Macnamara – Australia 2022

There’s a typo in the breakdown of results by area, it says Labor were a distant third in St Kilda but that should say Liberal (23.6%), Labor were a close second in that area.

Will be an interesting watch to see if labor hold on or the Greens pick this up. The Greens have a real shot of wining here.

I agree. I think it would have been a near-certain Greens gain had Caulfield, with the lowest Greens vote in the electorate, been swapped out for effectively the balance of a Greens-held state seat (Prahran).

However, despite that not happening and actually losing Windsor, the Greens still have a real shot. 2016 had them only 477 votes off leapfrogging Labor on these boundaries.

2019 saw a huge swing to Labor, mostly at the expense of the Liberals but that still widened the gap between Labor & The Greens, but also partly at the expense of the Greens who should have increased their vote with the addition of Windsor but didn’t, indicating they went backwards elsewhere.

Shorten and the bold redistributive Labor agenda wasn’t toxic here like it was in other parts of the country, and I think Albanese with Labor’s watered down agenda on both climate and tax will hurt Labor here.

I think the Liberal vote won’t change much from 2019 as it already hit a pretty low mark for a relatively affluent seat (although any further anti-LNP swing could favour the Greens more this time than last time), but there could be a significant swing from Labor to Greens among progressive voters disappointed with Labor’s “safe” (albeit necessary to do well in WA and QLD) agenda.

If the Greens can get up over 27%, and Labor down to 28-29%, there’s a good chance they could overtake them on minor party preferences.

Wasn’t the Liberal candidate in Macnamara in 2019 a bit of a dud? The jewish voters in Caulfield will always keep the Greens in third place. The issue of Israel / Palestine will see voters happy to vote Labor but never Green – same goes for Wentworth too. Greens best chance is if the boundaries are changed (as proposed) but not implemented.

The retention of the Caulfield ‘tail’ redistribution in and redistribution out absolutely beggars belief. In the draft it comes out, in the final it comes back in – what we have is an electorate boundary totally tailored to the electoral convenience of Michael Danby and Josh Burns – and by extension to the right wing faction of the ALP. If the ALP ever did lose this seat – to the Libs, Greens or whoever – it would be interesting to see if it survived the next redistribution.

I agree totally redistributed. It’s clear that the objections to moving Caulfield into Higgins have nothing to do with splitting the Jewish community, because almost the entire Jewish community in Macnamara was being moved together as a single block and would have been moved into a seat that has a larger Jewish population than the remainder of Macnamara does, effectively creating an even stronger community of interest.

The objections are purely related to the political influence that the area’s Jewish organisations have established with the local ALP branch over the last few decades, that’s what they don’t want to lose by moving into a new seat.

That’s why I think if the Greens were able to able to win Macnamara off Labor prior to a redistribution and break that cycle, those objections wouldn’t happen next time. Zionism Australia isn’t going to campaign to remain in a Greens seat.

I do think the Greens can win on current boundaries because they came so close in 2016 already. Of the 3 regions in the seat, Caulfield has lowest vote share and if anything usually votes a little more Liberal than last time, while St Kilda has the largest vote share and the long term trend there is ALP to Greens. But a win would be right down to the wire and probably rely on the Greens winning from third, like in Prahran.

If the Greens do get that ‘foot in the door’ though with a narrow win, and that does result in fewer objections to removing Caulfield next time, then a subsequent redistribution would probably solidify the seat for them.

In my experience the supposed unswerving fealty to Israel among Australian Jews and Jews outside of Israel more broadly is really overstated, especially once you step outside the boomer/early gen-X demographic. Jewish ‘community leaders’ tend to be pretty far out of step with their communities on this one, especially in more moderate Jewish sects. It’s not a perfect yardstick by any means, but if you look at the Marriage Law Postal Survey results, Melbourne Ports had one of the highest Yes votes in the entire country, over 80% in fact. On paper it’s really a very progressive seat despite the gerrymandering. Furthermore, Michael Danby was really quite unpopular and arguably one of the biggest reasons Melbourne Ports was historically a marginal. Josh Burns improved a lot on Danby’s vote, but the Greens’ vote held up, in a year the Victorian Greens did really badly in (with the exception of Adam Bandt). I don’t believe Macnamara’s completely out of their grasp, at least not yet.

Furtive I agree. I’m picturing a few things here.

1. In the 2019 election the Labor “brand” was riding high after a landslide state election win and soaring popularity for Dan Andrews, which has certainly cooled down a bit. Albert Park had one of the biggest Labor swings in th country too.

I know state results don’t equal federal results but brand is important. And the Labor brand was strong in these parts.

2. Around Caulfield, the Jewish community may swing a little towards the Liberals. Not enough for the Libs to win the seat, but it will help reduce the margin between Labor & the Greens.

3. As I said in the Melbourne post, Labor going to the election with a less progressive platform than 2019 will probably result in a transfer of votes from Labor to Greens here too. This will be most pronounced in the most progressive suburbs like St Kilda, Elwood and Balaclava.

4. Morrison’s unpopularity is arguably more pronounced here now than it was in 2019. He really is hated around here. Just yesterday I saw a guy in a ‘F*** SCOMO” t-shirt. This will probably result in a little more of a swing away from the Libs in the suburbs that had previously been trending Liberal before 2019 (Port Melbourne, South Melbourne, Albert Park), but in 2019 it pretty much all went to Labor and this time, for the reasons outlined above in #3, I think the Greens will get a bigger share of it.

I still think Labor will hold on these boundaries, but my prediction is their margin will slightly grow against the Liberals in the 2PP count, but their primary vote and margin against the Greens in the 3PP vote will both shrink.

I’m predicting the 3PP count will be somewhere along the lines of:
39% Liberal
Just over 31% Labor
Just under 30% Greens

Resulting in a 2PP of around 57-43 ALP.

….and hopefully this is the last election on these ridiculous boundaries, and then Caulfield can join Malvern, Carnegie and Murrumbeena in Higgins where it belongs, and the Chapel Street corridor can be united in Macnamara where it belongs.

This seat was a missed opportunity for the Liberals in 2016, wonder if Turnbull had remained leader that this seat could have been picked up by the LNP.

2016 was notable as the Greens came pretty close to overtaking ALP. Knowing the Greens antipathy toward Israel it would be interesting to know how many Labor voters in Macnamara would preference the Libs above the Greens should the ALP end up third. Wasn’t the 2019 Lib candidate a bit of a dud?

Yes, I believe the candidate had multiple issues hence the above average swing here in 2019. As for the Greens I don’t think they realistically have a chance of winning hear due to there position on Israel.

Bob

As its been pointed out in the earlier comments on this page, the Jewish vote in this area is highly overstated in its effects and given the changes in Labor policies moving them more rightwards, the swing won’t be within the Jewish community. Any swing in the Jewish vote from Labor to Liberal will obviously lessen the gap (see 2016) and benefit the Greens.

I tend to agree with Ryan. I think both Labor and Liberal candidates in every election seem to focus disproportionately on winning the Jewish vote. The fact is, it’s only 12% and that 12% are not a block either. There are even Greens voters (albeit a small minority) among the younger and less orthodox Jewish population, and the Israel/Palestine issues are not the deciding factor for all of them either.

That Jewish population is also concentrated in the most Liberal voting part of the seat already. So in reality I don’t think there are all that many swinging votes to be won among the strident pro-Israel voters in the Jewish community.

Much bigger swings happen in the bayside suburbs, between all 3 parties. 88% of voters in the seat are not Jewish at all. So that gives the Greens many more potential voters to win over and pay attention to in suburbs that are often a bit overlooked by Labor and Liberal candidates fighting over Caulfield votes.

Obviously the fact that the Greens get <10% in Caulfield booths is a hindrance to them, and if Caulfield wasn't in the seat they would be in a far better position to win, but they were 477 votes away from winning in 2016; and it wasn't Caulfield that swung hard to Labor in 2019, it was the bayside, so they aren't unwinnable votes for them.

And that big Labor swing in 2019 especially around South Melbourne, Port Melbourne, Albert Park etc happened while riding a wave of Labor popularity off the back of Andrews’ landslide.

A less progressive Labor platform, and less enthusiasm for the state government now means there are a lot of votes that swung to Labor in 2019 in those suburbs ripe for the picking; and I don’t see them going to a Morrison-led Liberal Party. The Greens have an opportunity to significantly close that gap with Labor, while the Liberal vote is low enough to not threaten them in the 2CP count.

What is interesting about South Melbourne/Port Melbourne is that gentrification has led to an increase in the Liberal vote long term while that has not occurred North of the Yarra in Richmond, Brunswick or Northcote. For example the Sandridge Booth which is now 59% ALP TPP as recently as 2004 was 76.2% ALP TPP. Does anyone have a theory on why this has occurred? https://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2004/guide/mpor.htm

Could be a couple of things.

One is that a lot of the young professionals moving into the inner north grew up in traditionally Labor suburbs in the north, while more of those moving into the inner south grew up in more Liberal friendly eastern & southeastern suburbs/families.

But then there are parts of the inner south that are very gentrified but in the same way as the inner north – St Kilda, Windsor, Balaclava – where the Liberal vote hasn’t grown at all and like the inner north, it’s just been more of an ALP to Green transfer.

So I think it’s more just a cultural thing. The inner north, along with the St Kilda / Windsor area of the inner south, have just always been more alternative and culturally progressive, and therefore attract a different type of young professional to those moving into the South/Port Melbourne area, which kinda just went from working class to expensive.

The Cremorne area of Richmond is pretty Liberal-friendly though, if I’m not mistaken the Liberal vote has grown quite a bit there. And that area does remind me more of South Melbourne, demographically.

If the ‘Voices of … ‘ really want to make a difference and show a modicum of independance they should also be running in Labor seats. Macnamara fits the demographic perfectly – and also Adelaide, Newcastle, all of the ACT seats, Kingsford Smith, Perth, Fremantle. And why don’t they try Nats seats like New England, Dawson, Capricornia, Hinkler – thats where the political climate damage is being done. Strike at the source!

And why don’t they form a proper political structure and call themselves the Australian Democrats – because that is bssically what they are.

I’ve got a few theories:
a) they’re people without particularly strong political opinions beyond ‘LNP bad’, but come from the same privileged background and Born To Rule mentality that breeds garden variety Liberals and feel like this is a good career move

b) they really are basically Labor sympathisers, but know or at least believe they can’t get elected in blue ribbon seats under the Labor brand

c) kind of the opposite of my second theory- they’re committed right-wingers who are afraid that Labor and especially the Greens actually *are* threatening blue ribbon seats, and want to maintain as much of the Liberal economic agenda as they reasonably can by rebranding under a cuddlier banner.

But yeah, they’re not really independents and I don’t think anyone believes they are.

To be honest I don’t think Macnamara fits the profile for a “voices of” campaign at all. Those seats are usually blue ribbon ones that Labor or the Greens have no chance of winning, because the voters want a social progressive but economic conservative.

Macnamara, held by Labor for 115 years, within reach of the Greens, and anchored around a suburb that the Liberals barely get over 20% in, just isn’t that type of seat because a “centrist” economic conservative wouldn’t appeal to the 50%+ ALP and Greens voters in the seat.

A “voices of” candidate would probably just split the Liberal vote a bit. They likely wouldn’t even make a 3PP count, but if they got 10-15% then their preferences could really throw a spanner into the 3PP count between the 3 big parties, because who knows where they would flow.

I think the key target of these Voices Of campaigns is socially progressive/economically conservative ‘small l liberal’ voters who aren’t very well represented by the Coalition nowadays (it’s not really the party of John Hewson and Malcolm Fraser any more). They’re most effective in seats with an overly conservative MP who doesn’t represent the electorate very well e.g. Tony Abbott in Warringah and Sophie Mirabella in Indi.

A Voices Of campaign might have work when Michael Danby was the MP here, but I don’t really see it working with Josh Burns.

Take 3 seats where ‘Voice of ..’ candidates ran in 2019 – Kooyong, Flinders, Hume.
In Kooyong, there is almost a direct correalation between Oliver Yates vote and the fall in Josh Frydenburgs.
In Flinders, more than half of Julia Banks vote came from Labor and the Greens.
And in Hume, Huw Kingstons vote came from Labor and the Greens with Angus Taylor having a tiny drop in his primary.
And from what I can see in Warringah and Mayo, the Greens vote has been more resilient.
A reasonably simplistic analysis, I know, but it does show that it is not just the Libs that lose votes.
If there was a ‘Voices of Macnamara’ candidate- there is a big demographic – Caulfield, South Yarra, Albert Park, Middle Park – that fits the bill.

Will be very interesting to see if there is any backlash towards Labor and Josh Burns in this electorate over the backing of the Religious Discrimination Bill. Josh Burns marched at Midsumma last weekend and then voted for the Religious Discrimination Bill alongside the rest of the Labor members of the House of Representatives. Although Labor members are obliged to follow the decision of the caucus, to the average voter, particularly in the more progressive parts of the electorate, it comes across as extremely hypocritical. The Greens candidate Steph Hodgins-May has been hammering Labor all week on this issue, which I feel will have the potential to resonate in the electorate, particularly if it remains an issue closer to the election.

I think out of any electorate in Australia to see the implications of the Religious Discrimination Act, this would be the most likely one. I agree with what you said about Josh Burns looking hypocritical in this situation, from the outside it appears he stands for one thing but votes differently.
The Liberal Party has no chance here, it really depends on whether enough progressive voters move towards the Greens. However, I’m unsure if the Greens will actually get up in this case the current electorate boundaries don’t favour them compared to the proposed ones from a little while ago.

Yeah it’s fair to say that the left are extremely annoyed with Labor for supporting Morrison’s hate bill unamended in the House. Tanya Plibersek was being bombarded on Twitter by Labor voters begging her not to vote for it and saying they would leave the party if Labor didn’t vote it down in it’s entirety. It will be interesting to see how many switch to the Greens over it and how much of an impact it has on these marginal contests. These Greens candidates have been talking about it a lot in their campaigns over the last few days for sure: https://auspol.co/fed-2022/greens-candidates/

I don’t think the redistribution makes a significant difference to whether the Greens get up here. It’s more to do with how well they run their campaign. While Macnamara’s obviously on the Greens’ hit list and has been for a long time, I’ve always gotten the impression more resources go to Higgins, maybe because they see a blue/green seat as more valuable in the long term.

Josh Burns should retain this one. He’s less disliked than Danby was, and if you can’t tell, my assessment of the Greens’ campaign so far is that it’s more of the same and they’ll once again win neither seat.

I think the redistribution would have been the difference between the Greens being favourites or underdogs.

The proposal to remove a huge chunk of the electorate where the Greens vote is the lowest, and effectively replace it with a big chunk of a Greens-held state seat, could have made a dramatic difference.

I think the Greens still have a chance on these boundaries though.

My take, as a long term resident of this seat myself, is that I feel the climate vote maxed in 2016 & 2019. The Greens vote remained almost completely unchanged while a significant LIB to LAB swing occurred, a d I just don’t know how many new votes they can squeeze out of that issue.

But I think the RDA fiasco will help move some additional votes from Labor to Greens now. They needed another issue on top of climate to really separate them from Labor and swing some new votes, and in the seat that’s home to the Midsumma Pride March, Victorian Pride Centre and has a long history as a centre of LGBTQ culture, this may just be the issue they have been waiting for to hammer Labor with.

It should be said that Josh Burns was the main Labor MP actually arguing for them to not vote for the unamended RDA; but that won’t make much difference. His party (and he himself due to their rules) still did, and The Greens didn’t.

Well, the Liberal candidate just resigned…. This will be an interesting race to watch, I’m curious to see if the Liberal voters, Vote Green or Vote Labor?

Pretty safe assumption that there’ll be another Liberal candidate come close of nominations. But it’s also safe to assume they won’t be campaigning especially hard. I’d expect that gives Labor a bit of buffer in the 3CP.

I think it’s possible that outside the Caulfield area it could have the opposite effect, I imagine the other more Liberal leaning areas (Albert Park, Middle Park and the wealthier part of Port Melbourne) probably have a lot of voters that fit the teal profile pretty well.

It could definitely cause a bit of a LIB to ALP swing in Caulfield though.

Hard to predict what impact it will have, assuming the Liberals do run. My guess would just be a small swing maybe favouring the Greens around Albert Park and a small swing favouring Labor around Caulfield, not enough to drop the Liberals out of the 2CP count though.

But if the Libs end up without a candidate then Labor will easily beat the Greens in an ALP v GRN 2CP.

Trent – Liberal voters tend to be quite neutral on Labor vs Greens when not prompted by an HTV. Disendorsed Liberal preferences split 50/50 in Wills 2019.

One of the fears Labor/Green swinging voters have is that if they don’t vote Labor, the Liberals win. This would not be the case with no Liberal running.

This is all irrelevant because there’s more than enough time for Liberals to find a replacement candidate, and it’s not like this was a Liberal target anyway.

Gentrification here was helping Liberals as well as Greens (rather like Brisbane?). Danby’s persona probably didn’t help Labor either. But suspect Morrison’s persona was unattractive to these voters in 2019 (and probably even more so in 2022) and they’re more likely to vote Labor than Greens. So I predict further decline in Lib vote.

The Liberal candidate here in 2019 was a bit of a dud and she appeared to be very polarising. I suspect that Michael Danby and Josh Burns both get a lot of Jewish votes in Caulfield that go to the Libs at state level. Hence, their vociferous campaign at every redistribution to maintain the ‘Caulfield tail’. It will be interesting to see here if the Libs maintain their lead on the primary vote. Should it ever come down to a Libs vs Greens final two in this seat, it would be very interesting to see how many Labor votes would leak to the Libs – the Greens views on Israel and Palestine presumably not being very popular in the Jewish community.

Comparing the Jewish vote between state & federal is pretty hard because the orthodox community mainly do postal voting, so you could assume that most of the Caulfield-area booth results are the non-Jewish vote (and they seem pretty similar at both state and federal elections). The postal vote is pretty heavily Liberal already though in both…

I think the local ALP branch definitely have some close ties with that community, which Danby mostly established, but just how much of that word translate to as a % I think would be pretty low. Caulfield is still the most Liberal voting part of the electorate, and the postal vote is actually where the Liberals already do best. Also the Liberals only hold the state seat of Caulfield by 0.2% now as well and even when it’s not a Labor landslide it’s still usually under or around 5%.

So I do think the Jewish ALP vote is a little overstated. The reality is that it’s the most Liberal voting part of the seat as is; and doesn’t appear hugely different to state results in that area.

On gentrification helping the Liberals, I think 2016 was mostly a high watermark for them because there was optimism about Turnbull (mostly in the north of the seat, that’s where results were most different between 2016-19) taking the Liberals in a more progressive direction. His dumping certainly contributed to the 2019 swing but I also think they were “soft” Liberal votes anyway, and even if Turnbull wasn’t dumped as leader, I think he was seen mostly as a disappointment as it became clear that the Libs were run by the conservative flank of the party even when he was leader.

The north of Macnamara (which is where the Liberals have mostly made inroads due to gentrification in South & Port Melbourne) is very different to Higgins, Goldstein and Kooyong because it’s “new money”, young professionals and yuppies rather than old money. So I don’t think their default position is to vote Liberal as much as it is in those other seats.

I’ve said before too; if the Greens happen to win this seat on these boundaries (unlikely but not impossible), I wonder if the Jewish community will oppose the Prahran/Caulfield swap so vigorously next time? I don’t think they would be fighting so hard to stay in a Greens seat.

Caulfield just really doesn’t belong here.

And I’m actually surprised that the Liberals supported the swap too, because they had been making such progress in Ports/Macnamara and that swap would basically write them off here… But it would have made Higgins safe for them, and with that under threat it was probably seen as more important to secure their heartland.

Hey! I’m an electorate analyst, and this is my analysts of Macnamara

I don’t wanna overhype the Green’s chance here but they have some card going in their favour.

Firstly their candidate has been well established in the area, she has ran before and made her vote share increase in every single election. She also has the backbone of volunteers who volunteered in 2019, this can also be seen in the electorate, as in places like Albert Park and South Melbourne, you’ll see about 2-3 Steph Yard-Signs with no Labor or liberal signs to be seen.

Secondly, Labor increased the vote share in 2019 mostly because of Bill Shorten running a progressive platform in 2019, his plan would’ve been transformational, and I’m not putting negative or positive connotations to that, that’s up to you to decide. Bill Shorten also campaigned in Victoria during polling day and was in Albert Park until polls closed. Labor now has Albanese who for better or worse has ran a more minor, scaled down campaign, this would help in QLD, but here in Macnamara would benefit the Greens if they properly capitalise on the situation.

Lastly, the population increases in the inner city seats, as some above has mentioned, Gentrification, only help the Greens if they are able to become second in the primary vote, this would subconsciously give the Greens the seat, as precedent shows that Labor preferences ALWAYS benefit the Greens.

The Greens have a real shot at winning Macnamara but so does Labor, it seems for the time being, if the Greens play their cards right, they might just add another MP in the lower house

Good analysis Fiona and you touch on an important point that I think will be a factor here too.

That is that the bold Labor platform in 2019, while it is widely regarded as costing them the election (mostly in QLD and more suburban seats), I think it was actually part of the reason Labor increased their vote-share so much in Macnamara and Higgins.

The small target strategy this year, mostly aimed at winning seats in QLD, WA and western Sydney, won’t play as well here and will probably help the Greens in Macnamara and Higgins.

It’s also worth noting that despite the big Labor swing here in 2019, Steph also increased her vote (albeit only slightly) whereas the Greens went backwards in Higgins and other seats. So I think she is doing well building a profile.

I still think Labor have to be favoured here – large margin, Windsor (best Greens suburb) lost to Higgins, Josh Burns has established himself and is far better than Danby was – but it should be close and I wouldn’t rule Steph out.

Especially if the Liberal campaign totally crumbles and they might pick up some teal leaning ex-Liberal voters in the absence of a climate independent.

In McNamara, peak Greens may have been reached – not many more votes for them to get. Hard to see Labor not winning comfortably and maintaining a comfortable margin over the Greens. For peak Green look at Denison/Clark at Tasmanian elections – they cannot get more than about 25% and that is over decades.
The only way that the Greens can win McNamara is if the boundaries change – and then they have a real chance.

Hey Trent!

I 100% agree with you, Josh Burns is in the favor to win, especially with the removal of Windsor, however I still believe that Albo’s platform gives her a chance to pick the seat up. Like you mentioned, everywhere else in Victoria, the Greens vote went backwards, but not in Macnamara, this means that while her vote may have peaked, there are still some dissatisfied Labor and Liberal voters who may switch and vote Greens

I personally believe this seat is still in play, but Steph may find it easier to win in 2025 after a first term Labor government.

Fiona

Both the incumbent and the Greens candidate have decent profiles here, but I think the “anything but the Libs” vote will favour Labor.

Couple that with the redistribution and, yes, I think Josh has it.

This wasn’t the case in the previous two elections, when IMO Macnamara was the Greens’ best prospect to pick up *by far*, but they just couldn’t get there. The cynical take would be that the Greens’ fixation on neighbouring Higgins did the Macnamara campaign in, but this time they might be right.

Anti-government vote will favour the Greens in Higgins and Labor here, Josh will hold easily.

For all the many words and analysis given, this will remain a Labor seat , but could be in play in the election after this one.

On the current boundaries, my view is that they have reached ‘peak Green’ and the vote will effectively plateau or go backwards. The Greens only hope is a boundary change and a swap of Caulfield with the western part of Higgins. I think they have also reached ‘peak Green’ in Higgins as well.

Labor will hold here and Greens will gain Higgins. Josh Burns will benefit from a sophomore surge, and the gap in primaries between Labor and the Greens is much smaller in Higgins than Macnamara. Meanwhile in Higgins, the 2PP margin is small enough to be overcome this time, and with a weaker Labor candidate it should be enough to put the Greens back into the 2CP. Then the question is just can the Greens beat the Liberals in the 2CP, where I would wager the answer is yes.

Mark, John & Midnight, I agree.

I think this election may be closer between Greens & Labor here than 2019 was, but not as close as 2016 when the Labor vote was so low.

Like Fiona said above too, next election after a term of Labor government (assuming they win) will be more favourable to the Greens to contest this. Unfortunately though that might mean Steph is no longer the candidate and I think she is a great choice for the Greens here and has done really well. So I would love to see her succeed.

Higgins is the more likely Greens gain this time for the reasons already mentioned:
– Smaller 3PP margin vs Labor than Macnamara
– It has a much smaller 2CP margin vs Liberal to overcome than in 2019 (and the swing will be on!)
– 2019 had a higher profile Labor candidate who overperformed
– Higgins fits the “teal” profile much better than Macnamara which IMO doesn’t*, so in the absence of a teal independent the Greens are a natural choice

I wouldn’t write the Greens off in Macnamara on these boundaries because they came so close in 2016, so particularly after a term of Labor government they still have a genuine shot (and shouldn’t be totally written off this time either), but I agree with Redistributed that on these boundaries they will remain an underdog, whereas on the proposed but scrapped boundaries they would be the favourite.

I expect a Labor hold though, and I think Higgins will be the contest to watch.

* When I say Macnamara doesn’t fit the teal profile, that’s because while the numbers and demographics appear to fit the profile, it’s actually a seat with a more stark contrast between genuine left-wing areas and more a more socially conservative Liberal area (Caulfield). The teal seats are characterised by socially progressive Liberal voters reluctant to vote Labor, which Higgins, Goldstein and Kooyong are full of.

Macnamara really only has pockets that in Albert Park and the more Liberal-leaning part of Port Melbourne, but it’s really quite different to those other seats as it contains Labor strongholds, Greens strongholds, a more socially conservative Liberal region, and yes also some teal pockets but not enough to overcome those other parts, whereas those other seats are predominantly the teal demographic whose ideal candidate combines Labor’s social agenda with the Liberals’ economic agenda.

That said… I think the Greens’ best path to make Macnamara competitive this election and have a real shot, is those “teal” profile suburbs like Port Melbourne and Albert Park where I think they have underperformed.

That’s where there is real potential to swing votes from Labor to Greens, and where the absence of a teal independent in an election where that movement seems to have a lot of momentum may have the same effect that I predict in Higgins, where no teal independent should benefit the Greens.

Victorian Labor not being so wildly popular offthe back of a recent state election landslide might soften the Labor vote too, or at least cancel out Josh’s sophomore surge.

Macnamara will surely be an ALP retain, the Labor vote will be on the rise and the Greens don’t appear to be as visible this election. While I agree the Greens stand a better chance in Higgins, I don’t think the Greens hold as high an appeal as say a decent centrist independent does in seats like this. If Higgins changes hands it’ll more likely go to Labor.

I assume at some point the population growth in Fishermans Bend will cause Macnamara to lose its eastern suburbs. Even without gaining Windsor, this seat looks likely to fall to the Greens at some point in the next decade, even if it won’t be this year.

As mentioned above, I analyze electorates come election time
I personally believe that the Green vote will increase but not enough to beat Labor, Malcom, what did you mean by “The Greens don’t appear to be as visible this election,” were you referring to the Green party as a whole or the Macnamara campaign, because yes, to some extent I do agree. Steph’s campaign isn’t talking to commuters every morning the same way that they do in Higgins, Steph’s campaign isn’t as visible on the busy roads the same way Sonya is out on Chapel St every day, but imo it’s just a different approach to the other candidates, Steph isn’t as active on social media but that doesn’t mean her volunteers aren’t knocking on my doors. I think Labor also realizes that the Greens could and can do well here because it’s quite ironic in my view that they have more calling events in Macnamara over Chisolm.

Trent, I agree with you to some extent, but in my view for the Greens to win here they need to peel off the Labor voters in key areas such as St Kilda and Albert Park rather than the teal suburbs. While it would be beneficial gaining those teal voters, the way they win is by making big gains in the progressive suburbs and hoping the teal voters vote Liberal over Labor.

I personally hope that Steph is the Greens candidate in 2025 even if she loses for Macnamara as she is a strong local, she isn’t too extreme while holding Green values and ideals and she is running on what the Greens should be about, Climate Change, Integrity and Social Equality. I feel that some Green MP’s like say Lidia Thorpe are sidelining climate change which if the party did, would be their demise. Also Trent, if you really like Steph then get involved with her campaign, you seem knowledgeable and it’s always great to be involved no matter what party you support.

In my view, the Sonya Semmens campaign has a genuine shot at picking up Higgins, more than Michelle and in my analysis, a better shot than Steph has at picking up Macnamara. So if we want to talk about the Greens “most winnable seat,” it would be Higgins not Macnamara, especially with some Victorian’s view of “anything but Liberal”

Don’t see the Greens picking this one up unless Labor primary vote more generally is much lower than what polling suggests. There’s obviously different factors at play seat by seat but the Greens already have a decent hump to get over to begin with. Higgins is quite easily the Greens’ biggest pickup chance in my view.

I agree that Higgins is much more winnable.

Fiona you make a good point about the Greens needing to peel off more Labor voters than teal voters; because it’s the Green v ALP, not the Green v LIB margin, that is the bigger one to overcome.

I live in St Kilda myself, but I guess I’m focusing more on those other suburbs because St Kilda is already where the Greens do best, whereas I think they under-perform further north in the seat and have potential to do a lot better there (Albert Park in particular probably).

I worked at the St Kilda Beach booth in 2016 and the Greens got almost double Labor’s vote at that booth, so I don’t really know how much more potential there is left in St Kilda (other than getting a result closer to 2016 than 2019).

It was funny, I remember a lot of the counters thinking “Are we just going to have to redo this?” when told to do an ALP v LIB 2CP count, while looking at a Greens pile that was as big as the ALP and LIB piles combined!

@Ben, the Liberals have announced their new candidate to replace Christopher Ride who pulled out in March.

Colleen Harkin is their new candidate if you wanted to update the guide.

Doesn’t look like they’re taking the seat too seriously this time around.

Colleen Harkin ran unsuccessfully for state preselection in Brighton in 2018, and ran unsuccessfully for Bayside Council in 2020. She lives in Goldstein. Not that it matters too much where she lives, but it’s telling that the best they could find is someone from outside the seat who has failed twice in a more Liberal-friendly area than here.

I haven’t seen a single piece of Liberal advertising in Macnamara yet so I have a feeling they’ll run pretty dead here and divert their resources to trying to save Higgins and Goldstein instead, which would be logical.