La Trobe – Australia 2022

The redistributions have not assisted labor, however I still think labor have a better chance of winning this seat rather then Deakin due to the booming population. If Labor play their cards right they could pick up this seat.

Agree, Bob this is a seat to watch it has has since it has phenomenal population growth. The boundaries have changed radically in recent years and will likely change again in future redistribution potentially shedding rural/semi-rural areas with the growth of new housing developments. It has very little of the Dandenongs left (Strong for Labor) Interestingly, on these boundaries it would have been safer for the Liberals than Menzies in 2007 although that statement is meaningless as it would not have made a full electoral quota but it does show how much the population has grown and changed with rapid urbanisation. Labor did not win any of the Pakenham booths in 2007 (then in McMillan) and the Clyde Booth (now an external booth) used to be over 70% for the Liberals but now 52% ALP. Clyde used to be a small rural hamlet. This has shown a big change over the last decade and a half. As this is mortgage belt area it will be more volatile than Deakin and can swing heavily either way. Expect both parties to campaign and offer many promises to this seat

The buffer on this seat is rubbery so if interest rates increase then LNP could be in serious trouble as well over 50% of the constituents would be effected by a change like that.

In response to Nimalan and MQ discussion on the Moreton thread
La Trobe could become more Pakenham focussed and possibly move east and south as both Gippsland and Monash are holding their own enrolment wise. There is a lot of planned development around Longwarry so there will be an almost ‘linear city’ extending from Bunyip to Traralgon. It is quite conceivable that the hillside areas of Berwick, Beaconsfield snd Pakenham will become the upmarket, desirable suburbs for that part of Outer Melbourne – and hence possibly become bigger Liberal strongholds.

With Victoria likely to loose a seat in the next determination, Gippsland and Monash will likely need to gain voters to fit all the voters in the reduced number of electorates. Those voters could come from Latrobe.

Tom
On analysis of the last 6 months of 2021, Corio is the only non Melbourne seat which has a comparitive negative trend. And Corio is only just negative. Agree that Vic will likely lose the 39th seat.If the trend continues, regional seats may have minor changes especially as outer suburban seats are still growing. The negative trends are in seats such as Kooyong, Jaga Jaga and Maribyrnong. Hotham probably would seem to be the seat for the chop.

There are some seats where a serial dope has continued to win election after election and you just scratch your head and ask how and why. Jason ‘Orgasms’ Wood winning La Trobe in 5 out of the last 6 elections is a case in point. He obviously works hard at selling himself locally, but what has he achieved in 15-odd years of bludging on the taxpayer? Nothing! This bloke is utterly colourless and is a classic time-server. If one of his own is too scared to knock him off in pre-selection, then surely there is someone in the eastern burbs with an interesting backstory or CV that can do the job – regardless of party. Teals, are you listening….?

Not Teal territory Drongo – but agree 100% – the man is an absolute Drongo. Unless of course, he gets a lot done locally without it being seen from afar.

https://www.tallyroom.com.au/aus2022/latrobe2022/comment-page-1#comment-761380

With the loss of a seat, each existing seat will have to (on average) gain over 2.56% of a seat. That is over 5.12% of a seat for the combined Monash and Gippsland to have to gain in order not to have to take voters from Latrobe (or some other neighbouring seat).

Jason wood won’t be fired because la trobe is leaning liberal. Casey would be a better labor gain than this seat.

The redistribution clearly makes it harder for Labor to pick this off however if the polls are anything to believe (The state by state breakdowns on Newspoll/Morgan) then this would fall but I tend to agree this won’t swing as wildly as other Metro seats. So I suspect this will only just be a Labor gain and if that is the case I suspect it goes back Liberal in 2025 presuming that they go for more moderate policies (So look away from Dutton if he holds)

Even in the Victorian state election in 2018 I believe this would have been marginal Labor on these new boundaries. (Gembrook stayed Liberal) These area’s unlike inner Melbourne are not trending Labor and there is some evidence to suggest the opposite but in no way are these seats ”out of reach” If the government is facing a moderate defeat (more likely) to heavy defeat (less likely but possible if the polls do not improve)

Higgins and Goldstein would probably be lost before this but Goldstein might not be to Labor due to the independent but still possible if the swings against the government are higher in the city areas.

The Liberals should be more worried about Frydenburg than this.

@ Daniel
i actually feel if there is a swing on this seat will be the second to fall after Chisholm. i would rate this as a higher chance than Deakin. Much of this seat is mortgage belt (southern Berwick, Officer, Pakenham and Clyde North which are volatile and can swing more widely. Cost of living/Petrol prices would be more acutely felt in this area full of young families and with limited public transport than say in Deakin which is an established middle class Area. Also Pakenham is better for Labor now than in 2007 and there is increasing ethnic diversity in the new suburbs and Labor has chosen a South Asian candidate but i agree climate change will less likely to play a role than in Kooyong, Goldstein and Higgins

If interest rates go up before the election this electorate will be the ALP most likely gain, entire new estates have gone up throughout this electorate that didn’t vote in the last federal election & will definitely be the first ones to feels the effects if interest rates go up.

The RBA lost a lot of credibility in raising rates during 2007 campaign, – an action which was later appreciated by many economists to be unnecessary, & was followed by sending cheques to foreigners, dead people & everyone else.
There’s no way that the RBA will repeat that blunder, come May the third.

The link for the Greens candidate is broken, it may have been changed. It should be https://greens.org.au/vic/person/michael-schilling

Interesting to see the 2PP vote in Pakenham change over time, I’ve looked up some past 2PP results for the town of Pakenham:
2001: LIB 55.64%
2004: LIB 60.32%
2007: LIB 53.37%
2010: LIB 51.06%
2013: LIB 59.72%
2016: LIB 49.41%
2019: LIB 52.28%

State election result was 53% alp.. this trend I think continues in Parkenham
Also didn’t the town shift electorates?

Living in the hills.. I hope this peanut goes as he does nothing but little photo ops and pulls the I’m tuff on crime because I’m a cop while leaving us with unstable infrastructure… sub par NBN… just get a new modem he told me.. climate change effects being felt in the hills… poles and wires.. pot holes every where… he rides off the back of state infrastructure and Scott Morrison… I worry about anyone who still puts that flog on his election material.

@Ben, Pakenham has shifted from a more independent country town to a mortgage belt suburb full of new housing estates and part of the urban sprawl of Melbourne. when i was child, i remember going down Princes Highway to Gippsland, beyond Beaconsfield there was gap before you got to Pakenham. Officer was a small village with little more than a General store, a fuel station and until recently was one of the least used railway stations in Melbourne. Fast forward to today there area is full of display houses and attractive to young families. Last federal election, Pakenham saved the Libs in La Trobe as they got a swing against them in the Hills such as Emerald etc. My view was the Labor was cocky and were more keen in taking Higgins etc they neglected where Australian elections are really won which is the mortgage belt which why i said on a previous thread “they should have spent less time on Glenferrie road and more time in Pakenham”

Labor wasted the opportunity here in 2019, however with the rapid changing demographics here should benefit labor & be able to make ground here at the very least.

According to Bens new data post which is quite useful it is estimated even in 2010 this would have been a 4.4% margin for the Libs. About 5% worse than OTL on the old boundaries.

Does this mean this is out of reach for Labor outside of landslide years? Same goes for Deakin

Daniel, you’ve got those numbers right, but you can also get that same info from the chart above. The dotted green line is the 2022 boundaries, the red line is what the boundaries were at the time.

@Daniel: I think that if Labor wins either Casey or La Trobe, a Labor government is all but confirmed. But La Trobe is just one of those seats that looks paper marginal, but it just always out of reach.

With interests rates due to rise La Trobe will come into play. The buffer looks big on paper but it worth mentioning that this electorate has had massive population growth & is the first place to feel the pinch.

Even with outer suburban growth, Libs should hold… that patch of rural West Gippsland is pretty safely Lib territory still. After the 2018 Vic state election it was the safest blue patch in Victoria.

@Daniel, that is correct a lot of the progressive areas in the Dandenongs used to be have now been removed and rural conservative such as Koo Wee Rup, Nar Nar Goon etc have been added. However, as an area of rapid population growth it is not useful to measure the current boundries against the 2010 results as it the current boundaries would not have made a full quota back in 2010. I would say as there has been urbanisation around Pakenham, Clyde North, Officer. Look at how Pakenham has changed it is actually better for Labor today than either 2007 or 2010. Also have a look at how the Clyde booth has changed compare 2004 results to 2019

I’d say the Libs will still hold on but with a significantly reduced margin, maybe 1 or 2 percent. Labor will be able to gain the seat in 2025 if the Lib vote doesn’t recover in Victoria and/or they lurch to the far right after most of the moderates are defeated in 2022 by the Voices of movement and the surviving moderates get silenced by the hard right faction.

Surely this is now in play given the interest rate rise.

With the interest rates rise & for it to continue to the end of the year, the LNP are in serious trouble here.

Yeah it’s an interesting thought whether the interest rate rise will be most damaging in these kind of outer suburban seats the libs have been saying Morrison apparently plays well in. If seats like this and Casey do fall I think that will be a major factor

Sorry Abi Kumar I’m putting money on Jason Wood to keep Latrobe.

@ Xenu. agree interest rates will impact here as it one the prime mortgage belt seats. Casey and La Trobe while both outer suburban are quite different in my view. Suburban Casey is much more Anglo, established similar to the Hughes part of Sutherland Shire or the Hawkesbury (a lot of tradies etc) while a lost of La Trobe is more similar to Leppington, Oran Park, Schofields etc, a younger demographic, more ethnically diverse etc. Beaconsfield and northern Berwick are more established and are similar to Casey but not areas like Officer, Clyde North etc

@Nimalan hardly any of the Dandenongs areas was removed, and emerald is hardly a ‘progressive’ part anyway.

I think Labor not putting resources in here was a missed opportunity, liberal should hold with a reduced margin

Liberals improved here making this their safest metropolitan electorate

Very strong result for the Liberals here, big swings in the suburban areas making almost all of those booths blue.

I think the comparisons to Camden Council or the outer parts of the Hills District have some validity; demographic change isn’t really hurting the Liberals because the new suburban developments are still relatively Liberal voting.

@ Mark Mulcair, agreed very strong result. i wonder if you think much of this area (especially Berwick/Beaconsfield) could become the next Aston and that there could be a long term drift here if the area moves from a mortgage belt to established longer term

@ Lulu, Sorry i meant compared to when Labor last won it in 2010, a lot of the progressive Dandenongs such as Selby, Kallista etc have been removed. Agreed the Cardinia component of the Dandenongs (Emerald to Gembrook) is not as leftwing and seem to be more marginal. I am not sure why there is a difference in voting pattens i feel Emerald and Belgrave have more in common than Emerald and Pakenham despite LGA.

I wonder if the dislike of Dan Andrews in the suburbs helped the Libs gain here

Nimalan, there’s still plenty of growth going on out there, so it won’t become too settled for a long time yet. Plus seats like this are always vulnerable to redistributions knocking them around into different territory.

As I say, I think the old construction of Macarthur (when it was Camden/Wollondilly) is probably a good comparison. Lots of development, but seemingly in a Liberal way rather than a Labor way.

@ Mark Mulcair, Good point there is still a lot of land around here within Urban Growth boundary so still a lot of population growth expected for sometime.

Even in the remaining parts of the Dandenong Ranges Emerald, Cockatoo & Gembrook saw swings in the tpp to the LNP. The swing to the LNP in Gembrook of 13.27 is just staggering.

@ Bob, excellent point raised it seems the Cardinia component of the Dandenongs Emerald to Gembrook is quite different in voting pattens to the Yarra Ranges component which is very left wing. There was 73 TPP to Labor in The Patch and 70% in Selby although swings were relatively mild maybe the progressive vote has reached a ceiling there, dont know why there is a difference in voting pattens.

At first glance the Gembrook result looks wrong but not when compared to other booths. Need to wait but is seems that a combination of UAP and ON preferences being very tight and a high Greens leakage helped Jason Wood across the board.

I’m still perplexed as to why the Liberals did so well here.

The result in Gembrook is particularly complexing, as it is no different to Emerald or Cockatoo so the result shouldn’t be so different. The Cardinia part of the Dandenongs is nothing like the Belgrave area, but it is very similar to Monbulk which had a very similar result to the Emerald booths.

If this is the fastest growing seat in the country, why did the Liberals surge here?

@Daniel I think the growth areas here are Officer, Pakenham and maybe Berwick (i know it experienced lots of growth just not sure if it still is). All three suburbs have a personal income above average (although Pakenham barely) and Officer and Berwick have a household and family income above average. The division of La Trobe as a whole also has a personal, family and household income above average, this might explain the voting patterns here partially. Another thing is that a lot of Melbourne’s growth is happening in the north and west and these growth areas are strong for Labor but there’s also the chance that the people moving in are life long Labor voters and/or the kids of Labor voters moving from other areas in the west and north. The same could be happening in these growth areas in La Trobe, they could be the kids of Liberal voters from the east/southeast.

Find me a growth area anywhere in Australia that isn’t above average in income.

The “growth areas” of Mitchell and Greenway are in the top five percent (socioeconomically) of the country, yet they swung hard to Labor.