference the Liberals now.
Doesn’t seem to be up anymore, but Sportsbet had markets for all seats a week or so ago.
I reckon odds here should be roughly 2/1, 3/1, 3/1 (Labor/Libs/Greens).
Bennee there are often issue based polls where Labor voters are more unified than Green voters in support of “left wing” economic issues like penalty rates and opposing corporate tax cuts.
I think the Greens do actually pick up some of the “centrist”/”small-l” demographic (formerly held by the democrats) despite being unambiguously to the left of Labor policywise. Similarly conservatives in Western Sydney, Rockhampton and Gladstone vote very strongly for Labor.
From a left perspective, I think both of the aforementioned are good things insofar as it doesn’t impact on party policy.
Sandbelter,
It’s a bit of a contradiction for you to say Greens voters aren’t true leftists and are ‘teal Greens’ but in the same comment say Greens voters are more likely to preference the ALP vs the Liberals than the ALP voters in a contest between the Greens and the Liberals.
“From a left perspective, I think both of the aforementioned are good things insofar as it doesn’t impact on party policy.”
Perhaps you are right, confused rich centrists voting for the Greens would be better than them voting for the Liberals.
Bit of a mystery how the Windsor booths have strengthened the lib vote. They appear to be strong Labor
Not necessarily confused Bennee – they might just have different priorities on issues, or not consider Labor due to their history. My personal experience is growing up in a Liberal household and looking straight past Labor when I realised how much I hated the Liberals policies.
Antony Green suggested at one point that if not for the Greens, the seat of Melbourne would eventually become competitive for the Liberal party as it gentrified; that’s who the young, educated, professional demographic used to vote for.
Is the ALP 2PP% correct for the St Kilda area in the voter group table? 55% looked a bit low considering the map has most booths between 62-68%, so I just did a quick count of the booth results and got closer to 62% ALP 2PP across all the St Kilda voter group booths (and my total matched 17,712 as well so I didn’t exclude any booths).
winediamond – I agree with your observation about Windsor strengthening the Libs too. Windsor’s 2PP is roughly the same as throughout St Kilda with a primary vote in the 20s and 2PP in the 30s, which seems like it should strengthen the ALP (or Green) 2PP.
My guess is that it’s related to postal & pre-poll votes. Whatever portion of the electors gained from Windsor have been allocated as postal & pre-votes has probably had Higgins’ overall postal/pre-vote results applied which would heavily favour the Liberals. Which makes me think the adjusted ALP 2PP is probably a little understated, because I doubt the postal & pre-poll results from Windsor voters would be anything like Higgins overall, given how different the Windsor booths were to the rest of Higgins.
While this seat is obviously winnable for the Liberals at the moment, I disagree that in the long term it will inevitably go to them.
I think even though Caulfield survived this year’s redistribution, it’s only a matter of time until it’s gone, most likely in the next redistribution. With the population growing so rapidly due to high rise construction, Macnamara will be due for a cull next time around and Caulfield will be first to go.
This election I think whatever small gain the Liberals make around Caulfield with the retirement of Danby (which shouldn’t be overstated – for example a 5% swing in the least populated part of the electorate will be a <1% swing electorate wide) will be offset by a small swing away from the Liberals in the north of the electorate around Port Melbourne, South Melbourne, etc.
As another poster also suggested, I think optimism about Turnbull replacing Abbott and the prospect of him having his own more progressive agenda with an election win probably won the Liberals some swinging votes up in what's clearly an affluent but ultimately progressive area. The lack of any real change to a more progressive direction, hardliners like Dutton having such influential roles, and the meddling by federal conservatives into Victoria's state campaign, will turn a lot of those affluent but progressive swinging voters back away from the Liberals (most likely to the Greens).
My predictions:
Caulfield area – Small Liberal gain due to Danby's retirement
Port Melb area – Small swing from Lib to Green, enough for Greens to overtake Labor
St Kilda area – Minimal change; a less hated ALP candidate will stunt Greens growth in an area with a significant low income population, but they won't win any ground back
Windsor gain – Will boost both the Green 3PP vs Labor and the 2PP vs Liberal
I'm predicting a 3PP result of around 43% Lib, 30% Greens and 27% Labor, and the Greens winning it 51-49.
Trent, you were right! I was calculating the 2CP for Labor, not the 2PP, which meant that any Liberal vs Greens areas were being missed. Will update now.
No worries! It just stood out because I saw all those big 68s all over that area of the map 🙂
shows population change bit like Grayndler nsw yet minus the wealthy Caulfield area….depends upon the quality of the alp candidate…….. pick alp win
Is Josh Burns any relation to Clare Burns, Labor’s unsuccessful Northcote candidate?
Trent
It is puzzling how the St Kilda vote has moved so little.
If you are correct it would seem SHY, Bandt, & Di N will get some likeminded company. A far more interesting result than an ALP win. If so the libs would take many years to dig her out.
It is difficult to see the libs making any headway here, however if the ALP are off their game they MIGHT stuff it up
Mark Mulcair
Your call on the Caufield booths is a good one. However i can’t see the Libs having much chance at all
I’ll tip an ALP retain
There’s no relation to Clare Burns.
winediamond – There has been signficant movement in St Kilda but it’s all been from the ALP to the Greens. I believe in the last 3 elections their primary votes have basically switched positions from ALP in the high 30s and Greens in the high 20s, to both in the low 30s, then in 2016 the Greens in the high 30s and ALP in the high 20s.
I just don’t think there will be as much change this time, because Danby was really on the nose with St Kilda voters (the most progressive in the electorate) so while I think the Greens will naturally keep improving in St Kilda as gentrification continues, this coming election a lot of that will be offset the Danby retirement pulling some of the more swinging ALP/Green voters back to Labor.
It’s really just the Liberal vote that has remained unchanged in the low to mid 20s in St Kilda, keeping the ALP 2PP in the high 60s throughout the suburb. It doesn’t surprise me because St Kilda has always voted more like the inner north than it has like the surrounding bayside suburbs, and I don’t see that changing. If anything, surrounding suburbs like Windsor & Balaclava are voting more like St Kilda now.
Trent
Your comments are very interesting, especially re St Kilda. To me it demonstrates a marked difference between Melbourne, & Sydney, (& Brisbane). In some inner city suburbs ie Balmain, KingsCross,Haberfield,Lilyfield there is a kind of tipping point where the Lib vote starts A trend of hollowing out the combined Green/ ALP vote.It seems to be delayed in Surry Hill,s Darlinghurst because of the gay vote, or perhaps Tanya ?.
However there seems to be no sign of this occurring in Melbourne. Do you think that kind of movement may begin ?
To be honest I don’t really see any sign of that beginning in most of inner Melbourne. I’m not sure what the reason is but there does seem to be a significant difference between inner Melbourne seats and inner Sydney & Brisbane seats in that regard.
Macnamara seems to be the only seat that has experienced what you describe of inner Sydney, in particular with the left-wing vote in the traditional Labor heartland of Port Melbourne & South Melbourne being hollowed out by a huge Liberal vote, but I honestly don’t see it spreading much further, especially not St Kilda which is dominated by renters, is still pretty eccentric (and in parts genuinely seedy) in character, and with plummeting house prices that’s unlike to change any time soon.
If anything, it’s the opposite phenomenon in inner Melbourne where rather than gentrification spreading the affluent Liberal vote into traditional Labor heartlands, there seems to be an increasing hipster/boho influence spreading into suburbs like Prahran, Windsor and Balaclava, and even in “blue ribbon” South Yarra the Greens won the 2CP in most booths in 2016.
I think the Docklands, Southbank, Cremorne, and of course Port Melbourne & South Melbourne will continue to see the Liberals chip away a little bit at the ALP/Greens vote but that’s about it really, and not by much.
Trent
Thanks for going to the trouble of such a detailed, & thoughtful response. You seem to confirm my impressions, of the difference between Melbourne , & Sydney.
Perhaps in NSW the Labor brand is still being retarded by the last appalling ALP state govt ?. We have only just finished the judgements, & sentencing. Maybe something similar is required after a 2nd term of Red Dan ?
Trent what you talk about can be seen in Chapel Street. It has a very different history to Brunswick Street, Smith Street, Bridge Road, Swan Street, Sydney Road, Ackland Street, and High Street (northcote), but it still seems to be a “hip” area especially near Windsor. Compare it to other inner South shopping areas like Church Street Brighton or Glenferrie Road Hawthorn.
I don’t get that vibe at all from Sydney outside
Agreed John, Chapel St is definitely the main example I had in mind.
Like you say it has a very different history to Brunswick St, Smith St, Sydney Rd etc which were all very working class. Chapel has always been considered desirable and upmarket, but unlike areas like Brighton & Hawthorn it has a “hip” edge about it (particularly in Windsor/Prahran) which lends itself more to blue territory turning Green, rather than the other way around like winediamond describes in parts of inner Sydney.
Not sure how much this plays into it, but a big difference between the Chapel St precinct and more conservative affluent suburbs is the huge amount of public housing in the area, especially in Prahran. The ‘class’ diversity (for want of a better term) and colourful contrasts of Chapel St no doubt attract a far less conservative crowd than Armadale, Malvern, Hawthorn etc. I’m not sure if maybe this is one of the differences between inner Melbourne & Sydney too?
Chapel Street is the only example I can think of where an affluent area has taken on the characteristics of a “gentrifying” area.
Perhaps there’s an Australian equivalent to the Whole Foods/Cracker Barrel index – you can tell a lot about an area by the businesses that set up there.
Regarding Chapel St, it has an interesting history, back in the 1950s parts of that area were considered slums,
St Kilda has long been home to liberalism as in Deakin liberalism/progressive thinking, and as such will probably keep the area marginal long after the rest of the area has become solid Liberal.
I would like to see the AEC implement its purposed 2010 boundaries as I think it makes sense to have Windsor, Prahran and South Yarra joined with the City of Port Phillip, whereas Caulfield would suit either Higgins or Goldstein.
This is about the only seat I can see the Liberals picking up from the ALP at the next election, but a lot will depend on the candidates.
I agree completely. I submitted an objection to the proposal this year, stating that it makes no sense to separate Windsor & Prahran and suggesting that the entire Chapel St precinct between Punt Rd & Williams Rd should join Macnamara in exchange for Caulfield North & East joining Higgins and the area of Elsternwick/Caulfield between Glen Eira Rd & Glenhuntly Rd joining Goldstein (because it also makes no sense to use a centre of activity like Glenhuntly Rd as a boundary).
I think it made much more sense not just from a communities of interest perspective, but also from a numbers perspective. On the current boundaries they will need to change again at the next redistribution because Macnamara has the highest population and the fastest projected growth rate, Goldstein has the lowest of both. My proposal flipped that around so the electorates’ populations would become closer over time, not further apart.
I think the Liberals will get close again, but not win it. I imagine a progressive but affluent electorate that swung towards them in 2016 probably due to optimism about Turnbull replacing Abbott will swing back away from them this time around, although it’s always unpredictable due to the transient nature of the population.
From a candidate perspective, Steph Hodgkins-May seems to have built a pretty solid base to build on from 2016. Given Labor’s candidate was a Danby staffer and the Liberals are yet to announce one, I think the Greens have the edge on the candidate front at this point.
If a redistribution before 2022 finally swaps Prahran & South Yarra for the Caulfield area, that’ll set the Liberals back and set the Greens up to build a ‘reasonably safe’ margin moving forward.
It seems to me the best argument for the present arrangement is that Higgins contains the entirety of Stonnington LGA. That rationale disappears with the inclusion of Windsor in Macnamara.
Trent – your objection makes a lot of sense. The boundaries you come up with really look quite elegant.
Thanks David. I thought it made a lot of sense and hoped that it would be considered, given it wasn’t the only objection or submission arguing those points.
Also I agree that the Windsor move pretty much negates all the arguments for not doing the Chapel/Caufield swap now that Stonnington LGA is split and half of the Dandenong Rd boundary is breached anyway. That’s why I think next redistribution it’s more than likely it’ll finally happen. Labor will also be less likely to object to it without the Danby/Caulfield connection, and most likely having already lost the seat.
If South Yarra and Prahran were added, it would become a Liberal vs Green seat with little prospect of ALP winning it, however it would be pretty close because the current boundary cuts a large South Yarra booth in half, if that booth was united in one seat then it would probably be a strong Liberal booth.
The Liberals chances would probably rest on whether Williams Rd or Orrong Rd were used for the boundary however even a seat with Orrong Rd as the boundary would be winnable for the Greens.
Looking at the Higgins guide I’m not so sure about that. The Fawkner Park booth which is the one Macnamara & Higgins share had a 54% Liberal 2PP in Macnamara, but a 52% Greens 2PP in Higgins, which tells me uniting that booth would actually make it stronger for the Greens rather than the Liberals.
For the other South Yarra booths, the Liberals’ best result was 50.04% in Hawksburn but the Greens won Hawksburn Central & South Yarra with pretty solid 55% & 56% 2CPs respectively.
Add Prahran to that where the Greens had 2CP results of 60% at Grattan Gardens and 61% at Prahran East, I think adding South Yarra & Prahran to Macnamara reduces the Liberals’ chances quite a bit, given they outpolled the Liberals pretty convincingly in nearly every booth throughout the two suburbs. Even if Orrong was the boundary at Prahran, the Orrong booth had a 52% Greens 2CP as well.
On a side note… If Dutton becomes PM, I imagine the Liberals will suffer a huge swing against them in inner Melbourne seats like Macnamara and Higgins, and to a lesser extent maybe even Goldstein & Kooyong.
The profile of those voters is less likely to stray to Labor, but more likely to stray to the Greens, so in Liberal-Labor 2CP seats the preferences of Lib voters switching to the Greens will probably come back to them anyway and not make much difference, but in seats like Macnamara & Higgins which are likely to be Liberal v Green, a Dutton Prime Ministership could make Higgins marginal and hand the Greens a convincing win in Macnamara.
The Liberal preselection is to be held on 02 Sep 18 (Sunday) according to a friend of mine and another Zionist Kate Ashmor is a likely candidate. If she or another Liberal Zionist is preselected this will mean both Lib and Lab candidates will be pro Israel stooges but only really representing about 10% of the electorate who are mostly in Caulfield and East St Kilda.
No voting option with the ridiculous preferential voting system were the last candidate standing are usually the ones from the two major parties. The Green may do even better this time with gentile and pro Palestine voters but she has to do better then the Lib and then the Lab which will be a big ask..
Adrian Jackson you really don’t seem to understand how the voting system works. For the Greens to win, they need to overtake Labor into 2nd place and get Labor preferences.
In a first past the post system, this would be a safe Liberal seat.
I understand the voting system and the Green would have to overtake the two major candidates as I said. In Melbourne Ports about 30% of Lib preference go to the Greens rather than Lab too.
Yes with the current preferential voting the Lib will win and would have won in past Melbourne Ports elections too but with a first past the post vote I will not be voting for either the Lib or Lab candidate.
I have lived in the electorate as a voter since 1980.
I understand the voting system and the Green would have to overtake the two major candidates as I said. In Melbourne Ports about 30% of Lib preference go to the Greens rather than Lab too.
Yes with the current preferential voting the Lib will win and would have won in past Melbourne Ports elections too but with a first past the post vote I will not be voting for either the Lib or Lab candidate.
I have lived in the electorate as a voter since 1980.
Lib preferences have never been distributed in Macnamara/Ports because in recent elections they have finished first in primary votes and when it was a safer Labor seat still always finished second, but they have never actually won.
The Liberals only ever get boosted by about 5-7% after preferences, so they would likely need a primary vote of at least 43% with a strong preference flow to win the seat. I expect without ‘honeymoon period’ of Turnbull replacing Abbott which was a factor in 2016, their primary vote will go backwards from the high of almost 42% they got last time. They simply can’t win if their primary vote drops to around 40% because even a stronger flow of preferences would only boost them to about 47-48% in 2CP terms.
There are a few other factors that have not been discussed above.
There has always been a high postal/ pre poll vote here because elections are held on Saturdays – this can’t necessarily be pinned down to a booth.
If the Greens did get up over Labor, and knowing the Greens stance on Palestine, what % of Labor votes would leak to the Libs? It might be enough to get the Libs over the top.
If I recall, there has been very little move in the 2pp (though the components have moved around) in this seat for many years. It is remarkably stable and swings in a very small range.
I tend to think the impact on preferences will be minimal. Most of that vote will already go to the Liberals anyway, include ex-Danby loyalists whose primary vote may just switch from Labor to Liberal with his retirement. That primary vote increase will most likely offset by voters who hated Danby returning to Labor (whose preferences should flow normally), and a likely general swing against the Liberals.
Yes Trent preferences of the two major parties are rarely distributed across Australia as the two major parties are usually the last two candidates left standing. So called preference deals are done mainly to get minor parties and independents to preference one major party over the other.
I was just referring to where you said 30% of Lib preferences go to Greens in Macnamara. Lib preferences have never gone to anybody in Macnamara/Ports so whoever the Liberal voters preference is inconsequential as there’s no chance they could ever come third anyway.
It’s only in seats like Melbourne, Batman and Wills that the preferences of Liberal voters could make a difference.
Trent
Fawner Park booth could be good for the Greens but I am incline to think the Liberals would win it more times then not, or at least they would probably come first.
You are right the Green do well in Prahran East, and they also do well in the Toorak West booth which would be in the seat if Orrong Rd was the boundary.
If Dutton becomes PM, I agree MacNamara would be a Green gain, I don’t share the Greens optimism for Higgins now that Windsor has been removed and SSM has been successfully resolved. At this stage its hard to tell how the Greens will go, I think this might be a quiet election for them as there will likely be a pro swing towards the ALP and there doesn’t seem to be any big issues to drive the Greens vote higher.