Corangamite – Australia 2022

Labor should hold here with a swing towards them.

The new boundaries are actually slightly better for the Libs than the old ones. They also have a high profile candidate in Stephanie Asher who is the mayor of Geelong. They might still be in the race here.

No rural component and no lib sitting mp… Anne henderson in the senate… Should be alp held with swing to them

Redistributed I agree not to write this seat off, however the federal government is particularly unpopular with Labor have incumbency on their side which should benefit them.

Bob
That might be true ordinarily. However Libby Coker is quite (extra) ordinary !!. A Particularly vile spiteful, & outright nasty individual. None of which disqualifies her as an MP. Of real concern is her total lack of awareness, consciousness, & judgement.

winediamond how do you know she is spiteful? I did do about 25 minutes of trawling through the internet and the only thing I found about bullying was the fact that her and Ged Kearney moved factions after the whole Somyurek kerfuffle.

winediamond February 25, 2020 at 12:29 pm
From todays OZ Strewth column Alice Workman

Them’s fighting words

Sarah Henderson made a declaration on Monday morning that shook some of her Liberal colleagues. The Victorian senator told Sky News she was the “de facto member for Corangamite”. Last we checked she lost her seat and returned to Canberra only after former cabinet minister Mitch Fifield departed for the UN. The actual member for Corangamite, Labor’s Libby Coker, told Strewth: “My predecessor can’t quite get over the fact that in May 2019 she was dumped by the people of Corangamite, despite $3bn of funding promises … and despite the Coalition being returned to office.” By Strewth’s calculations the Liberals’ 41 campaign promises in the marginal seat were the equivalent of $26,500 per voter! Coker continued: “Now she has been parachuted back into the Senate without facing an election. Voters in the rest of regional Victoria — Ballarat, Warrnambool, Bendigo — must be a little peeved with the Senator’s obsession with Corangamite, the place where she lives and where she lost. Voters chose who they want as the Member for Corangamite and it wasn’t Sarah Henderson. If Ms Henderson has the illusion that she and the policies of the Coalition are so popular … then I would welcome her resigning her Senate spot and standing again at the next election.”

My view, & response in the OZ at the time

A MORE INTELLIGENT RESPONSE might have been:

I’m delighted that Sarah remains as devoted to Corangamite as we are. Perhaps we can enjoy a further extra $3 billion that Sarah secured for us last term. Wouldn’t that be a fabulous outcome for Corangamite. Being the main focus of a federal Senator is no small privilege , & i look forward to working constructively with the liberals or anyone else for the benefit of Corangamite. If Sarah want to be the “de-facto” member or anything else that’s fine by me.

Instead Coker indulged herself with a adversarial, hyper- aggressive, self-absorbed pathetic rant. Her self promotion obscured Henderson’s, & demonstrated an almost hysterical fragility, & insecurity. Surely we can do better for a couple of hundred grand a year ??.

sincerely wd

To be fair wd it wasn’t close loss. As the only non-National regional coalition Senator, she does have to represent other areas of the state, and her obsession with Corangamite is a bit unhealthy considering she represents her state. She can’t identify as the seat’s de facto member as she didn’t win; hasn’t had the party’s position particularly advanced by the redistribution, and she’s a Senator. Considering most of the projects were pork barrelled into the marginal seat by the government, and Coker’s tone didn’t seem fragile, insecure or aggressive (albeit a bit sarcastic) so I feel that we’re getting worked up over nothing of note.
From memory you live on the North Shore/Northern Beaches of Sydney and I live in a rapidly gentrifying suburb south of the river in Perth. We aren’t necessarily completely qualified to critically analyse Coker’s near-two-year stint as the member for Corangamite (not Cox or Tucker), we can be sure that someone from the surf towns/outer suburbs of Geelong can. I’d think Coker would be returned considering that the demographics are changing and Geelong and co. have been relatively COVID free. Cheers.

Ryan Spencer
Surely by now you understand that a politician has to work extremely hard, & behave so badly as to be almost pathological, in order to earn my complete contempt ? . I tend not to bestow such disfavour lightly, or capriciously !.
cheers WD

winediamond

Absolutely mate. There are so few that spring to mind in terms of hard-working MPs. I could name Linda Burney and Anne Aly for starters, both being inspirational women who work hard in their own electorates. Can’t think of many more to be completely honest. I would say Senators Siewert (retiring) and Steele-John are still fierce advocates for huge proportions of the population, namely socioeconomically disadvantaged people and disabled people. Others? Maybe Warren Entsch if you ignore the hypocrisy.

Ryan Spencer
Sorry i replied before receiving your post.
Your POV , & arguments are well presented, & expressed. However your fair view of the lady, doesn’t lighten in any way my extremely dark view.
I’ll disagree about the loss. It was very close, on the back of a tough re distribution. This is significant because of Chairman Dan’s recent “fall from grace”. Corangamite is now in play, & probably more at risk than say Lilley, E-M, Greenway, Dobell, or even Chisholm is for the libs. I note with interest, & amusement a “westralian centric” POV wrt Covid. Geelong being Covid free & viciously locked down anyway has, doubtless infuriated the punters rather than reassured them !!!. Clearly there is a different perspective in the west !?

Haven’t we discussed assessing political horseflesh recently !? Lets compare an engaging labor filly like Annike Wells, or a thoroughbred like Kimberly Kitching, or Michelle Rowland, with the feeble broken down nag of Libby Coker. Not pretty is it ? I could give you an enneagram assessment that would arrive at a similar outcome….. What i would say is that there are 3 labor senators that ought to be in the lower house & in senior positions Kitching, Cicione, & your old boy from the west. If old nags like Coker went to the political knackery there might be room for this kind of talent !! A “win-win”!

I don’t disagree with the effectiveness of Senators Kitching and Ciccone, although my view is more that they’re simply more effective as Senators because they are far too valuable for the ALP in the committee work stage. My COVID stance probably relies on the examples of the QLD Election (Hervey Bay, Nicklin, Caloundra) and then seats in WA like Geraldton, Pilbara and Kalgoorlie considering they all had very little/no COVID. Watched Coker’s maiden speech and I kinda get your point about tone. Also, who’s the “old boy from the west”? WA Labor does still have slightly too many evergreen members who still get a seat, or in John Quigley’s case, the Attorney General role as well.

> The new boundaries are actually slightly better for the Libs than the old ones.

I wonder if this is true. A 0.1% shift is within the margin of error of any redistribution calculation, and that’s before you take into account the effect of rise of non-ordinary voting. Postals split 57-43 Lib in 2019. The rural areas excluded probably accounted for a disproportionate share of the postal vote; if the calculation assumes a uniform spread of postal voting then that might overstate the Liberal position.

Ryan Spencer
Couldn’t remember name of Sen Glenn Sterle. Impressive as hell. Tough no nonsense bloke reminds me of Peter Walsh, Australia’s greatest finance minister. Best Labor PM we didn’t get.
Im extremely impressed that you could take all 25 minutes of Coker !. Lad With that kind of fortitude, & patience, you will make an excellent husband for some very unhappy woman ! ( JUST KIDDING !)
Your point about the senators is really a perennial one. They generally communicate on a higher level, & do more important work per se. However the lower house needs leadership even more….
Perhaps if more senators transferred into the HofR WE might end up with better reps, & fewer show ponies, or bitter turgid messy disasters like Coker ?
cheers WD
ps Ryan If you feel inclined give me a call sometime for a more detailed discussion my number is 0425365419

I still at this stage don’t see the liberal party making a gain here, but I won’t write this seat off.

Bob
The way this looks atm, is that Corangamite has become a genuine toss up along with maybe a dozen others. Its just too early to say where the cards will fall. However with the fall of Andrews popularity, & consequently influence, this seat is now in play. It could become a lightning rod of sorts for lockdown resentments.

Winediamond
Most people I speak too are swing voters, they are more angry at the federal government which is up for election before the state.

Bob
Can they distinguish which govt imposed the lockdowns , & lied to them about the necessity when their LGA had ZERO cases ? If you experienced 9 months of lockdowns wouldn’t you be getting a little testy ?

I am sure that the majority of voters in Corangamite can distinguish between a government that did its best to stamp out transmission, used not just proven cases but also close contacts (the MCG and AMII clusters in particular had close contacts over most of the state, requiring a statewide lockdown) to calculate whether or not a lockdown was needed and the government that has continually ignored its constitutional responsibility for quarantine, made a mess of the vaccine rollout and heavily favoured NSW.

Tom the first and best
Very Happy for you mate. We will see soon enough if all those lines of thinking prevail.
I note you haven’t actually responded to most of what i’ve put forward. I doubt that everyone else will ignore the realities of blanket lockdowns, mental health issues, suicides, business closures, school closures etc etc etc.
If you think ANYONE has “covered themselves with glory” you are dreaming

as a school-aged young adult myself I would rather be in a harsh lockdown than die of covid. I still wear a face mask at school when people around me are sick and I haven’t been sick in ages.

Ryan Spencer
I feel incredibly sad that anyone could live with the level of fear, anxiety, & concern that you describe. It is hard not to contrast my hedonistic, self absorbed, & pleasure seeking life in the late 70s, & early 80s. Getting adrenalin highs, & risk taking were pursued relentlessly !. The thought of observing any guidelines , let alone laws would have been resisted fiercely . reckless perhaps But (in that age) we were free.

Now i pursue a different freedom through the enneagram. I wouldn’t want to live without it. id still be hiding (being who i really am) & resisting everything even living itself, which is an exhausting & all consuming existence . I’d be miserable & my son wouldn’t speak to me.
How about considering having the life you really want, & living it the way you choose ?

wd
From experience the longest lockdown we had was about a month (at the very start) and it was a lot softer than most, mainly because there was so little community spread.
Maybe if we had more cases over here I might have different thoughts.

@winediamond

I’m 23 and my entire life so far has been very much the opposite of what you’ve described. Study study study work work work. Always been very risk-averse and wary to follow rules. I tell myself I’ll have plenty of time to enjoy myself (whatever that might entail) once I never have to worry about money again.

Nicholas Weston
i hear you. We live in a different country, & a different time now. You sound like a very good lad indeed, & i hope your dedication is rewarded in full. When all of this nonsense is over try to take some time for yourself, & look into your own heart, for what can bring you joy. Savour the liberty that is yours now, jobs, mortgages, partners, & kids can appear instantly !. Then freedom can be a long time reclaimed, although we can all choose freedom within ourselves.
!. At 24 i became a company director, 25 got engaged, 26 got married,27 had a mortgage, kids at 31. It can all happen fast
cheers wd

winediamond
I live in the electorate of Corangamite (from reading previous comments I believe you live in Sydney) and I can assure you most of the people I talk to in my electorate aren’t upset with Chairman Dan as you call him, they blame Gladys for not locking down quick enough and allowing the virus to enter Victoria, they also blame Morrison for not acting quick enough on vaccinations by claiming “it’s not a race” and his lack of foresight in not building dedicated quarantine centres while praising Hotel Quarantine (he’s still doing it even with the new strain Omicron breaking out) that allowed the virus to leek out into the general population, I also think you should have a look at the polls from reputable sources regarding Andrews, they have fallen a bit but not that much, if you watch Sky After Dark which I presume you do because the only people I’ve ever seen use the SKY euphemisms of Dictator Dan and Chairman Dan read and watch Murdoch media and could be excused for thinking Andrews popularity has dropped through the floor, a large Majority of Victorians are still behind what Andrews has done and as I said earlier they blame Gladys and Morrison because all the outbreaks in Victoria originated in NSW, you can also discount the noisy but small amount of anti-vaxxers and “Freedom” marchers as an indication of Andrews support because in reality they amount to about .05% of Victoria’s population a number that is only relevant if a copper tells you you’re over it. Cheers Robert.

This election is likely to see Corangamite as no longer marginal. This comes off the back of Coker’s incumbency and popularity, along with a growing left-of-Labor vote right across the electorate. The electorate is now firmly a commuter belt electorate, with many inner-city Melburnians making the move over recent years, attracted by more affordable housing and proximity to beaches and national parks, while taking advantage of the now frequent train service to Melbourne. The region continues to swing against the Liberals federally, at a state level (South Barwon, Bellarine) and locally (Kardinia ward). While Asher bucks this trend with a swing to her at the last council election (as a so-called independent), her popularity amongst the self-funded retirees and wealthy sea-changers of the Bellarine won’t be enough. Selling the Liberal party’s conservative message to an increasingly progressive electorate is always going to be a hard task.

Robert Chapman December 2, 2021 at 7:44 am
Don’t know how i missed this ?. Thanks for your post. Indeed The “chairman’s ” popularity is holding well. Labor’s campaign is doing better than the govt. Corangamite is still in play, however without it the govt won’t have a majority, & that’s looking more likely.
Most of your post is what i’d see as the standard (VIC left of centre) POV with the embellishment of a another standard view of the “Murdoch Media’. The only salient question is whether that will change ?. Or as i would put it that Victorians will “wake up”!. This is looking less likely all the time. It may well take a few years under an Albanese govt.
cheers wd

Asher was popular as a no-party independent in the Council elections but this is counts for very little in a party contest. In The Australian Dennis Shanahan relayed news from the Liberal bunker that they are targeting Corangamite & Dunkley, it makes sense to say this to tie up Labor resources but I’d agree with WanderWest & note also that the local big employers are all unionised public sector organisations.

Here’s a very marginal seat held by Liberals recently with a Liberal candidate who is proven vote-winner at local government level, who is local mayor and campaigning for months. Seat voted 72% for Marriage Equality. But Liberal cunning plan (saluted as brilliant by media) is to focus on SSM-no Labor seats most of which have never been won by Libs & in the most vulnerable they haven’t even got a candidate. Puzzling?

This is wrong, It is called Tucker now or was it Cox. They changed the name Ben. Did you see the redistribution? I swear I could recall this seat was getting a name change.

Daniel, the name change to Tucker was proposed in the draft redistribution initially released by the AEC. However there were a number of objections to that name, and the AEC decided to reverse the decision when the final boundaries were released.

Daniel, interestingly i was one of those objected to the renaming.

https://www.aec.gov.au/Electorates/Redistributions/2021/vic/files/objections/vic21-ob0002-nimalan-sivakumar.pdf

If election poster coverage is anything to go by, you would be surprised to think that this is a target seat for the Liberals. Asher posters are very few are far between, located mainly on farms in the rural parts of the electorate. Very little to be seen in either the southern suburbs of Geelong or the coastal townships. She did purchase a billboard early on in the campaign, located just across the Corangamite/Corio border in suburban Belmont. Coker on the other hand has pretty even coverage across the electorate, along with the massive permanent signage on her electorate office. This is positioned at the entrance of one of the main shopping centres in the electorate, in the Armstrong Creek growth area. I’ve seen the occasional Greens poster, mainly in Torquay and one UAP in Armstrong Creek. Meanwhile, across the border in Corio, you wouldn’t even know an election was on – not a single poster to be seen, from any party, anywhere.

Corfutes and election signage have little impact on changing a person’s vote. If they did then Clive Palmer would be Prime Minister. They basically only make the person who puts one up in his or her yard feel empowered. In a move to lessen visual pollution the Brisbane City Council for this Federal Election is only allowing 150 corflutes per candidate in each electorate and they must placed within a residential property, not out on a street corner pole. Also they could only be placed within 28 days of the Federal election date.

I agree the signage has little impact on changing votes, however I do believe it is a good indicator of local support when the signage has been chosen to be erected by a homeowner. Paid billboard advertising of the UAP kind is a different matter.

Unpopular lockdowns vaccine mandates and restrictions will lose this for Labor.

@Ben, This seat has become more progressive in recent years with a sea change demographic. It is quite affluent and educated for a regional seat as well as a very high SEIFA score in parts of the electorate . Sarah Henderson was a popular member so there could be a sophomore surge for Labor here.

In some descriptions this is a target Liberal seat, but one that voted 75% for marriage equality, where biggest employer is the public hospital and is fairly Anglo & European doesn’t seem promising ground for any Morrison appeals.

I don’t see Labor loosing here as the demographics seem to trending Labor here.

Alp got a 1% swing to her last time..even without this would have been a narrow alp win. Over 50% voted postal and prepoll which was obviously well organised by the incumbent mp Sarah Henderson last time. From what I can see this seat is a Geelong based seat which has very little rural component.. no way this seat will be lost to Labor

Poor form from the Asher campaign yesterday. Positioning their mobile billboard near a dawn service and then driving up and down an ANZAC parade. @Ben there is little chance that this seat will fall back to the Liberals. The current MP is very popular and the Green/left-of-Labor vote is very high for a regional seat. This combination will see the seat become much safer for Labor this election. @Mick suburban Geelong makes up part of the electorate, much of it is coastal and rural townships, popular with sea/tree-changers.

your obviously forgetting that the state labor govt will offset that as the vaccine mandate is still in place and people are still unable to work because they dont want to forced to be vaccinated

Ben, you are seriously overestimating how big of a factor that is. Nothing has been shown indicating anti-vaxx sympathies will be a big election issue outside those voting for fringe parties like the UAP or One Nation.

Except that Corangamite has one of the highest vaccination rates in the country and was one of the fastest areas to be vaccinated. State government vaccine mandates are not an issue in this federal electorate.

Agree with both your points Midnight Citizen and Wanderwest – the Liberals and Coalition generally (except for a few hard right MPs like Russell Broadbent) are fully supportive of all Covid related restrictions that have passed with bipartisan support over the past 2 years, so it is unlikely there will be a large Liberal swing.

Corangamite is still in play as Stephanie Asher is quite high profile, but anecdotal evidence from Wanderwest shows they aren’t really taking it seriously if they haven’t got much of a ground campaign presence.

Only a tiny percentage of the population are not vaccinated and they would have been unlikely to vote Labor anyway, because it mostly came from small government libertarian types.

If there is any impact that vaccines and the pandemic will have on the federal election in Victoria, it’s that the perception here is that the federal Liberal Party bungled the roll out, favoured NSW with vaccine distribution and financial support on multiple occasions, and politicised it by constantly criticising Victoria while praising NSW for identical decisions; and that is then compounded by the state Liberal Party also being seen as opportunistic, contradictory and uncooperative.

You may not agree that those perceptions are accurate, but in terms of electoral impacts what’s important isn’t whether that’s right or wrong, but the fact that is the overwhelming perception and prevailing attitude in the community.

Those against lockdowns and mandates were only a fringe group (who happened to get disproportionate media coverage), and were mostly from the right anyway so are unlikely to have much if any impact on the results.

@Ben I think that you are significantly over-estimating the amount of people this vaccine mandate is effecting
in Victoria. Because of Victoria’s very high vaccination rates, it is a tiny subset of the population. Geelong in
particular is amongst the highest vaccinated places in the state. Parts of Geelong even have a booster-rate (of
the eligible population) higher than 95%. This is higher than Melbourne and amongst the highest in Australia!
Parts of Queensland, around the outer fringes of Brisbane are not even “fully-vaccinated” above 90% of the
eligible population by comparison, let alone “boosted”.

I definitely wouldn’t discount that there is likely a very animated and local campaign being led by this subset, but I don’t see this being significant enough in Corangamite to affect this margin. Also look at this new redistribution, it tightens the whole division down into the most urban parts of Geelong and does away with its outer-suburban fringes that might have been at least a bit more sympathetic.

Based on vaccination-rates, I suspect that the inner-West and outer-north of Melbourne would be Victoria’s most disaffected regions, particularly McEwen and Hawke but also very safe Labor seats with tremendous margins like Scullin, Calwell, Maribyrong, Gorton.

I also recognise that not everyone who is vaccinated, necessarily would not also be against vaccination mandates. I also have considered that there would be a cohort of people that would be frustrated by such restrictions and had to be vaccinated in order to maintain their livelihoods. But I still believe that the vaccination-rates by GA still offer a loose insight into the magnitude of disaffection by pandemic-restrictions by LGA.

The only place I expect that restrictions including mandates could at least be impactful on the election results are the outer suburban fringes of South East Queensland as well as regional Queensland. In these parts,
vaccination rates are low and there already is an established, viable and animated base of support for parties
like UAP and ONP leading their protest. Seats like Longman, Blair, Wright and Dawson.

Agree with the bulk of your comment SEQ observer – however I do have a slight point to add/rebut.

The new Corangamite district still includes quite a lot of outer-suburban fringe parts of Geelong. It includes the Golden Plains shire towns of Bannockburn and Inverleigh, together with the Surf Coast town of Torquay. The description you used describing Corangamite consisting of ‘solely urban parts of Geelong’ would be more apt for the state seat of South Barwon, which lost Torquay and almost all areas of Surf Coast council in the recent state redistribution.