GRN 18.5% vs LIB
Incumbent MP
Adam Bandt, since 2010.
Geography
Central Melbourne. Melbourne covers the Melbourne CBD, as well as the inner city suburbs of North Melbourne, Parkville, Carlton, Docklands, Abbotsford, Fitzroy, Ascot Vale, Kensington, Richmond and East Melbourne. The seat covers all of the City of Melbourne north of the Yarra River, as well as a majority of the City of Yarra and part of Moonee Valley council area.
Redistribution
Melbourne retracted on its north-western edge and gained territory on its north-east. Ascot Vale, Flemington and Newmarket were transferred to Maribyrnong, while a small area on the border of Fitzroy and Brunswick was transferred from Wills, and a small part of Clifton Hill was transferred from Batman.
History
Melbourne is an original Federation seat, and was held by the ALP for over one hundred years before it was won by the Greens in 2010.
The seat was first won by Malcolm McEacharn, the former Mayor of Melbourne, who joined the Protectionist Party. Although McEacharn had defeated his Labor opponent William Maloney with over 60% of the vote in 1901, the 1903 election saw McEacharn only defeat Maloney by 77 votes, and the result was declared void after allegations that the result was tainted.
Maloney defeated McEacharn at the following by-election in 1904, and the ALP held Melbourne for the next century. Maloney polled over 60% at the 1906 election, and never polled less than 60% as he held the seat right through to 1940. Indeed, Maloney was elected unopposed at two elections. Maloney retired in 1940 but died before the 1940 election. He never held a frontbench role, and holds the record for the longest term of service without serving as a frontbencher.
The seat was won in 1940 by Arthur Calwell. Calwell held the seat for thirty-two years. He served as Minister for Immigration in Ben Chifley’s government from 1945 to 1949. He served as HV Evatt’s Deputy Leader from 1951 until 1960, when he became Leader of the Opposition.
Calwell led the ALP into three federal elections. The ALP was defeated by a slim margin at the 1961 election, but suffered a larger defeat in 1963 and a solid Liberal landslide in 1966. Calwell was replaced as Leader by Gough Whitlam in 1967 and Calwell retired in 1972. At no time did the seat of Melbourne come under any serious danger of being lost.
The seat was won in 1972 by Ted Innes, who held the seat until 1983.
He was succeeded by Gerry Hand, who served as a federal minister from 1987 until his retirement at the 1993 election.
The seat was won in 1993 by Lindsay Tanner. Tanner became a frontbencher following the defeat of the Labor government in 1996, and served on the Labor frontbench right until the election of the Rudd government, and served as Finance Minister in the first term of the Labor government.
The seat of Melbourne had been considered a safe Labor seat for over a century, but at the 2007 election the Greens overtook the Liberals on preferences and came second, and the two-candidate-preferred vote saw the ALP’s margin cut to 4.7%.
In 2010, Tanner retired, and his seat was won by the Greens’ Adam Bandt, who had first run for the seat in 2007. Bandt was elected with the benefit of preferences from the Liberal Party, but in 2013 managed to win a second term despite the Liberal Party preferencing Labor. Despite losing these preferences, Bandt’s margin was only cut by 0.6%, and his primary vote jumped 7%. Bandt was re-elected with a much bigger margin in 2016, with Labor falling into third place.
Candidates
- Judy Ryan (Reason)
- Adam Bandt (Greens)
- Dave Blake (Independent)
- Lawrence Pope (Animal Justice)
- Lauren Sherson (Liberal)
- Luke Creasey (Labor)
- Tony Pecora (United Australia)
Assessment
Melbourne is a solid Greens seat.
2016 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Adam Bandt | Greens | 41,377 | 43.7 | +1.1 | 44.6 |
| Le Liu | Liberal | 23,878 | 25.2 | +2.4 | 24.8 |
| Sophie Ismail | Labor | 23,130 | 24.5 | -2.1 | 23.9 |
| Lewis Freeman-Harrison | Sex Party | 3,265 | 3.5 | +1.5 | 3.5 |
| Miranda Joyce Smith | Animal Justice | 1,742 | 1.8 | +1.1 | 1.8 |
| Matt Riley | Drug Law Reform | 1,187 | 1.3 | +1.3 | 1.2 |
| Others | 0.1 | ||||
| Informal | 2,404 | 2.5 |
2016 two-candidate-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Redist |
| Adam Bandt | Greens | 64,771 | 68.5 | 68.5 |
| Le Liu | Liberal | 29,808 | 31.5 | 31.5 |
2016 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Sophie Ismail | Labor | 62,963 | 66.6 | -2.7 | 67.0 |
| Le Liu | Liberal | 31,616 | 33.4 | +2.7 | 33.0 |
Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into four areas. Booths around Kensington have been grouped as West. Fitzroy, Carlton and Abbotsford are grouped as North-East. East Melbourne and Richmond are grouped as South-East. Booths close to the Melbourne CBD are grouped as Central.
The Greens won a large majority of the two-candidate-preferred vote (against the Liberal Party) in all four areas, ranging from 62.7% in the south-east to 77.1% in the north-east.
Labor came third, with a primary vote ranging from 23.3% in the centre to 28% in the north-west.
| Voter group | ALP prim % | GRN 2CP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| North-East | 23.9 | 77.1 | 19,231 | 22.9 |
| South-East | 25.6 | 62.7 | 13,519 | 16.1 |
| Central | 23.3 | 68.9 | 10,172 | 12.1 |
| North-West | 28.0 | 74.5 | 3,772 | 4.5 |
| Other votes | 24.3 | 63.5 | 16,862 | 20.0 |
| Pre-poll | 22.2 | 66.4 | 20,550 | 24.4 |
Election results in Melbourne at the 2016 federal election
Toggle between two-candidate-preferred votes (Greens vs Liberal) and Labor primary votes.
I expect Labor to take back second here in 2019, but should continue to firm up as a solid Green seat, with the Liberals coming second over time (or at least until Bandt retires – who knows when that’ll be)
A map of the Liberal primary vote would also be an interesting one.
Victoria Street is a clear divide in this seat; the areas in the south around CBD and Richmond are a bit more “blue-green” where the Libs consistently get 30-40% of the vote. Very different to the strongly “red-green” north of the seat where the Libs struggle to get 20%.
My theory the Liberals picked up a swing here, and in other somewhat affluent inner city seats, due to Turnbull. Even though it was somewhat clear he wasn’t going to deliver on his progressive reputation in any meaningful way, he still had a honeymoon effect. 3 years on I expect that to have all faded. The effect of this will be far more interesting in other seats (IMO Brisbane is much more marginal than it looks, and it covered up what was quite a large swing in Higgins), but the effect here will be Liberals easily slipping back to 3rd.
I think Labor will take a run at the seat trying to outflank Greens on the left similar to last time – Bandt is a straight white man and Labor responded by running a middle eastern lesbian. They may have been emboldened by the Batman byelection to actually put money into the seat as well.
However in return Bandt has a huge volunteer base in the seat and will be actively campaigning in order to drive up the Green vote and re-elect Janet Rice.
The circumstances are very similar to the state seat of Melbourne (except for the identity politics) which will be the main litmus test.
The Labor party would be mad to have another tilt at Bandt. He’s entrenched, as minor party and independent candidates become after getting some public profile. Wasting resources here lessens the threat Labor poses to the Coalition elsewhere, and if the Green feel they have to put in extra resources to protect Bandt they have to put less into Macnamara (ALP and Greens need each other to perform decently for EITHER to prevent the Liberals from winning) and Higgins.
Keep in mind that Labor arguably let at least one, possibly two state elections go to prevent the Greens from picking up Batman.
Labor and Greens preference each other and cooperate in balance of power situations almost every time, but there is still a lot of animosity when it comes to elections. Even in Higgins, Carl Katter got visits from front benchers to try and keep Labor ahead of Greens.
The last campaign in Melbourne is the only time they’ve arguably left the Greens alone, and that’s only talking in terms of resources.
The state election will be interesting to how Labor go about preventing Greens from getting dual balance of power.
In a campaign that will largely be about sandbagging the sand belt, it will be interesting to see how they split their resources between holding off Greens in seats like Richmond/Brunswick, knocking off Greens in their current seats, and taking seats like South Barwon and Ripon off the LNP.
They could cut off their nose to spite their face by preferencing Liberals over Greens in Prahran, though that is a risk to their primary vote. What I could see is Labor happily letting the LNP win Macnamara if they’re on track to win a majority anyway – it will fuel “Greens are Liberal allies” material for decades.
My theory is that the swing the Liberals picked up came from notionally Greens voters putting the Liberals as their first preference as a strategic vote, to push them into second place so that they can rely on the more reliable flow of preference votes from Labor.
When you think about it – as far as a strategic vote is concerned – its a win win. Libs finish third, preference gets distributed to the Greens anyway. Libs finish second, Labor voters preference the Greens assuring them the win.
I think Bandt has this seat locked down, though, until he decides to retire – which tends to be the case for almost all independent/minor party incumbents.
Nah Matt, the “swing” towards the Liberals on their primary vote is because 16 candidates ran in 2013 but only 6 in 2016. Some of those 16 candidates were independents or from right wing micro parties, none of the 6 candidates in 2016 were.
3PP split in 2013 was GRN 46.0, ALP 28.6, LIB 25.4
3PP split in 2016 was GRN 47.2, LIB 26.6, ALP 26.3
That does not seem consistent with Green voters putting Liberal 1st strategically.
Tactical voting isn’t really a thing in Australia, even when an opportunity exists. The culture isn’t really there as 99% of elections don’t have votes in the region where tactical voting could make a difference.
Tactical voting probably could have made NXT win Boothby and Sturt from the Liberals, but Labor ran open tickets in those seats, and Greens preferenced Labor over NXT.
I haven’t seen any materials telling Greens to vote Liberal in Melbourne, or Liberals to vote Labor in the SA 3 Cornered contests, so even if it was identified, it would have amounted to a few core volunteers and staffers. Considering the Greens copped flak for trying to tell Liberal voters to vote Green, any communication suggesting to do the other way around would have been highly controversial.
The swing to the Liberals in Melbourne is consistent with the swing to Liberals in urban seats across the country.
It is an interesting choice for a Liberal Voter here.
By voting 1 Labor they can *slightly* increase the chance of Bandt losing. But by voting 1 Liberal they cement his chances of winning.
Not that it makes much difference.
Not if they put Labor above Bandt!
Yes Labor could run a “If you want to get rid of the Greens, vote Labor” campaign.
However one thing to note is that there was a Labor vs Green preference throw in 2016 before the final throw revealed that the Liberals had edged out Labor 3PP, and Bandt still had quite a bit of breathing space.
Plus, such a campaign could actually hurt Labor’s primary vote from Labor voters who actually like the Greens.
Bandt benefits from the incumbent factor but I wouldn’t be surprised if the ALP goes close here, safe seats tend to drift back to their usual pattern after two or three elections which makes 2019 and 2022 a real test for the Greens here.
It’s been reported in the Australian that Adam Bandts grip on this seat is loosening thanks to the Greens internal brawling. The ALP are deciding whether to put extra resources into this seat. Adam Bandts still the favorite but its now being viewed that it’s not necessarily a forgone conclusion he will win and a lot of it depends on how much headway Labor can make in the Greens primary vote in Melbourne at the next election.
Greens will retain as long as Bandt is active enough in the seat to pick up the disgruntled Liberal voters. This does however mean that Bandt will need to work his own seat instead of being able to give the candidates in neighbouring seats a boost.
I think Labor’s 2016 candidate was more of a threat as she could challenge the Greens on identity politics grounds. The 2019 candidate can’t offer anything to the electorate that they aren’t getting from Bandt.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the data suggesting that Bandt isn’t safe is just the state election results. Maltzahn would have severely depressed the Greens vote in Richmond, and Shorten is no Andrews.
Green retain and it should be obvious to the Greens in the early weeks how much they need to put into the seat.
Lauren Sherson is the Liberal candidate for Melbourne.
Easy Greens retain.
Interesting. Most commentators are sensing an upset here. Or at least something unpredictable. Being an immoderate chap, i’ll go further. ALP WIN !!.
REASONS
1/ Newspoll has the Greens vote at 9% i sense this is soft maybe Labor will score 10% of this.
2/ The veneer of reasonableness that Di Natale tried to establish has been destroyed, by the Greens appalling behaviour, & intemperate (that is way too polite ) statements, & extreme positions. Bandt himself has been at the forefront, & is very fortunate that Jim Molan did not sue him for defamation. He would have lost.
3/ Self interest. Having an MP of a sitting govt is always more influential.
4/ Bandt is a thoroughly unlikeable character. He may be a type5, however i lean toward him being a TYPE 1 fixation as is Di Natale. These zealots are so self righteous & fanatically convinced of the purity of their cause that any amount of appalling, & unconscionable behaviour is justified, & justifiable . Historical examples Robespierre, Ayatollah Khomenei, Margaret Thatcher. I’m reminded of the saying “The greatest evil is committed by men with good intentions”
5/ I think BS has succeeded in moving to the left sufficiently to convince enough voters to move
6/ the candidate last time was a dud
Should be fun
In THE OZ today. Bandt states Labor “must give up international permits”. A crucial component of Labor’s climate change policy, & costings. Labor better hope they can eject Bandt, because compromise is a word he can’t comprehend.
This whole policy seems to be like swiss cheese, a total mess.
“Compromise is a word he can’t comprehend”
2010-13 parliament sitting literally passed the most legislation of any in Australian history. The mythology that the Greens are puritanical obstructionists is bullshit.
I reckon Labor fosters this lie before elections to try persuade progressives to vote Labor to “get things done” and then between elections conservatives imply everything passed with the help of the Greens must be extreme.
“Interesting. Most commentators are sensing an upset here.”
No, not they aren’t. If they were you would be welcome to post their comments here.
I understand you have a political opinion and that’s fine, we all do. But that’s not analysis.
Andrew
Strictly speaking you are correct. However i am stating my OBSERVATION of the doubts i think are visible. Just because few comments are made does not mean there is not a mood, or perception. I would also point out that i did say ” sense” NOT “comment, or say”.
What exactly was inadequate about my 6 point analysis ?
Federal political editor of Herald Sun James Campbell reckons there is a chance of upset due to higher primary vote for Labor and Green dysfunction in Victoria.
I quoted exactly what you posted.
I think a reasonable person would point out that commentators comment. Unless you are psychic sensing is flowery language and nothing more. You posted your hopes and nothing more
1/ The Greens will get almost exactly the same as they get every federal election, maybe a little more maybe a little less, this is irrelevant for a single seat. Katter will almost certainly win his seat, but poll nowhere near 9% nationally. Hanson might poll at 9% and win no lower house seats.
2/ Irrelevant
3/ They had the opportunity to vote for the ALP last time to do exactly that.
4/ You sound unhinged here. Really. But I think it is fair to say Adam Bandt is a popular Greens MP and a popular local member. You not liking him is fine (the extreme comparisons aren’t but whatever). Can you point to a single source which has him polling as unpopular? Because he won with a swing to him last time. That seems pretty popular (in his seat) to me.
5/ Potentially true. But the Victorian ALP is much further to the left and the Greens kept lower House Seats then. I do believe it will be difficult for them to win new seats on this basis.
6/ I don’t know much about them so I make no comment.
Once again. I have no problem with you not liking The Greens or even Adam Bandt, though I think you are probably in the wrong forum for posting about that. This is more of place to make predictions debate analysis and so on.
But I do have a problem with things like this:
“Interesting. Most commentators are sensing an upset here. Or at least something unpredictable”
and then
“Strictly speaking you are correct. However i am stating my OBSERVATION of the doubts i think are visible. Just because few comments are made does not mean there is not a mood, or perception. I would also point out that i did say ” sense” NOT “comment, or say”.”
If they aren’t commenting it how do you know? How are they sensing it? do they have analysis? Can you give me that? Because I’d rather read that than rants like point 4.
Strictly speaking I’m correct, but also just literally I am correct
A Liberal voter who wants to ensure that ALP or Greens do not get elected must put both of them last and second last. On Tuesday nominations close and at 12 Noon candidate nominations are declared (announced) by AEC. I imagine that all candidate info will be on AEC website. Do your own How I will vote card remembering to number all squares placing highest number against candidate you want least.
If I was voting in Melbourne Brandt would be last. In this position your preference will never be allocated to Greens but may go to your second last choice.
The results last time had Liberal &
Preferences flowing to Brandt. If Liberals are so brain dead that they do not realise that Green’s are an extreme version of ALP therefore they should be below ALP it is their own fault they had to deal with Brandt.
My prediction is Bandt’s margin in the TPP will be eroded by 2-5% and Labor will jump back into the final 2 but nothing anymore extraordinary will happen beyond that.
This is the Greens to hold until Bandt retires or the party collapses, neither of which appear to happening any time soon.
I believe that Melbourne may be in play for Labor. If they come second in the count with about 30% of the vote, Greens are around 40% – then with great preference flows it may be possible. It will all depend on how the Liberals preference. It would still be a surprise on election night if Labor won Melbourne but not impossible. Any reduction in the Green vote and then game on.
What was the GRN vs ALP margin in 2016? I remember Bandt was still well ahead, but it wasn’t an ultra safe seat (like it is with the GRN vs LIB margin)
It really doesn’t seem like Labor is being resourced for a winnable campaign, even though this election will be Labor’s best chance to take the seat back for a while. However a positive sign for Labor is that Bandt seems to be actively campaigning in his own seat, whereas in a safer election he’d be primarily helping other Greens.
Bandt seems to be good at getting a relatively strong Liberal -> Green preference flow even when the Liberal how to vote cards recommend Labor. I think Bandt’s primary would need to dip below 40% for him to be in any real trouble.
Luke Creasy has BLOWN IT !!!. Another idiot that can’t remember what he has put about. Bandt safe
Greens hold
Social media, like Facebook, is a cancer so stay away from it everybody.
More dumb comments from Creasy coming out. I have no idea why the Vic Left is preventing the party from dropping this idiot, he probably wasn’t going to win anyway and is just distracting from labor’s national campaign to win government.
Easy Greens retain, doubt labor will get back into 2nd place with their candidate
Now how big will the swing away from Labor be?
I’m think about 3 to 5% primary vote.
Easy Green retain. Expect Creasey to be dumped as a candidate over the weekend. Now it gives the Greens room to campaign in Macnamara that they don’t have to defend Melbourne so much.
Before weekend. Creasey will be gone before end of today.
And… there you go. Handed in his resignation.
In the era of trial by social media, expect many more to come.
With Luke Creasey gone, the Greens will be able to breathe easier in Melbourne and divert resources to Wills and Macnamara.
Luke Creasey has just dropped from the race.
I actually think this can get worse for the ALP and Liberals.
It’s entirely possible people will object to the Liberals preferences going to the ALP here and they end up not preferencing or having a proportion of their voters ignore their HTVs
The ALP`s candidate issues here make it much harder for them to regain second place (which they narrowly lost on preferences in 2016, significantly increasing Bandt`s 2CP margin), going from very likely to moderately unlikely.
With yet another party candidate dis-endorsed, this time Creasey from the ALP, it raised the need to get party affiliation off the ballot papers for both commonwealth and state elections. This would make all candidates equal in the eyes of the AEC and if a candidate is sacked the party is not implicated to confuse voters.
“The Project” on Ch 10 was saying just do a social media/google check on candidates before the preselection. Unfortunately most preselectors are older members of a party who many not use social media or own a mobile phone. At 66 while not in a party anymore I don’t use social media nor have an account and mostly use my mobile for photos and texts.
Adrian,
Hire someone to do the check, a political party will probably use the same person/agency to check their opponents so they’ll have someone in mind.
Some parties require a police check before endorsing a candidate. There is an opportunity for some enterprising young IT guru to provide a service on checking on prior political comments. I am sure the likes of Rugby Union and QANTAS would welcome a private vetting service. Problem with each of these steps is that each step takes us closer to tottalitarianism.
Possibly political parties could come to an agreement first draft No social media indiscretion older than three years will be used for political retaliation but personally I am inclined to think any indiscretion any time is fair game if the individual is my political opponent. I had no problems using Communist Party membership from 1950’s when attacking ALP lefties in 1970’s.
A NAZI or Communist Party sympathiser should only be able to live down their prior evil after recanting on that evil.
Are we prepared to have a Commonwealth Vetting Service established to weed out criminals racists perverts and degenerates from politics and who decides what is racist etc?
Maybe Political parties should just have to live with their decisions just as electorate has to live with its decisions.
This will stay with greens as labor has botched any chances of picking up this seat with candidate resigning.
Bob
Like Pauline Hanson In Oxley?
But I agree ALP have done their goose.
Andrew Jackson
apjackson2@bigpond.com
So called inappropriate comments may get more votes of this Labor clown. Same with the other nasties like the Liberal woman in Lyons.
I notice Adam Bandt still fundraising here, so he may not want to take his foot off the pedal.
But I see no plausible chance of a swing against him now.
Perhaps he wants to help the Greens senate vote in his seat and see if he can hit 70%2CPP.
I think this will actually be an interesting seat to watch.
1. To see how important prepolls were going to be and
2. To see what the actual vote is of a major party with no one handing out for them and no candidate. Will it actually make that huge a difference?
UAP candidate Tony Pecora sacked by Palmer today as it came to light that he was a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. Where does Clive find these clowns?
Two sackings and a Sec 44 case in one day!
This is my old seat and I’d suggest that Bandt will increase his primary vote to around the 46-48% mark even with all of the internal drama and laundry that the Greens have been airing in the last year in Victoria.
Might be good for him spend more time to help out next door in McNamara and Higgins.
As far as I can see, Bandt has won every booth here.
He even beat Labor in their rock solid public housing areas (North Richmond), and beat the Liberals in Docklands, the city, and East Melbourne.
The 2CP here will probably end up being Greens v Labor when the full preference throw is done. The Liberal PV is only 1.9% higher than Labor, but there’s a combined Reason & AJP vote of over 7% to be distributed which will most likely put Labor into second place.
Not that will make any difference whatsoever to the final result, but the Greens margin vs Labor won’t be anywhere near as high as the 21.9% margin they’re sitting on vs the Liberals, once the Lib preferences are distributed. I’m guessing somewhere closer to the 10-12% range.
Quite a bit of the Animal Justice and Reason vote will flow to the Greens, likely a higher proportion than usual, given the disendorsement.
Some of the Animal Justice and Reason vote will go to the Liberals.
The Liberals may also be helped by the UAP and independent vote. It is likely to be a close run thing.