Deakin – Australia 2022

If the Labor party has a really good night they could pick up this seat, however I would still say that the liberal party will hold on.

Does anyone know if Labor would have won this seat in 2010 on these boundaries. At that time it did not include strong Liberal areas like Croydon Hills/Warranwood in Menzies at the time and Vermont/Vermont South in Aston then. It also included areas better for Labor such as East Burwood and the entire share of Nunawading/Mitcham.

Nimalan, Labor wouldn’t have won this seat, but they would have one Aston instead on the boundaries it currently is on.

Nimalan, have a look at the chart. The dotted green line is my estimate of the 2PP based on the 2022 boundaries. Labor wouldn’t have won here in 2007 or 2010.

Thanks Bob and Ben, the Green dotted line is a great tool. The 2010 election was seen a high water mark for the Labor in Victoria. For that reason it will likely be a challenge for Labor to pick this up. It will be interesting if there any significant demographic changes in the seat since 2010. Unlike Latrobe, as Bob pointed out there is not significant population growth in Deakin.

Deakin is fairly stable demographically. The western part of the seat is seeing an increase in the Asian community thanks to the Box Hill overflow, probably slightly benefiting Labor. But the eastern part has become more affluent and desirable over time, which probably helps the Liberals somewhat.

So it balances out to not much change overall.

Nimalan,
Deakin is going under a massive demographic change. Ringwood, Ringwood East, Heathmont, Croydon, Croydon North, Croydon South & Croydon Hills are having the large properties being subdivided with where one house being replaced with 4-6 units. I don’t think in the short term it will benefit Labor but maybe in the long term this seat could change if the seat is not pushed further out east.

Bob
The other side of the coin is that in suburbs such as Blackburn, Mitcham and Heathmont, smaller houses (of which there a lot dating back to the early post war years) are being demolished and replaced by much larger houses, driving values up and attracting higher income folk.

I like how the three of us have given completely different explanations about this……

It still puzzles me that the Redistribution commissioners were quite willing to change the proposed boundaries of Higgins and Macnamara but not the execrable boundary mess between Menzies, Chisholm and Deakin which leaves Box Hill and Mitcham cut in two, and Blackburn into three. This was despite a lot of very reasonable objections and suggestions on how the boundaries could be improved.
One thought I do have is that the Commissioners had already got it into their head that the 39th Victorian seat would only last one term and it would all have to be done again before 2025, and that Menzies would somehow have to cross the Yarra again either west into Eaglemont and Ivanhoe, or north into Eltham. If a seat had to go, it would probably have to be west of the Yarra rather than the east but one seat would have to cross the river to make it work.

Redistributed,
You make a fair point the seat has expensive suburbs with the prices continuing to go up. None the less this seat will be interesting to watch. I still think labor has a better chance in La Trobe then here.

Thanks All, interesting commentary

*Pressed enter too soon. All interesting commentary. Agree boundaries are not sensible especially in Blackburn with the primary school in Menzies, the station in Chisholm and library in Deakin. Canterbury road would have been a better divide between Menzies/Chisholm as it would not divide suburbs in two. There is a couple of other examples as a result of the recent redistribution which i felt could have been better managed; Yarraville divided between Fraser/Gellibrand, Mulgrave divided in 3 between Chisholm, Bruce and Hotham. The AEC allowed all of Burwood East to be united in Chisholm and Oakleigh East in Hotham but did not fix the above suburbs.

Agree bob.. Most likely Chisholm then lat trobe then this.. Think others out of range

Deakin has never been a safe seat for the Libs but the ALP have only managed to win it in 1983, 2007 and 2010. Like him or loathe him, Michael Sukkar has a high local profile and works pretty hard. They will also sand bag here pretty hard. I have been here for every election since 2001 (except 2019 when we moved to Chisholm without moving house) and it was only in 2007 and 2010 that the ALP put any concerted effort in. In 2013, it was very obvious that Mike Symon was outside the sandbag – very little obvious campaigning or resourcing going on.
With the current boundaries, campaigning for the major parties in this area will be a nightmare – and the AEC are going to have their work cut out for them as well at all the local booths.

Any internal polling on this seat? How are LNP fairing here?

Albanese was here the other day so maybe they still think it’s in play

If there is someone out there in Menzies, Aston or Casey – can you inform us if the local Liberal campaign is obsessed with roads and car parks at stations. I have had two brochures from the Libs which were about roads and I have had a call from his “office” following up my “concern” about roads. They were disappointed that I had not been in contact and roads are the last thing on my mind. What about x and y ? Family members – no not in contact either. Is this happening in other eastern suburbs seats.

There was an article in the Murdoch papers today that was very interesting although misleading. It mentions 6 bellwether booths that have backed the winner consistently since 1993. It mentions the Nunawading South booth in Deakin – only problem is they only took the first preference vote into consideration. Clearly Nunawading is to the left of the national vote.

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/federal-election/federal-election-2022-quiet-australian-voters-and-polling-booths-who-will-pick-the-winner/news-story/0c8fa89a2fc436a22b196867389abda1

Adam, i saw that on Channel 7 last night. Mount Pleasant Road primary school booth is Nunawading South. It makes sense from a demographic point of view as this area is textbook middle Australia. i would also say the Parkmore PS booth in Forest Hill is also likely to a good bellwether purely looking at it demographically. Maybe this is a better reflection of the statewide vote rather than national vote. For example in 1990 it would have been possible that these booths voted to the right of nation.

Surprised that this electorate is receiving little to no attention. I’d imagine it is one of the seats possibly in play on Labor’s path to government. The seat’s profile doesn’t suggest that it would go against a nationwide swing, the margin isn’t too much and as far as I know Michael Sukkar isn’t some rockstar incumbent. Currently predicting the Liberals to hold on but it should be close, I’ll say 51-49 or so.

Labor threw everything at this last time which even consisted of Bill Shorten having the opening of his campaign in the electorate and got a measly swing of just over 1% which just shows it’s probably not really in play this time with also the high watermark labor mostly has in Victoria too.

I would not expect Deakin (or Casey) to flip this time, it always seems like its just out of reach this time for Labor.

Casey I would argue is in play mainly due to the loss of Tony Smith’s presumably pretty large personal vote, But yeah, Deakin is probably a seat that’ll be close but Labor will just miss and is a seat they may be looking at next time depending on how an inevitable redistribution goes.

Deakin is a more homogenous middle Australia electorate but these boundaries are much more favourable to the Libs than when the last held it as mentioned earlier in the thread.. Casey on the other hand is a more polarised electorate on current boundaries and like it did in 2019 different parts of the electorate can theoretically swing in opposite directions.

So far, no seeming effort from Labor in Deakin, at least at the western end. Similar level of effort to 2013 when they had basically written off a seat they had held since 2007. In 2007 and 2010 they pulled out all the stops.

Where are the station carparks Michael Sukkar promised at the last election. They have mostly been canceled bad form and he stabbed Turnbull in the back.
I want a member that see the climate as a priority not something to be fought over as point scoring against the other side.

So I’m guessing the Libs would have held this in 2007 and 2010 under these boundaries? How did you calculate that Ben and when was the last time the ALP notionally had this on these same boundaries? 1980s?

This is Deakin 2022. I have no idea who is representing Deakin….. the only name I have is Matt Gregg. Who is he? Sadly how can an aspiring labor voter vote for an invisible candidate. Just nor good enough

Which seat is more likely to fall out of Deakin and Casey? I feel that if one falls they both will. The Liberals will have lost Smith’s personal vote in Casey which might make it more likely to come into play. I wonder if this seat being so close to Chisholm (esp. Vermont Sth, Forest Hill, Blackburn) will have an effect. Penny Wong was in The Glen at Glen Waverley and Rudd was in Box Hill.

Labor are making zero effort here – compared to the Libs who are bombarding us with a wide range of literature. We have had one Greens leaflet too. And I have been getting phone calls from Michael Sukkars office about local roads – my one regret is not giving the Young Lib a serve about if Michael Sukkar as a federal MP thinks local roads are front and centre then:

1: He is running in the wrong parliament
2: He should open his eyes to wider horizons and major national issues
3: How stupid does he think voters are?

And BTW, I believe that our ON candidate is one of Pauline’s ghosts. The only person I can find online is a real estate agent from Hervey Bay – methinks it could be the same person.

I don’t think the ALP is expecting to make many gains in Victoria, I think this electorate will be close.

Victoria doesn’t seem to be that positive for Labor compared to the other states. At this stage really only Chisholm is at risk to Labor and even then it may not be gained by Labor. The Liberals are more worried about the teals than Labor.

Vic possible + 2 teals. +1 independent . +1 to 5 Labor . … . That is lib/np _ 4 to 9 now that is a big range… be generous to lnp they lose at least 3 seats

Michael Sukkar’s big billboard on Canterbury Rd, Vermont has been replaced with a billboard of Dan Andrews pulling puppet Albo’s strings. Says something like ‘Under Daniel Andrews taxes are higher, under Albanese they will be higher.

I imagine many swing voters would look at that and question that taxes are even higher under Daniel Andrews.

I point out that Vic Libs unlike other State Libs take populist rhetoric in their campaign, Just look how they are attacking Andrews rather than introducing their alternative policies. If they were put into the Australian Political spectrum, they would pretty much be on the right-wing faction of the LNP and takes similar stances to the Liberal Democrats as Vic Libs seem try to right-Libertarians

I’ll be watching the Melbourne suburban seats with interest. Feedback I hear is Andrews in on the nose in the suburbs, so the sign does not surprise me.

Whether people vote federal based on it is another matter all together.

Interesting LNP Insider,
I’ve heard that the ALP are fine in in the East but in trouble in the north western suburbs where covid has been hit hard.

Again I am not an expert at Melbourne seats and suburbs. It may be more blue collar seats with stronger Labor margins is where the sentiment is and the swing won’t be enough to do anything.

I agree, the north, west and south eastern safe seats may have the biggest resentments towards Andrews, which won’t be enough for them to lose the seats. There may be this sort of sentiment in the eastern part of Deakin around Bayswater North, Kilsyth South, parts of Croydon but wouldn’t expect it in relatively well heeled Vermont where the billboard is.

I’m getting a distinct feeling that a lot of LNP supporters who post on this site are becoming increasingly worried about losing a raft of seats to Labor and Teals .. and God forbid, even the evil Greens. Cheer squad posting has morphed into pure conjecture.

I tend to think a lot of that comes from the Herald Sun trying to set that narrative, basically the tactic being that if they say Melburnians are angry at Andrews enough times, then that becomes the public perception and hopefully (in their eyes) it also becomes the reality.

They’ve been way off on that in the past though on issues like the East West Link, CFA, African gangs and Skyrail, where there was constant media attention claiming those issues were hurting Labor in particular regions, but in every case the impacted areas swung towards Labor (some very hard like the Skyrail suburbs).

I have no doubt there is a large minority who are extremely vocal in their opposition to Andrews, but the reality is that even post lockdowns, Andrews’ approval ratings are consistently much higher than Albanese, his preferred Premier rating is much higher than Albanese’s preferred PM rating, and state Labor poll better than federal Labor.

So I feel like the Libs linking Albo to Andrews is a bit of a dumb strategy. They’re basically linking him to somebody who is more popular.

Vic Libs is using campaign which are rather polarising and where are large proportion perhaps even the majority of the mainstream voters would not support their stance. Think in the US of GOP attacking Democrats for their abortion stance, that happening to Vic Libs

Peter- I’ve been on this site for many years and I don’t think I’ve been overly guilty of cheer squad behaviour.

I’m realistic that this is a tough election and I am speculating why we are seeing.media commentary about these Melbourne suburban seats based off feedback I’ve had from apolitical Victorians that I speak to.

Albo was here today so this seat must be in play

Anyone who thinks the Victorian Liberals are particularly right-wing is kidding themselves. It’s probably the most left-wing Liberal Party in the country. When you look closely there isn’t that much they’d actually do differently from Andrews.

The most left-wing except for the South Australian, New South Wales, and Tasmanian Liberals, perhaps. Probably not the WA ones considering they’ve been reduced to a rump controlled by Christian right powerbrokers.

Entrepreneur I have to disagree with that.

The Vic Libs opposed a lot of the social reforms that the Victorian government introduced over the past few years including voluntary assisted dying, mandatory safe schools, banning gay conversion therapy, making wage theft a jailable criminal offense, and the rental reforms that give tenants a little bit more security.

None of them are particularly left-wing policies, I would argue that they simply catch Victoria up to what are mainstream, centrist expectations in today’s society; but the Liberals’ opposition to some of them came very much from pressure from the religious right within and outside the party, which I think is what Marh is referring to as not being acceptable to mainstream voters in Melbourne.

If you’re right that they are the most moderate (I wouldn’t say left-wing) state Liberal Party in the country, if anything that’s more indicative of how right-wing they must be elsewhere, but it doesn’t make them any less right-wing in the context of Victoria’s political landscape.

The other issue is just the hardline language they use around law & order, the dog whistling about race particularly in the last election campaign, appealing to the populist and anti-vax sentiments by joining “freedom” rallies, these are all things that very much place them considerably to the right of Victoria’s political mainstream.

The NSW Liberals are way more centrist than the Vic Liberals. At this stage, the Vic Liberals give me Trump vibes with their populist rallies and rhetoric. They’ve certainly shifted to the right compared to 2018.

If Newspoll finding on Thursday May 11 that Sukkar’s primary vote has collapsed to 43 then he is in real trouble and unlikely to win on the 2PP by 53-47 as Newspoll suggests. There’s a big vote for minor parties and independents in Deakin and preference flows from 2019 indicate that Hinch Party and AJP preferences will stream tightly to the Labor candidate. Newspoll seems to be assuming otherwise. I think this seat is a toss up.