Calwell – Australia 2022

Why is Labor’s vote weak in Greenvale?

@Bob

Go to Google Maps, turn on satellite imagery, and take a look at Greenvale, particularly the southeast corner. You’ll have your answer.

Greenvale is quite an affluent area, certainly much more affluent than surrounding areas.

It sits on a ridge surrounded by creek valleys, and is bounded to the south by open space under the airport flightpath. You can buy a house and get uninterrupted views of the city from out there.

I once saw Greenvale described in The Age as “Toorak of the Outer North” …..

Greenvale reminds me of the suburb of Abbotsbury in Fowler or Glen Alpine near Campbelltown, with huge houses with elevated views although it surrounded by lower income suburbs.

If we’re going off purely economic factors, Greenvale’s median weekly household income is $2,030.
Calwell’s is $1,331.

Via Google Streetview, the houses are huge, and unusually for outer Melbourne, the streets are filled with mature trees.

Definitely the political outlier in this neck of the woods.

If we also look at SEIFA Score. Greenvale’s SEIFA Score is 81 percentile which is much higher than that of Greater Melbourne at 57 percentile. Neighbouring Meadow Heights is at only 3 percentile, one of the lowest in the country.

But why would they vote Liberal? Why would high income vote more conservative? To avoid paying higher taxes? Everyone needs to pay their fair share and reducing taxes for upper middle-class/wealthy is wrong. There are still thousands of people on the streets of Melbourne without a home and many struggling to make ends meet.

Obviously It’s still a !Labor Booth! but only narrowly.

The reason it still votes Labor is likely because of the over-average population of people who practice Islam, around 12% which reminds me of many western Sydney suburbs. It wouldn’t shock me if this area voting against the plebiscite in 2017/2018 (Can’t remember the year sorry)

The state figures are 60+ in Greenvale however even in 2014 it was around 60% despite the TPP being slightly closer statewide than the last federal, demographic changes?

There is a chance the sitting member retires either this time or next time, I believe she sits on the right-faction so when she retires there will be a push for sure for a more progressive ALP member, I see no threat from the Greens considering they can’t challenge the sitting members margin. But perhaps in 20-30+ time if the Green support spreads across Melbourne.

Calwell is a socially conservative seat (it voted ‘No’ for SSM), so I’m not sure a ‘more progressive’ candidate would really be that good a fit.

Calwell did indeed vote against SSM in 2017 however we will never have any idea how Greenvale voted specifically. Given Greenvale is less culturally diverse on the whole than the rest of Calwell, its likely it (as a suburb) voted for it albeit narrowly on my own thoughts.

Maria Vamvakinou is from the Left, a close ally of Kim Carr. You can google these things instead of just guessing.

Greenvale, while 12% Muslim (Much higher than the state Average but lower than surrounding suburbs) is also 47% Catholic (Double the state/national average). It also has a very low percentage of people claiming no religion (11%). It also has a large Italian community about 20%. In 2004, the Liberals narrowly won the Greenvale booths and perhaps if it was moved into a competitive seat with Sunbury in a future redistribution the Greenvale booths may narrowly turn blue.

I don’t know what it is, but there’s something about acreages in metropolitan areas that attracts Italian-Australians and Maltese-Australians. I’ve noticed this trend perusing through the census data of many suburbs across both Sydney and Melbourne.

Good Observation Nicholas, we can see the same in suburbs in NSW such as Cecil Park, Horsley Park etc. These areas in turn end being the most Catholic and some of the areas with lowest percentage of people with no religion.

My question is why Arthur Calwell got a seat named after him but other opposition leaders didn’t. What about Evatt,Peacock (although his death was during this parliamentary term) or what about Snedden?

What reason did Calwell get a seat? Assassination attempt? he fought 3 elections just like Evatt did, or was this because he almost won the 1961 election so they decided to give him a seat?

People make way too much of the names of electoral divisions.

Daniel,
I assume that you mean opposition leaders that didn’t become Prime Minister.
The seat of Charlton (1984-2016) was named after an opposition leader who never became PM.
Makin, Groom, and Pearce were named after MPs that never became PM or opposition leader.

@Watson Watch

I suppose also Arthur Calwell was a substantial political figure despite never becoming Prime Minister. He almost became Prime Minister in 1961 winning the two party preferred vote. It was DLP preferences to the Liberals that cost Labor victory with the Menzies government holding the balance of power by one seat.

He contested three elections so his political career hardly was a footnote in history. I heard on the grapevine that some in figures in the DLP offered to make peace and rejoin the Labor party but Calwell wouldn’t accept the offer.

Also Calwell was Australia’s First Immigration Minister and was responsible for the Post War European migration program which shaped Modern Australia as we know it today.

I suspect the reason why Calwell qualified for a seat is more pedestrian. The 1984 expansion of the House created a bunch of new seats and they would’ve had to dig a bit deeper to come up with names than at other times. Of course more recent opposition leaders won’t get the same honours.

Mickleham in this seat is very interesting, past 2PP results:
1996: LIB 71.56%
1998: LIB 66.88%
2001: LIB 61.65%
2004: LIB 63.31%
2007: LIB 51.82%
2010: LIB 45.37%
2013: LIB 55.80%
2016: LIB 40.38%
2019: LIB 34.33%
This suburb has swung 37% in 23 years…

acreages → new housing developments

Wouldn’t surprise me if residents of Mickleham who lived there in 1996 still vote 70% Liberal.

Nicholas is 100% correct. Mickleham is one of the fasted growing suburbs in the country and the same trend can be seen in areas such as nearby Wallan, Mernda etc. This has helped Labor in McEwen. Parts of Hume LGA are protected green wedge so like Nicholas i agree that those residents may still vote the same way. Interesting to look at the Clyde booth (Vic). In 2004 it was the strongest booth for the Libs in Latrobe (now in Holt) and it voted 74% for the Libs it is now 57% ALP. A 31% swing in 15 years. In the coming years i would watch the Rossmore, Bringelly and Orchard Hills booths. There is a planned railway line through the area so i expect the area to move from semi-rural to suburbam

@Bob: When Greenvale was developed it was advertised as the Toorak of the north. While it’s not Toorak, it’s quite affluent. In reality Eaglemont is the Toorak of the north.

What was with the big swing to the Liberals here? Poorer seat?

Daniel, I saw a lot of vote go to one nation and uap, not the liberal party but I guess that vote ultimately flowed to the liberals.

Daniel, it seemed to be a common pattern in the outer northern and western Melbourne seats, of Labor suffering quite strong primary vote swings against them.

In some seats, the vote just split all over other candidates so the 2PP margin didn’t change much. But here and in a couple of other seats (Scullin, Gorton), it seemed to coalesce around the right wing minors, which drove a decent 2PP swing.

It does make you wonder if there had been a stronger Independent in a couple of these seats to serve as the lightning rod for dissatisfaction, whether we’d have seen another Fowler or two….

Seems to fit with a theme this election of people being sick of the status quo and not just voting the same way as they have in the past, barring the nationals seats

Nice to see a large swing against Maria. She doesn’t even live in the bloody electorate – she resides in Northcote! Time for a local representative who actually knows the area and gets us some federal money.

I believe a large swing against the ALP is due to the Muslim vote due to some factors:
– Quite a lot are dissatisfied with the current state ALP government
– Significant anti-vax percentage so they went to right-wing minor parties and to some extent the Liberal Party possible due to Victorian State Opposition’s more right-wing stance
– LNP making inroads into the Muslims probably due to LNP are now less perceived to be islamophobic compared to previously years

Could the reduced anti-muslim sentiment could have possibly contributed also made LNP have an inroad to the Muslim vote

@Marh could be the case. A lot of the Western Sydney seats with large Muslim populations swung to the Libs too. I could also add that the increasing focus on social conservatism by the Libs might be favourable to them. It seems like the anti-Muslim sentiment especially among the right that has been around since 9/11 is being replaced by anti-Chinese sentiment, which could be reflected in the swings in this election.

Lots of people here who couldn’t work from home so hit by lockdowns & maybe strong economy was plus for Libs with lower-skilled workers also, like Trump & Hispanics in 2020?

From what I can gather the fairly big swings against Labor here, as well as in seats like Scullin and Gorton, were a combined factor of anti-vax and anti-lockdown minor party preferences flowing to the Libs, and (possibly?) the Liberals’ attempts at reorganizing themselves around the outer suburban electorates, but I’m not sure how accurate that part is as I’m unfamiliar with what’s regarded as outer Melbourne and am making the assumption purely based on how far they look from the center.

Another factor seems to be that people are tired of political parties taking their electorates for granted. These seats have been very safe Labor seats for a long time and I imagine people are fed up of low energy members who don’t put any effort in and don’t provide for the communities they are supposed to be serving.

After the last federal election, there was suggestions on this thread, that reduced Islamphobia in the LNP could be meaning that the Libs could be making in roads into Muslim community. I was a bit skeptical in Sydney the seats of Blaxland, McMahon, Chifley and Watson (all of which have large Muslim communities) had a status quo result or had a swing to Labor. I believe the swing in Calwell (no primary vote increase for Libs) had to do with a anti-lockdown backlash rather than any long term change. Many right-wing commentators argued that the Libs should abandon wealthy seats and try and win seats like this. After the latest conflict in the middle east it seems Sky News has changed attacking Labor for being scared of Muslim voters and focusing too much on Western Sydney and parts of Melbourne like this.

https://ipa.org.au/ipa-today/the-liberals-need-to-embrace-their-working-class-voters-to-win-over-the-outer-suburban-freedom-fighters

I agree with you Nimalan. I think the whole angle about Melbourne’s outer north & west moving away from Labor is exaggerated.

Yes, in line with global trends, there has been a gradual shift of working class areas away from Labor. However, the results in both 2022 elections (federal & state) I think were outliers and the vast majority of the large swings away from Labor were caused by lockdown backlash. There was a significant cohort of voters whose frustration over lockdowns was entirely focused on Dan Andrews, who was really the most dominant face of the Labor brand in Victoria (even in a federal election).

I think some of those cultural shifts of working class voters to the alt-right will continue, but first there will be a significant correction back TO Labor. Those swings of 15-20% in 2022 were not part of the long term trend, or even an acceleration of it. They were a reaction to a very specific event, and I’d consider all those seats which went from 25% margins to 10% margins to still be very safe Labor seats for the forseeable future. Most will land back somewhere between their 2018/19 (depending on state or federal) and 2022 margins next time around.

As far as long term trends go, not to mention demographic shifts, the Liberal Party have a lot more to be concerned about because the shift of wealthy inner-suburban voters to the left seems to be on much more solid footing – and based on a much broader range of issues – than the shift of working class outer suburban voters to the right.

Let’s look at the Liberal Primary vote in the state seat of Prahran since 2010:
2010 – 47.9%
2014 – 44.8%
2018 – 34.5%
2022 – 31.1%

Very steady decline totalling a -16.8% swing over 3 elections, without any one particular issue causing a backlash.

Let’s look at the Labor primary votes for Calwell now and you can see 2022 is more of an outlier than part of a trend, which has gone up and down:

2010 – 56.6%
2013 – 49.8%
2016 – 56.8%
2019 – 53.9%
2022 – 44.9%

On the surface, 2022 is 11.7% lower than 2010; but the previous election in 2019 was only 2.7% lower than in 2010 (and higher than 2013). So I don’t think there’s as much evidence of a linear, long term shift away from Labor as there is in the wealthier inner suburban seats.

Looking at the overlapping state seat of Broadmeadows actually shows the opposite, and really highlights 2022 being an outlier. If I exclude the 2011 byelection, we get the following:

2010 – 62.3%
2014 – 64.2%
2018 – 68.3%
2022 – 45.7%

So, a GIANT 22.6% swing against in 2022, but the vote had actually been increasing each election prior to that with the Labor vote being even higher in 2018 than 2006 (highest since 2002).

Interestingly too, despite that huge 22% swing against Labor in Broadmeadows last year, the Liberal vote (23%) was actually lower than it was in 2010 (25%).

So voters abandoning Labor aren’t actually moving to the Liberals anyway. In fact, not all are even moving to the right because since 2014 the combined swing towards the Greens & Vic Socialists is +10.8% in that seat.

If the Liberals think their future is in seats like Calwell / Broadmeadows, and that they are more winnable than trying to win back their heartland in Kooyong, Higgins & Goldstein, they’re setting themselves up for a long time in the wilderness.

Trent the issue you are making is you are comparing a high Liberal election VIC2010 vs a low Labor election (VIC2010). In Prahran, yes the Libs have lost 16.8% but they’ve also lost 10.3% across the state since 2010. The 2 redistributions since lowered the Lib vote by 4.39%. 16.8-4.39=12.41% which is more than the state average but not some insane amount. The Lib state vote decreased in 2014, 2018 and 2022 so it’s easy to find seats where their vote decreases every time because that’s inline with the state.

The Labor vote on the other hand has increased by .41% since 2010, and was 6.61% higher in 2018 compared to 2010. So unless a seat is a complete disaster for them, you won’t see their primary vote decrease in each election since 2010. I think the useful thing is to compare how much more Labor a seat is vs the state average. If a seat has a 0% swing to Labor in an election where they get a 5% swing, that seat is getting less Labor on relative terms.

How much more ALP Calwell voted compared to VIC
2010: 17.3
2013: 15.2
2016: 17.9
2019: 16.5
2022: 7.6

2016 is a massive outlier where Labor gained ground in poor areas vs losing ground in richer areas.

Blaxland, McMahon, Chifley and Watson all swung to Labor, but all less than the state average. Labor was probably at a very high point in fed2016 and vic2018 with working class voters and 2022 is mostly bringing them back to a somewhat normal level. They are now starting to look like their NSW seat equivalents on 2pp
grounds.

The Libs path to victory is not winning Calwell or Scullin but it probably is winning a few seats in Victoria like Bruce, Hawke, McEwen or Holt. The next time VIC Libs win government they’ll probably win a few seats like Melton, Yan Yean, Sunbury, Niddrie and Eureka that they didn’t win in 2010. I’m very skeptical that no matter what the Libs do, they ain’t winning back places like Prahran or South Barwon.

Also if the Libs want to win back their teal seats they shouldn’t of lost them in the first place. It’s why Labor puts so much effort fighting the greens, once a seat goes to an independent or a minor party, it’s basically theirs until they retire. There’s a few exceptions, but it’s very rare for them to lose. Their best hope would be if some of them retire or they back a Labor government in minority government.

@ Trent
Totally agreed, i would also add that the current boundaries of Broadmeadows are a bit more pro-liberal than in 2018 as it includes Oak Park previously in Pascoe Vale which is a solid middle income area with a decent Liberal vote. The 2018 results suppressed the Liberal vote in Oak Park because a high profile independent in Oscar Yildiz in Pascoe Vale which many Liberal voters tactically voted for him (Oscar Yildiz made the 2CP in Pascoe Vale in 2018. So when he was not on the ballot in 2022 these voters returned to the Libs included in the parts now in Broadmeadows. Much of the increase in Liberal vote was in the areas that were redistributed to Broadmeadows. So if you take the fact that the current Broadmeadows has a more pro-liberal boundaries than in 2010. The Libs actually did significantly worse in 2022 than in 2010. I would also take into account increase in Reason & AJP vote to show the shift to the right in this seat is very limited and can probably reversed. Interestingly, in the Upfield booth in Broadmeadows the Victorian Socialists got 20.2% and outpolled the Libs who got 18.2% (link to booth results below)

Labor was able to win the Liberal heartland seat of Higgins with only 28% primary because they can rely on a solid Green vote of 22% with solid preference discipline. The only significant right wing minor party vote in North/West Melbourne is Family First & DLP but they are no where near as well organised as the Greens and the preference discipline much lower so the Libs cannot overcome a primary vote deficit in Labor heartland seats like Labor did in Higgins .

https://www.pollbludger.net/vic2022/Results/LA.htm?s=Broadmeadows

@Drake I agree with you on comparing seat’s Labor vote to the statewide Labor vote as a more useful tool. However, even with 2016 being a slight outlier, I think those Calwell numbers actually still support the case of there not being much of a prolonged trend away from Labor and 2022 being more of an outlier.

Even 2019 is only 0.8% lower than 2010 and is higher than 2013. Those 4 elections from 2010-19 only have a total variance of 2.7% which was not linear, which I think still supports the big decline in 2022 not really being part of a broader trend.

Similarly, Labor’s statewide vote (in 2PP terms) declined by 2.4% in the 2022 statewide election but seats like Melton barely moved, which meant it actually improved relative to the state result. They did throw a lot of resources at that one though.

Whereas with Prahran, like you say the decline of LIB vote there relative to the state vote isn’t as dramatic as the decline in the Lib vote itself (due partly to both the statewide decline and the redistribution that removed Toorak) but it certain still has a clear trend of a linear decline.

The variance between Prahran’s LIB 2CP and the statewide LNP 2PP:
2010: +3.2%
2014: +1.6%
2018: -0.2%
2022: -7.0% (and still -2.6% if you take out the 4.4% redistribution factor)

Like you say, it’s a much smaller number especially if you remove the redistribution factor, but even then it has still gone from a seat where the Liberals do better than statewide to a seat where they do worse and each election has moved by an average of 2% away from the Liberals relative to the state result, with the redistribution adding another 4% on top of that.

So I totally agree that Prahran isn’t a seat the Liberals should even bother trying in anymore, it’s out of reach and I would argue that so is Albert Park at a state level, and Macnamara at a federal level. They are increasingly progressive areas they can be written off in now.

For the most part I agree with your assessment that there are some more fringe seats the Liberals should target. Places like Sunbury, Melton and McEwan that combine outer suburbs with more country/rural areas are definitely seats they should focus on, and definitely not places like Prahran or Albert Park.

I was referring more to the working class suburbia of Calwell, Gorton & Scullin compared to the more traditional Liberal heartland areas that Kooyong, Goldstein & Higgins (excluding Prahran) cover.

But Prahran was a good example of how the long term trend from right-to-left in inner city areas seems to be more consistent over a more significant period of time than the supposed trend from left-to-right in the working class outer suburbs, which seems almost non-existent in the results even relative to the state results outside of the isolated 2022 backlash.

@Nimalan – Great point about the preference flows too. That’s one thing that also probably contributes to the Liberals’ decline in their “heartland”. While the Labor vote hasn’t exactly been on the march through the BMW-belt, the Greens vote has which ultimately benefits Labor due to the reliable preference flows.

I think Vic Labor will be able to sandbag their way into another term. Maybe with Greens in balance of power if they actually bother campaigning in the ALP vs Green marginals and the other potentially strong Green seats where Vic Socialists didn’t run or wouldn’t be as convincing (Albert Park, Ivanhoe, Polwarth, maybe Essendon and Oakleigh).

Unless I’ve miscounted the tipping point seat for an LNP majority government is Bentleigh on an 8% margin, and many of those 17 MPs are due a sophomore surge. It’s also quite a diverse mix of seats – regional seats where Allan is better positioned than Andrews, outer suburban seats, middle ring seats.

For all the talk of Labor losing working class outer suburban seats it hasn’t happened yet and 2022 was the year it should have happened. There’s just too much margin.

Federal seats are a similar story. Dutton just doesn’t seem well positioned to win multicultural working class seats.

Labor ran an awful campaign in Melton in 2018. One of the few places where Labor polled better in the 2019 fed election vs the 2018 state. This time they had the benefit of incumbency whereas last time it was an open seat. Melton has swung 9.73% to the Libs since 2010, vs 6.58% to ALP across Vic in the same period. It has swung 16.31% more Lib compared to the rest of the state.

Maybe the last VIC election and the last 2 federal elections were a bit of an outlier. But considering in basically every western country the left is doing better in richer/highly university educated areas and worse in working class areas I don’t expect this to just be a ‘lockdown thing’.

The VIC Libs won basically every eastern seat they possible could in 2010 and still only won 45 seats. Since then new seats have been created in Melbourne’s west, and seats abolished in the east. It’s not really possible for them to win anymore without winning some seats in the west.

While I do feel that there was a massive swing against Labor for northern/western suburbs in the primary vote in 2022, I feel the Labor primary vote for polling booths are depressed than it should since to my knowledge Labor ironically did better in the postal vote which I think it has to do with more workers voting early

Political realignments don’t happen overnight.

Commentators were talking about “Doctor’s Wives” costing the Liberals inner city seats as far back as 2001, and it was only in 2022 when the truly decisive shift occurred. .

So just because the old Labor voting outer suburbs haven’t immediately gone Liberal doesn’t (necessarily) mean it’s a dud electoral strategy for them longer term.

@ John
I do agree with you that white working class areas/multicultural working class areas have different issues that interest them. For example i do accept that multicultural working class areas are conservative on issues such as LGBT matters and Drug liberalization. I dont think they are really anti-climate action or pro-coal as it does not really affect them either way. The issue of Palestine will be received very different in Calwell compared to Capricornia or Flynn.

I accept that Political realignments dont happen overnight. However, i dont think it is fatalistic rather it is decisions made by politicians The Libs plenty of warning about this seats and it is how they responded that impacts. During the Howard era while the Doctors Wives were unhappy about issues such as Kyoto, Iraq War and Refugees the economy/economic reform was a brand equity of the Libs back then. The last Coalition government did not really have an economic narrative. Tony Abbott himself agreed that the Howard era was “better than the last Coalition”. Economic differentiation is one way the Libs can appeal to the affluent if this is not present then the culture wars dominate. IMHO the lockdowns were a point in time and in response to once in a century pandemic. I have pointed out that Labor did not get a backlash in SE Melbourne such as Dandenong, Mulgrave, Clarinda, Narre Warrens, Cranbourne despite these areas demographically similar to North/West Melbourne. The Real Danger for the Labor party in its heartland seats is not the Libs rather someone like Dai Le. If the Libs campaigned in Fowler and Dai Le did not make the 2CP then KK would have been elected. It is why Labor ran dead in the Doctors Wives seats except Higgins/Boothby. The different is there is always a solid base of left wing support in those two seats unlike Mackellar or Curtin. What i think Albo should do now and i said in this forum in the aftermath of the Voice referendum is to focus on bread and butter issues.

It will be interesting to see if the Greens get a boost in seats with a large Muslim population over Palestine, particularly in NSW with Mehreen Faruqi at the top of the ticket. Unlike in Victoria which has several seats that mix Greens heartland with multicultural working class, there aren’t really any in NSW (but maybe the redistribution will create one out of Watson or Barton).

Of course it’s a long way to the next election.

Pesutto might be able to win back the Doctors wives but at a glance that only really gets them Ashwood and Glen Waverley. Prahran and Albert Park are too far gone and the sand belt is its own thing.

Dutton has no chance and is worse positioned than Morrison. On current boundaries I see Bradfield, Berowra, Deakin, Menzies, Casey and Sturt as at risk for the LNP under Dutton. On the other hand Labor could lose seats like Blair and Lyons

@ John
I actually think you are right. This is the irony of realignments etc. If Mehreen Faruqi visited Calwell, Blaxland etc working class ethnic seats she will get a heroes welcome whereas if she traveled to Wentworth, Higgins, Goldstein and parts of Macnamara she will get a hostile response. The seat of Wills is a perfect example of Greens Heartland mixed with multicultural working class areas. It also has one of the highest % of Muslims in the nation. Merri-bek council which makes up over 90% of Wills has raised the Palestinian Flag. The Victorian Socialists are strong in the North and there preferences flow to greens over Labor so a strong campaign by the Socialists who are even more Pro-Palestinian than the Greens. Meadow Heights had the biggest anti-lockdown swings last time and is a suburb 48% Muslim. I wonder if it will have the biggest swings to the Socialists & Greens next time.

@John, agree that Albert Park & Prahran are too far gone but especially with Toorak removed, Prahran doesn’t really even cover any ‘Doctors Wives’ territory now anyway. It’s more of a young renters seat. I actually think, if memory serves me right, that it has the highest percentage of renters out of any seat in the state and possibly also the youngest median age. While it’s certainly not disadvantaged outside all the housing commission, and levels of income and education are high, it’s a very different profile that doesn’t have the accumulated assets & wealth of a typical “Doctors Wives” seat. It’s what makes that area such an outlier in Higgins and why it suits Macnamara so much better, which outside Caulfield and “the Parks” has a similar profile.

Interesting points about the potential impact of the Palestinian conflict on Wills. The Greens & Socialists’ strong stance on that issue could be a big factor in improving their vote north of the ‘latte line’ and into the more multicultural, working class suburbs and that could be enough to flip it. In a seat like Calwell, it would be more likely to help Labor. Disaffected working class Labor voters might be more likely to turn to the pro-Palestine parties rather than the Libs who are typically more pro-Israel. All that said, who knows how much that will be on voters’ minds in another 18 months time.

I am not sure about the Greens Israel/Hamas war stance appealing to the outer suburbs being good for the Greens. Many have declared this or that policy will cause the Greens to fall, not realising the Greens main strength is appealing to a particular class (mostly but not exclusively privately schooled, university educated women working in office jobs in the city). Bringing in young muslim men from the outer suburbs will not create a lasting coalition with upper middle class professional women, particularly with Teal independents waiting in the wings. And that is even before we get to the different demographic groups having different views, so appealing to one demographic loses you another etc. Which is why Labor looks so confused at the moment, they have a much larger coalition to hold together on this issue.

On the realignment, I don’t think comparing Prarahn to Calwell is useful. One is comparing a changing demographic, one is comparing changes within a demographic. Although as a proponent of the realignment, I don’t think a seat based on Dandenong/Broadmeadows is going to the Libs, unless the ALP goes very ‘woke’.