Macnamara – Australia 2022

Liberal candidate Christopher Ride withdrew recently, claiming business commitments pressure, and a woman reject candidate from the Goldstein preselection is the new Liberal candidate. The Liberal Victoria Division still does so not have her listed as a candidate two weeks after Ride withdrew and she was parachuted into the seat as a Liberal candidate.

In my view Liberals are gonna divert funds from Higgins to the more competitive Independent campaign in LaTrobe, Flinders, Goldstein and Kooyong.

I believe that this is the case as they want to stop Climate 200 candidates in 2025

I don’t know about diverting funds from Higgins, it looks like their campaign is pretty visible there. Katie Allen’s face is everywhere, and she’s been all over The Project, had Frydenburg doing media stunts at Prahran Market, etc.

But absolutely the Liberals have waved the white flag in Macnamara and seem to be running dead and have diverted all resources elsewhere (probably including to Higgins).

I haven’t seen a single ad, poster, billboard, corflute, or even received a pamphlet in the mail from the Liberals in Macnamara. Nothing. I don’t think they’re spending anything here at all.

Interestingly too, the Greens’ campaign material all starts with “The Liberals cannot win here. This is a contest between Labor and The Greens”, a clever way to ensure they minimise the “I like the Greens but I’d better vote for Labor just to make sure we kick out ScoMo” vote.

…that’s also a clever way to try to scoop up some Liberal voters. If they think a Liberal vote is pointless because they can’t win anyway, and don’t like Albanese/Labor, they might think a Greens vote is more damaging to Labor than a Liberal vote.

Teal-inclined Liberal voters in particular would be likely to favour the Greens over Labor, so reminding them the Libs can’t win anyway is a good way to encourage a LIB to GRN swing.

I can see the Liberals falling to roughly a 40% 2CP here this time around, which would be their worst result since Caulfield was added to the seat prior to the 1990 election.

@Trent I saw a couple of corflutes in front yard in South Melbourne for Liberal candidate, nothing more.

Big ad spend though for both Josh Burns and Steph Hodgkins-May, both highlighting Libs are not focusing on winning here.

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/lib-hopeful-backs-deves-and-says-climate-emergency-warnings-border-on-child-abuse-20220426-p5ag7q.html

Libs seem to have preselected another fuckwit in a progressive electorate. Educating young people about climate change is scaremongering, comparable to child abuse, but the supposed sanctity of women’s sport being encroached upon by trans people is a national code blue.

It really just looks like this is what the Liberal party is now. If you want to win a Liberal preselection, you’ve gotta bang your head harder than Ozzy with a bat in his teeth.

@FL She was only drafted in at the last minute due to candidate Christopher Ride dropping out.

Macnamara is not a priority for the Libs this time anyway as Josh Burns should get a substantial sophomore swing. She lives next door in Goldstein and is turning out to be just as problematic as Kate Ashmor last time (we all remember Mezuzah-gate).

I had a look at her Facebook page earlier tonight and she really appears to have minimal effort or resources, and very little support.

She’s an absolute dud of a candidate. She has failed to be preselected at various levels in the blue ribbon Brighton / Goldstein / Bayside area area, and is totally out of step with the progressive values of this seat which had the 3rd highest ‘Yes’ vote in the country for the plebiscite.

I still haven’t seen a single piece of Liberal advertising yet either. I’m sure there is some around the more Liberal areas like Albert Park and Caulfield – perhaps all they’re trying to do is stop the bleeding in those suburbs – but it doesn’t look like she’s even set foot or distributed a flyer in St Kilda yet (other than attending tonight’s forum at the town hall). Previous years I got bombarded with Liberal stuff. Nothing this year.

The Libs have definitely given up on the seat, and also don’t seem to even be concerned about letting the margin inflate to double digits which could very well happen.

To me that’s a sign that they simply don’t see progressive but affluent inner city seats as part of their future strategy, otherwise they’d at least try to keep it within striking distance for next time.

My prediction here is that the Liberals will have their worst 2CP margin since before Caulfield was added to the seat in 1990, just touching on double digits.

… actually that candidate forum was in Southbank on Sunday.

There was another candidate forum at St Kilda Town Hall tonight, which is why I got confused, but it turns out Colleen Harkin didn’t even show up to that one. So maybe I’m right that her campaign hasn’t set foot in the St Kilda area yet.

Only Steph and Josh were at tonight’s forum. Indicative of the fact that this is really just a Labor vs Greens contest now.

Could this end up Labor vs Greens as the 2CP? Or is that still likely a bit out of the picture?

I think it’s unlikely. Harkin seems like a dud, but then so was the last Liberal nominee. With the unpopularity of Morrison and the LNP more generally in this seat I think the swing will be fairly big (5% maybe). But that only gets them down to 32%, and almost all of the minors are right wing so will break in their favour. Greens would have to get a massive swing as well, which seems unlikely now that Burns can anticipate a sophomore swing. Much more doable at the next election. Would be happy if it happened this time, though.

I think it’s unlikely too and totally agree with MacReady’s assessment. There’s a small possibility the Liberal PV might *just* come third, but after minor preferences would still be in the top two.

The candidate list and minor preference flows are likely to be the opposite of elections like Melbourne Ports 2016 and Prahran 2014.

In those 2 elections almost every minor candidate was left wing and preferences overwhelming went to the Greens, where they made up a lot of ground between the PV and 3PP% (in Prahran’s case even going from third to second then winning).

This time, other than AJP it’s almost entirely alt-right/libertarian types on the ballot.

The lack of left wing minors will boost the Greens’ primary vote, but there’ll be a smaller gap between PV% and 3PP%. Whereas I think the right-wing minors will eat into the Liberal PV but then they’ll probably benefit most from the preferences up to the 3PP stage.

I still don’t think even their PV will drop to third though. I envision a result like this:

Primary Votes:
33% Labor
32% Liberal
29% Greens
6% Minors

3PP:
35% Liberal
34% Labor
31% Greens

2PP:
61% Labor
39% Liberal

That’s not what I’m hoping for, but I think it’s a likely outcome.

I don’t really disagree with any of what you guys are saying but the main reason I’m pessimistic on Macnamara are 1. The Greens themselves have stopped talking about it and 2. The host of Serious Danger asked the candidate straight up what she thought her chances were and she basically gave the sort of non-answer a politician who doesn’t want to admit they’re not going to win would give. She talked about the difficulties of running grassroots interpersonal campaigns like the Queensland Greens are doing in an electorate dominated by highrises (in short, it’s very difficult) and said flat out that the Queensland Greens are massively outdoing her in terms of voter contact. It’s a problem the Greens are going to need to solve if they ever hope to replicate the relative dynamism of their Brisbane campaigns, who benefit from being able to doorknock low density housing without being chewed up by door guards.

You make a great point about the ground campaign FL.

The part of the seat with the most low density housing to door-knock is the part where the Greens do the worst (Caulfield) and there are probably the least votes up for grabs.

While there are tons of terrace houses in suburbs like Balaclava, Albert Park, Port Melbourne and to a lesser extent in pockets of St Kilda, there is also a huge population living in apartment complexes, especially in South Melbourne and Southbank, and that northern part of the seat is probably where the Greens underperform the most and have the most potential to gain new voters from Labor. But those voters are just not very accessible face to face.

Part of me can’t help but feel like it was the proposed redistribution that inspired Steph Hodgins-May to run again (I believe she would win on those boundaries), but its reversal threw a spanner in the works and while she’s publically optimistic, I imagine she’s privately realistic about her chances on these boundaries.

That said, all you can do is put every effort you can into it, and my observation on the ground here is that the Greens are putting by far the most effort in – much moreso than Labor. The most pamphlets, posters, billboards, door-knocks, events, and even major policy announcements in the seat including launching their LGBTI policy here on Sunday.

I would love to see her win because if she loses for a third time, I can’t see her trying again in 2025 when their chances would probably be better, and I think she’d make a fantastic representative. I think they certainly have a chance, but are definitely an underdog while Josh Burns has to be the heavy favourite to win.

To win, Greens need to overtake Labor, and they either need to overtake by a lot, or Liberals need to win on primaries.

Agree with Trent that this window is closing. Labor hasnt been sleeping on this seat, but Labor’s strategy seems to revolve less around attacking Greens, and more around trying to flip enough Liberals to maintain a healthy lead.

I suspect this seat will have the Greens best result where they don’t make the runoff. It will be a top candidate for a Green gain in 2025 along with Cooper, Wills, Canberra (Labor vs Green seats) and Perth (which will have a similar problem with majors being too close).

No independent running that would stand a chance. There is one & his bio certainly makes interesting reading. I’m in the seat but in the sliver near the Bot Gardens – haven’t seen anything re the election – not a pamphlet let alone a corflute!

Grug, that independent ran in 2016 too, as well as I believe council and state elections around Caulfield and Glen Eira prior to that.

There were articles when he ran in 2016 about him losing his medical license in two states over inappropriate conduct with patients, and his platform at the time seemed to be all about “reforming” the medical association. Seems like a serial candidate motivated by spite.

All 3 major candidates in the seat have put him either last or second last on their HTV (Greens & Labor put One Nation last). He came last in 2016 and I suspect all he’ll get this time is the donkey vote, being first on the ballot.

WOW I just read his new website for this election, it seems he’s gone even further off the deep end.

Again, his first objective listed is a royal commission into the “overreach” of the medical association. So he’s still on that same warpath.

He goes on to list legislating a moment of reflection before school, replacing the UN with a council of 70 “righteous individuals” who believe in God and the fellowship of man, teaching “family values and biology” in school (I think we know what that’s a dog whistle for), and most amusingly, and I quote, “something even more special – a new way to greet one another that does not require legislation”. What?

Finally in his bio he angrily rants again, with lots of caps, about his experience with the medical association.

He signs off with “Thumbs up for Macnamara and know you’re already a winner!”

It’s well worth a read!

Trent – his website is most unusual & weirdly a compelling read. I’m new to this side of town so haven’t come across this candidate before.

The youGov MRP polling – which I have very little faith in – had the following for Macnamara:

Labor – 32%
Liberal – 31%
Greens – 24%
One Nation – 2%
UAP – 1%
Others – 10%

2PP:
Labor – 59%
Liberal – 41%

I actually think the 2PP as well as the Liberal & Labor primary votes look pretty close to what I would be expecting.

But where this seat in particular really highlights the flaw with the MRP method is the “Other”.

If you exclude the 5 parties already listed, the only “Other” candidates in Macnamara are Animal Justice, Liberal Democrats, and the wacky independent referenced in the posts above who got a total of 450 votes in 2016. I would expect the 3 of them to total around 4% between them – around 2% for AJP, 1.5% for LDP and the donkey vote for John Myers. That leaves 6% of the “Other” unaccounted for.

The reason for this is clear. The MRP method allocates results to seats based on its demographic profile, not purely the responses from within the seat itself based on the candidates running. Macnamara shares a lot of demographic similarities with neighbouring Goldstein, where Zoe Daniel will get a large share of the vote, and to a lesser extent Kooyong where Monique Ryan also will.

So it’s reasonable to assert that a chunk of the “teal independent” support in those other seats is being allocated to Macnamara’s “Other” result based on their shared demographic profiles, but Macnamara does not actually have a teal independent.

Given that Greens support is a casualty of the teal vote in seats like Kooyong & Goldstein, it’s reasonable to assume that most of that unaccounted for “Other” vote in Macnamara would benefit the Greens, which would explain why the Greens result is lower than I would expect.

Assuming that 6% unaccounted for in the “Other” vote would be split by 4% to the Greens and 1% each to Labor & Liberal, you’d get roughly the following:

Labor – 33%
Liberal – 32%
Greens – 28%
Other – 4% (my guess: AJP – 2%, LDP – 1.5%, Myers – 0.5%)
One Nation – 2%
United Australia Party – 1%

Other than ON looking a little high – I’d probably flip that result with UAP – I think that actually looks pretty close to what I would expect. But on these primaries I would also estimate the Labor 2PP so be above 60% (I think the oversized “Other” probably watered it down compared to most of that being Greens).

As I said though, I take these youGov polls with a grain of salt. I don’t think the method works particularly well, and this seat getting such a huge “Other” vote between 3 candidates who have no hope of getting anywhere close to that is a perfect example of it. But it is interesting that if I “fix” what I assume to be the issue with the Other vote, it does look pretty well aligned with my expectation.

On a final note, it’s interesting that the “Other” error didn’t seem to occur in Higgins.

There’s another article on The Age tonight about inflammatory comments by Colleen Harkin that won’t go down well in this seat.

This one lists her defence of Israel Folau, responding to a question about 1 in 4 women being a victim of sexual assault by saying 60% of workplace bullying is by women so both genders are equally as bad, and a time where she threatened to create a website to destroy a flooring company’s reputation.

It’s the second article on The Age about controversy surrounding her, and it referred back the first one as well which outlined her defence of Katherine Deve’s transphobic comments and her view that referring to global warming as a climate emergency is child abuse.

There’s no way the Libs are getting a 2CP above 40% here this time.

@Trent sadly there are probably a lot of racists in Macnamara who would hate anyone who defends Israel Folau.

I don’t believe the people here in Macnamara have a problem with Folau’s race, just his homophobia and bible thumping.

Macnamara is home to the Victorian Pride Centre, St Kilda was really one of the havens for LGBTQ people in Melbourne, it is way above average for “No religion” in the last census, and it had the third highest “Yes” vote in the nation for the plebiscite, so it’s not a seat where homophobia, or defending the right of public figures to express homophobia, is particularly tolerated.

I would have assumed supporters of Israel Folau and others like him would be in that same boat of people who complain about millennials being offended by everything, and yet here is somebody attempting to paint those who dislike him as racist, despite knowing full well the vast majority of people who detest him choose to because of his outspoken homophobia and devout Christian beliefs.

Colleen Harkin is now posting graphs of the Liberal primary vote in Macnamara/Ports over recent elections on her Facebook, and claiming that the “fact” is that “most” Macnamara voters want a Liberal candidate.

It really bothers me when people actually running for a seat in parliament spread falsehoods about our preferential voting system.

I replied to the post to debunk her claim.and rather than defend it, she deleted my comment.

What’s the bet after she loses the 2PP by a large margin, she’ll complain about our voting system if she wins the primary vote (Katie Allen did that after losing Prahran in 2018).

@Trent I won’t be surprised if she claims that the voting system is rigged after losing.

It does seem like her post is intended to lay the groundwork for that. I’m half expecting a screenshot of the primary votes with some FPTP advocacy on her page next week.

Of course, there’s a good chance she may not even get the highest primary vote this time, especially with a bunch of right-wing minor parties to pick away at it.

Macnamara should be redistributed to conform to boundaries of Melbourne Ports in the 1980’s. This electorate took in Richmond (south of Swan Street), South Yarra, Prahran, St Kilda, St Kilda East, St Kilda Road, Southbank, South Melbourne, Albert Park, Middle Park, Port Melbourne, and Elwood. If the electorate covered this area the Liberals wouldn’t come close to winning the seat.

Kaniel I agree, minus Richmond as the river makes a good boundary, and Richmond/Cremorne are best united in Melbourne.

Pretty much exactly what you suggest – again minus Richmond – has been proposed by the AEC at the last 2 redistributions but both times were unfortunately overturned for the final release due to opposition mostly from Jewish organisations around Caulfield who have established strong ties with the local Labor branch. Labor obviously opposed it too, because their biggest threat now is the Greens more than the Liberals, and the proposal would be very favourable to the Greens.

It just makes sense though. The Caulfield area has no place alongside Port Melbourne & Albert Park and fits much better with Malvern & Carnegie in Higgins. Likewise, South Yarra & Windsor have no place alongside Murrumbeena & Cargenie, and fit so much better with St Kilda & Southbank. It would make Macnamara a more consistently “inner-south” seat without its suburban tail, and make Higgins more consistently suburban by removing the high density Chapel precinct, therefore making both much stronger communities of interest for an MP to represent effectively.

Hopefully next time the AEC will come to their senses.

With the current boundaries, the ALP have one definite seat and a shot at the second. If they changed, the Libs would be in a better position in Higgins and the Greens might already hold Macnamara. It is just ALP self interest and the Jewish thing is a convenient ruse. Methinks that if Higgins went down into Caulfield, the Jewish % might be higher than Macnamara now. Totally agree that the boundaries are silly.

Indeed I did the calculations on the draft boundaries and Higgins did have a larger Jewish population than Macnamara has now or did have in 2019.

Agree with you redistributed and others, it almost feels like Macnamara and Higgins are districts carved out of a pseudo gerrymander designed to favour Labor as it creates two ‘marginal’ seats instead of one safe Liberal seat and a safe Greens seat.

That’s right Ben, the Greens proposal to the AEC provided those calculations too, as they highlighted that the proposed boundaries would actually create a larger Jewish community of interest in Higgins than what is currently in Macnamara.

That said, the demographic data may not tell the whole story because for those less familiar with the area, the Orthodox community is pretty much entirely south of Dandenong Road and east of Hotham Street in Macnamara, while Higgins has more of a modern Jewish population. However, that Orthodox community would have been moved in its entirety and wouldn’t have been split anyway. Only the Satmar Hasidic community in Ripponlea would have remained in Macnamara and they’re very segregated from even the Orthodox community as it is.

I agree though it’s a Labor gerrymander, but many of the objections did come from Jewish organisations too.

And to your point Yoh An about the gerrymander carving out two marginal seats, Caulfield making Macnamara more marginal I think is also beneficial to the Jewish organisations who opposed the swap because it gives their organisations quite a bit of political influence and attention. That influence is probably what they don’t want to lose by moving into what would become a safe Liberal seat.

What really surprises me in all these submissions regarding the splitting the Jewish vote by separating St Kilda from Caulfield is that nobody talks about the Eruv.

If you really want to be serious about having boundaries that are sensitive to the Jewish faith then the boundaries would look like this:

McNamara would include the whole of the city of Port Philip west if Barkly Street Plus South Yarra | Prahran | Windsor and would like outside of the Eruv.

The Eruv would large be covered by the following.

Goldstein would move north into Elwood | Balaclava | East St Kilda.

Higgins would be all of Stonnington Minus South Yarra | Prahran | Windsor plus Glen Eira north of centre Road Bentleigh would join Higgins.

Issacs would move north into Bentleigh and Bentleigh East south of Centre road. Currently, the only part of Isaacs in the Eruv is Moorabbin.

The Eruv boundaries, if you’re interested, can be found at http://www.cosv.org.au.

But I think it’s odd that AEC will fret over the splitting of Caulfield and St Kilda, but blithely ignore the very large and growing orthodox community in Bentleigh East (inside the Eruv) and it’s just fine to place them in Hotham where there is zero community of interest.

I think it’s because there is actually no genuine concern about splitting the Jewish community. That’s not the real reason there is opposition to the swap.

St Kilda itself is only 2% Jewish, less than Malvern, Toorak, Carnegie, etc.

I’m certain the opposition to changing the boundaries by organisations like Zionism Australia is purely political:
– They have an established relationship with the local ALP branch they don’t want to lose
– Their inclusion in Macnamara makes it more marginal, therefore meaning the Libs and Labor both fight for their vote so they wield more influence
– It prevents what would otherwise be a probable Greens gain, and they don’t want more Greens in parliament

And of course Labor support those objections because it keeps Macnamara in their hands and Higgins marginal.

If the Greens win Macnamara this time though (unlikely but possible), it would be interesting to see if those same organisations object again next time. Would they fight to stay in a Greens seat or be happy to move?

Of course, the Greens probably have a better chance of winning Higgins which would change that dynamic again.

I wonder if a better longer-term arrangement might be to link the northern part of Macnamara with the western part of Higgins? Areas like Albert Park and Middle Park have the same sort of “affluent inner suburban” feel as Higgins (although admittedly Southbank would be a bit of a stretch).

St Kilda could then be joined with all of Caulfield, Elsternwick and Ripponlea, including the existing parts within Goldstein. If it’s argued that the links between all these areas are so strong, that might be a better permanent solution than tinkering with the boundaries around Caulfield all the time.

If Victoria needs to lose a seat in the eastern suburbs, you might then be able to consolidate Goldstein, Isaacs, Hotham and Chisholm into 3 seats instead of 4.

I don’t agree with that, as a St Kilda resident myself there are far stronger ties with Windsor, Prahran, Albert Park etc than to Caulfield and Elsternwick.

Those St Kilda & Caulfield ties are limited exclusively to the arguments around unification of the Jewish community, but are mostly historical since St Kilda no longer really has one,it has all moved east.

But more importantly, and this was the Greens’ key argument in their proposal, never before has uniting a religious demographic been reason for a boundary change and it sets a poor precedent to do so.

In the case of uniting St Kilda with areas like Caulfield and Elsternwick purely because once upon a time Caulfield’s Jewish community had history in St Kilda, when 98% of St Kilda is not Jewish, really makes no sense.

Remember that Caulfield was only added to Melbourne Ports for the 1990 election, St Kilda was added in the 1960s I believe, and back in the 60s-80s when they were not united, St Kilda had a larger Jewish population and more ties with Caulfield than it does now.

I think the 2018 proposal is still the best, and the reality is that if you exclude the objections from the vested interests (beneficiaries of opposing it such as Labor and the handful of organisations wanting to retain some influence), there is largely a consensus of support for the change across the rest of the community.

Yes in principle I supported the original proposals for the last two redistributions. But since they’ve fallen over both times, I was wondering if there might be a compromise solution for all the vested interests.

When my family came to this country, they all went to St Kilda, and St Kilda East. The move to the Caulfield area came later. I even had family live in Brunswick East, which was part of the Northern suburbs Jewish community, that was centered around Carlton. Carlton had a vibrant left wing Jewish community in the 1930’s, and 1940’s.

Kaniel. Strangely enough there is certain logic in that – excluding the Hawthorn part.

An interesting spanner in the works is Metro Rail. With it, Caufield will “seem” close enough to the city that it isn’t too out of place in the “Inner City, south of the Yarra” seat. The rail line will strengthen the community of interest between Caulfield and Southbank (Anzac station), and interestingly the tunnel does not stop at South Yarra (it goes under it without stopping between the stations).

@Furtive, Victorian Greens have had plenty of success in the past canvassing apartments in Melbourne. They wouldn’t be able to get consistently high votes in Docklands without it.

Exclusion order issues are much more likely the reason for Greens talking down their chances here, with Liberals consistently preselecting duds.

2016, when Danby was still around and small-l swinging voters were much more likely to vote for Turnbull than Labor, seemed like Steph’s best chance. Greens undercooked “Melbourne Ports” that election compared to “Batman”, Wills and Higgins.

@ Kaniel, interesting story about the Jewish community. Correct Carlton used to be a Jewish community hub then became Italian and more recently has a large Asian international student community. Brunswick East used to have a synagogue. The movement of Italian/Greek community out of the inner city into areas such as Bulleen, Bentleigh, Templestowe, Essendon shows upward mobility of formerly immigrant community over generations. I think St Kilda East/Balaclava does fit with Caulfield as there are number of Jewish community institutions still based there

@Nimalan: The old East Brunswick shule in Lord Street is a house now, however it still looks like a shule.

Caulfield North, and Caulfield South do have a lot of connections with St Kilda, yet I still think those suburbs should be in another electorate.

There is also a Jewish community in the City of Manningham. I had relatives who lived in Templestowe Lower. There is a shule in High St Doncaster.

The electorates with Jewish communities are Macnamara, Higgins, Bruce, Isaacs, Goldstein, Kooyong, Chisholm, Menzies, and Melbourne.

The Macnamara panhandle might be eliminated in a future redistribution simply out of necessity. If Kooyong continues to push further south, Higgins will end up suffocated with nowhere to expand.

@ Kaniel, correct indeed there is a Jewish community in Manningham, i know that Synagogue which is close to the Park and Ride. There used to be a Jewish Day School back in the 90s next to the synagogue including some close friends of mine who went there.

Regarding Macnamara, population growth in the Fishermens Bend urban renewal zone may lead to the inland portion east of Nepean Highway to be split longer term and they may not need to be an exchange with Higgins.

@ Kaniel, correct indeed there is a Jewish community in Manningham, i know that Synagogue which is close to the Park and Ride. There used to be a Jewish Day School back in the 90s next to the synagogue including some close friends of mine who went there.

Regarding Macnamara, population growth in the Fishermens Bend urban renewal zone may lead to the inland portion east of Nepean Highway to be split longer term and they may not need to be an exchange with Higgins.

John I didn’t say it’s impossible to canvass high-rises, but the common sentiment in the messaging groups I’m in with other Greens volunteers is that it’s significantly harder (and SHM seems to agree). I haven’t done it myself.

I don’t want to handwave the hard work volunteers have done there in this election and in the past, but I think you might be underrating 1. the general demographics of the area (especially in the high-rises) and 2. just how unpopular Danby was at the time. I mean the guy was just awful. One of the worst Labor MPs outside Mark Latham and Adem Somyurek.

@Mark Mulcair I think St Kilda has far more common with Richmond and the inner northern city than Caulfield.

St Kilda is high rise and inner city vibe, Caulfield is tree lined streets and suburbia, State schools are in nearby Windsor and Elwood, Glen Eira high school is 5km away. There’s two childcare centres west of Brighton road, East of Brighton rod there’s four on Alma road alone. Very little community of interest.

I think the true boundary here is Hotham street which separates Port Phillip from Glen Eira.

Finally, I suspect the reason proposals fell over the second time is that the AEC has a understanding it would be revisiting boundaries within three years so didn’t see the point of “dying in a ditch” when it could present a fait accompli in three years time.

That’s why gut says Higgins but my logic says Casey or McEwen. I think a good proposal that cleans up the SE will fly this time.