Higgins – Australia 2022

If this still includes the Prahran end in 2025 I’m very doubtful of it going back to the Liberals. The continued inner-urban realignment in 3 years time plus an incumbent probably makes it out of reach even if Labor is on the nose (then it might just go to the Greens instead). Even if it loses the west part and gains Caulfield it is still challenging albeit much more winnable.

The Libs might try secretly funding a teal next time to harvest preferences for them.

Adda the Higgins result was driven by big swings in the Malvern end and if the Malvern end swings back to the Liberals then the Liberals would be a strong chance to regain it.

With Dutton as leader, I can’t see the Libs regaining this seat or any of the other seats that fell to Labor and the teals in Melbourne. These areas are already trending to the left and Dutton won’t be able to win these areas back given the issues and factors which led to the loss of such seats and the fact that he is even more hard right than Morrison. If the Libs continue on this path just like how the state Libs did after their 2018 loss, then I’d expect the seats that the Libs currently only just hold like Deakin and Menzies to fall. Speaking of the state Libs, I’d expect the seats in Melbourne that they managed to retain in 2018 like Malvern, Bulleen, Glen Waverley etc. to be in play and possibly fall since they clearly haven’t learnt their lessons from 2018 and the results in the federal election for Eastern Melbourne are even worse than in the 2018 Danslide.

I would almost go as far as to say that Caulfield, Sandringham and Brighton can already be written off as Liberal losses if Dutton is the federal leader and the Liberal brand is even more tainted in November than it already is; and Kew will certainly be in play.

Liberals will gain Pakenham for sure but there aren’t too many other outer suburban gains available to counter the inner city losses.

The LNP could make up for loses in the North-Western suburbs where Dan is unpopular.

If the Liberals receive a 12% uniform swing in the northwestern suburbs of Melbourne at the state election, they win a grand total of ZERO seats in that region.

I’d say Caulfield, Sandringham, Brighton and Glen Waverley are gone. Kew, Malvern, Bulleen, Warrandyte, Bayswater and Croydon are in play. The Libs won’t win back any of the seats they lost to Labor in 2018. The only positive is the Libs would retain Berwick and likely gain Pakenham but that’s about it. They may get swings to them in the North and West but it’s more likely that those wouldn’t be enough to unseat Labor of if it does, it would be a right wing minor party or a Dai Le style independent that gains it, not the Libs.

Dutton or no Dutton it is probably too early to directly link last Saturday and the state election in November. Last Saturday, the visceral anger toward Scott Morrison was a factor – that won’t be there in November. In Victoria, we also have a state government that is losing control of the ambulance system, has a mounting debt, and is starting to develop a whiff of corruption. On the other hand we do have a Victorian Liberal Party that is lazy and useless. Two factors from 2018 – the Vic Libs had no money and were saving what they had for the Federal poll – and they had almost no preference flows – lots of 4 candidate seats – Lib, ALP, Greens and Animal Justice. That might change this time. Also, will Teal issues translate to State politics – they had two big issues neither of which really apply in Victoria (and definitely not in NSW).

The Vic Libs are incredibly inept to say the least. They have not used the past 4 yrs to improve themselves and learn from the 2018 disaster. In fact, they’ve become even worse and lurched further to the right.
It’s true Dan Andrews has a lot more baggage than 4 yrs ago so I’d expect some backlash particularly in the Western and Northern suburbs. It certainly doesn’t help that all the new candidates in the north and west are parachuted and often not even from the area after the Somyurek faction was purged. However, in the Eastern Suburbs and the Frankston Line suburbs which traditionally decide the Vic elections, the Libs are too much on the nose with them seeming to be in even worse shape than in 2018. It would be interesting to see if the Teals or other Dai Le style independents contest the state elections since I’d imagine the both could do quite well.

Dan M, Higgins and the Teal seats have not turned left, if the Teals and the ALP had campaigned on a left wing platform of higher taxes and cuts to private schools then the Liberals would have held Higgins and all the Teal seats. I would expect it will take a few terms for the Liberals to win back Higgins and the Teal seats however eventually most if not all of them will return to the Liberal column.

Re-D
There were eight such 4-way contests in 2018. That is, including the Animal Party along with the three largest polling parties. I don’t think the preference flows in 2018 were so different, other than the axiom that; as goes the swing in the primary preferences, so to for subsequent preferences.

I wouldn’t expect the ALP will make any gains in November and the Liberals could pick up Nepean, Pakenham and Ripon.

Pencil
At 75.16% counted according to AEC, the Libs still have as much chance of winning Higgins this time as they do in any future election. i.e. negligible.
Urban consolidation will see to that.

Phil urban consolidation wont stop Higgins from eventually swinging back to the Liberals. The only thing that might is if the seat boundaries were extended into St Kilda or Oakleigh.

Higgins has had a slow demographic change, I would expect Labor to improve next time round with the LNP to improve in the outer suburbs, with Dutton as leader the Liberals can forget this electorate. Dutton would have an appeal in McEwen but not here especially if Katie Allen doesn’t recentest here next time round.

“The Vic Libs are incredibly inept to say the least. They have not used the past 4 yrs to improve themselves and learn from the 2018 disaster. In fact, they’ve become even worse and lurched further to the right.”

They are most certainly inept but how have the state Liberals “lurched further to the right”?

Victoria is likely to loose a seat because of comparative population loss during the lockdowns/with work from home, so a redistribution is likely with expanded Higgins boundaries and a seat in the eastern or south-eastern suburbs chopped.

Abolish Dunkley.

How would abolishing Dunkley work? Flinders can’t move so you’d be chopping both Isaacs and Holt in half.

You end up splitting Dunkley between Holt, Isaacs and Flinders

Dunkley is a logical corridor seat that is hard to abolish. Hotham is more likely. It was Henty, in a relatively similar position to Hotham, that got the chop in 1990 when Victoria last dropped from 39 to 38. Higgins would then be one of the seat to expand into what is not Hotham.

Dunkley wont be abolished due to Frankston being a regional centre however one possible candidate could be Hotham which would enable the AEC to shift Prahran/South Yarra into MacNamara and Caulfield to Higgins then send the western part of Hotham to Goldstein, then the AEC could unite Clayton, Spingvale and Dandenong into one seat.

With the loss of a Victorian seat – I have long thought Hotham would get the chop – indeed I thought and advocated for it to go last time. Lately, however my thoughts have been turning toward Higgins as the candidate to go. Or JagaJaga if the need is north of the river.

Pencil 3.08 pm
Hastings is now nominally Labour held, and would be my tip as the first pick-up for the Libs. Can’t say which year.
Seriously though, with a liberal incumbent, limited Teal risk, COVID refugees from wealthy seats (positive swing in Flinders federally), & Teal flops probably help Libs.

Wonder if Katie Allen will contest here in 2025, as I reckon the swing would have been bigger if it had been for her running.

The LNP think they can win this back by parachuting Josh Frydenberg here, what a complete joke

@Bob Was something mentioned. Have the LNP or Josh Frydenberg said he’ll run or consider running here.

North East,
It seems for the time being speculation with him currently denying it but some liberal strategies believe it could work, however I personally think the only reason why the swing against the liberals wasn’t bigger was because of how popular Katie Allen was with her absences I expect the seat to go further to ALP.

Interestingly, virtually all of the increase in the Labor primary vote came from the wealthiest blue ribbon parts of the electorate like Glen Iris, Malvern. Here the Greens vote was stagnant while in Prahran/Windsor Labor’s primary vote went backwards while the Greens improved.

@Nimalan This election Labor abandoned their negative gearing and franking credits plans while adopting many Coalition policies like Stage 3 Tax Cuts and the foreign policy regarding China. Thus, the economic policy difference that usually differentiates the two major parties was absent and the differentiation instead flowed on to social issues, climate change, integrity and character, none of which the Libs would be popular for in an area like this. As a result, it may have enraged many Labor/Green supporters in Prahan and Windsor into supporting the Greens instead of Labor while in the wealthy areas, it made voting Labor more palatable especially given the absence of an economically conservative but socially progressive teal independent.

I almost certainly believe if Higgins was in the USA, it would be a safe Democrat stronghold (maybe except for Toorak due to old money) due to American Republicans being hard right. This would be the same in Canada be voting for the Liberal Party of Canada again due to the hard-right stances of the Canadian Conservatives there.
Most Conservative Party by ranking:
1) Republican Party (USA)
2) Conservative Party (Canada)
3) LNP (Australia)
4) National Party (NZ)
5) Conservative Party (UK)
Most Progressive Party by ranking:
1) New Democratic Party (Canada)
2) Labour Party (UK)
3) Labour Party (NZ)
4) Labor Party (Australia)
5) Liberal Party (Canada)
2) Democratic Party (USA)

@ Dan M, agree with most of your analysis. Just a couple of thoughts i am keen to get your opinion.
1. The Shift can be seen over two elections. I am using 2016 as the base as that election the Liberals got their best ever result since 1990 in areas such as Kooyong, Higgins and Goldstein and this is a peak
2. In 2016, Labor got its worst ever primary result even though there was a swing state wider in Higgins at only 16%
3. I am going to do an adjustment and increase that to maybe 20% (just a guess estimate i am not sure how to project it. Due to the result being potentially artificially low due to the SkyRail issue in the Glen Eira part of Higgins. Marh pointed this out in the Malvern thread
4. In that case over the 6 years Labor has gained at least 8% on the PV and the Liberals lost at least that much. The Greens have gone slightly backwards
5. In the absence of the Teals why did not these wealthy resident move to Greens instead as we saw in the 3 most affluent Brisbane seats. Me thinks the Wealthy may actually prefer the Greens they have stronger policies on Climate, Integrity and Fossil Fuels. They also dont represent the urban working classes so the wealthy will have less of a class based aversion to the Greens than Labor
6. I am thinking this maybe due to the Significant Jewish vote in the Eastern Part of Higgins who may find Labor more palatable than the Greens due to their stance on the Middle East issue.

@Marh ‘s assessment seems accurate to me. I’d be a Democrat in the US, a Liberal in Canada, and a Liberal Democrat in the UK. In New Zealand I would have the same problem as I do in Australia – I don’t feel like any of the major parties really fit me well.

Oh yeah, I forgot to put Liberal Democrat. I’d rank it slightly above the Liberal Party of Canada mainly due to social issues but Lib Dems are more fiscally conservative than Libs in Canada to appease wealthier voters.

The reason why I say the Tories in Canada are more right-wing than the Tories in Australia is due to Canadian Tories having more sympathy right-wing populist movement, unlike LNP Australia which seems to have stronger loyalty in the frontbench. I factor may be due to the former split for conservatives in Canada and massive strongholds in the Prairies. Currently, Tories in Canada are supporting the truckers’ movement which seems similar to Vic Libs and they are most like going to elect Canada’s equivalent to Matthew Guy (Pierre Poilievre) as their party leader. Also, Canadian Tories are pro-gun, unlike LNP which favors and even introduced strict gun control.

I put Tories in the UK as being more left-leaning than Tories in Australia since it seems “One Nation Tories” (pretty much the moderate faction) have a more significant stake in the party and in policymaking which seems quite similar to NSW Libs with Matt Kean have a large stake of policymaking.

I would also think about what would have happened if the Liberal Party of Australia (perhaps Nationals as well) was named the “Conservative Party” similar to UK and Canada. I feel some centre-left socially liberal voters mistakenly think they are more progressive than “Labor” due to the name.

@Marh They honestly might as well do that now given a lot of the moderates have lost their seats in 2022 while barely any of hard right faction and none of the Nats did.

Just a few thoughts and party comparisons within Anglosphere
1. UK Conservatives are progressive on climate even more than Labor in Australia. They did not win Coal mining seats such as Blyth Valley. They won it due to Brexit
2. UK Conservatives are not really pro-immigration unlike their Australian and Canadian counterparts. However, UK is not a a new world country built on immigration and British Labor is not really that pro-immigration either
3. Republicans are no longer free market/free trade instead they have embraced protectionism under Trump.
4. It does not seem that UK Conservatives and NZ Nationals focus much on Abortion, SSM etc unlike Republicans.

– Although Republicans under Trump are more skeptical on free trade, they still old traditionally fiscally conservative economic policies such as less regulation, less welfare and lower taxes. Australia, NZ, UK and Canada Conservatives are almost similar in economic policies by mixing in typical centre right economics but may sometimes have populist economic policies during election campaigns (e.g. Scott Morrison announcing a policy to allow super to be used for buying a house)

– Australia, UK and NZ Tories are I favor of stronger gun control unlike US and Canadian Tories who support the right to own guns

-For Climate Change, it’s true UK Tories are more progessive on climate action but that pretty much the same for the centre right parties in Western Europe like Germany. NZ conservatives are also in favor of progessive climate action. Australia and Canada conservatives want a much more conservative approach to climate action due to large reliance of Fossils Fuels for natural resources. USA conservatives are mostly full on climate denying.

– USA and Canadian Conservatives in addition to Vic Libs are usings identity politics to wedge agaisnt Covid and Vaccines mandates

@Nimalan Probably worth pointing out despite the UK Tories not being as supportive of immigration as say the Libs in Australia or the Canadian Tories and the UK not being a new world country as you say, the UK Tories have the most diverse frontbench and cabinet compared to any other right wing party in the Anglosphere.

This might be due to Britain and pretty much a lot of Europe favoring immigrants from former colonies explaining why there are a lot of South Asians but not a lot of East Asians in the UK

Agree Marh and Dan M. The Fossil fuel industry is why Canadian and Aus centre right parties are no strong on climate. This is not the case in NZ etc where there is no such large industry. In Tasmania the state Liberals are progressive on Climate
With respect to immigration i agree UK Tories have a diverse front bench. Immigration to UK is largely a colonial hangover. It is important to remember a lot of the immigrants to the UK already had forms of British nationality such as the South Asians of East Africa and much of the Afro-Caribbean population during the colonial period. For this reason these communities are more settled than Australians of Non European Heritage which explains why these communities may not be concerned about right wing immigration policies and that more of them have made it to higher levels of Public Office. I do expect Australia’s South Asian community will exceed that of the UK as a % of the population in the next decade. Marh is correct the East Asian community consists almost entirely of the HK Chinese many of them still do have forms of British nationality

Speaking HK Chinese for getting British Nationality, BNO was actually intially quite useless until the National Security Law (which is viewed draconian by HKer’s and the Western World ) has passed causing the BNO to be changed to allow easier migrating to UK.

Many HKer’s view British colonialism more favourably unlike other colonies such as Inida and Africa due to the opposition to the PRC government. One factor why HKer’s views PRC government more negatively is due to many HKer’s are descendants of immigrants escaping the PRC as a result of Map Zedong’s oppression not further helped by further opposition since 2010s when PRC started to be more hardline

All the HK Chinese I’ve spoken to think very well of British governance and were not pleased when it ended. In fact many would say the label HK Chinese is misleading and would prefer to be known as HKers or even British HKers.

@Nimalan To add to your point, some of the strongest supporters for a right-wing immigration policy in the UK are in fact politicians of Indian and African descent (think of Priti Patel, Suella Braverman, Kwasi Kwarteng and Kemi Badenoch).

@ Dan M, agreed all these politicians you have mentioned are descendent from immigration in the 1960s so they are more like the Greek and Italian communities in Australia who are ethnic minority in a cultural sense but not immigrants.

Having Rishi Sunak into the final round shows strong presence of ethnic minorities in UK politics although Sunak would most likely lose to Truss. Closer to home, ACT opposition leader is Korean (Elizabeth Lee) although ACT is a progressive city state and Lee is a moderate so that makes it easy. You can also say USA once had a second generation non white immigrant president (Barack Obama’s father is actual African not African American)

@Marh Unfortunately, I don’t know if we can include Elizabeth Lee in that category since it’s very unlikely that she would become Chief Minister given how toxic the Lib brand is in the ACT with the direction pursued by Morrison and Dutton. What’s more likely is she puts her hand up for ACT Senate preselection now Zed Seselja lost his senate seat.

What would be the result in Higgins if the last state results from last month were replicated on the federal boundaries. It seems the State Libs overperformed their federal counterparts in both Malvern and Prahran. It is hard to defeat an crossbencher but defeating Labor would be easier so if the Libs want to return to the affluent they may target this seat.

This seat should be one of the targets for the Libs next election but it would be difficult since this seat would not be receptive at all to Dutton. He is a lot more hated than Morrison in areas like this. If Labor abandons Stage 3 tax cuts or the Libs push additional tax cuts then I can see the Libs being favourites to win here. They would also need a moderate candidate so if they choose someone like Peta Credlin I can’t see them winning.