Macnamara – Australia 2022

Thanks Nether Portal

I do think indeed the Greens are a serious chance in Macnamara. However, it is interesting case where ordering of the candidates matter if the Greens and Libs finish in the top 2 then the Greens win, if the ALP and LIB finishes in top 2 then Labor wins, if ALP and GRN in the top 2 then Labor wins. There is no real prospect for a Liberal Victory for sometime so thats what makes me think some Libs may vote tactically Labor 1 to avoid the Greens winning the seat especially Jewish Liberals. There will either be a Centre Left or a Far Left MP for Macnamara but not a Centrist or Centre Right.

This kind of tactical voting would only work if the Libs basically ran dead and quietly suggested for their voters to tactically vote Labor. This is essentially what Labor and the Greens did in the teal seats. Though it does seem the Liberals do think they have a shot at winning this seat (they don’t really), so they will try and campaign here. So I don’t think there will be much tactical voting here, it’s all too complex for the average voter to understand. Lib voters who don’t want the Greens will just vote 1 LIB, 2 LAB and think that goes far enough.

IIRC the last 2 Liberal candidates in Macnamara were already considered duds, even controversy magnets, with not very well resourced campaigns. A far cry from the Liberals nearly winning in 2016. Whatever strategy the Liberals have to recover teal seats might yet create a winnable Macnamara, but not in 2025.

All that to say for the Liberals to depress their vote much further they’d need to actually pull out.

seriously why couldnt the aec just get rid of that tail?

If the Caulfield Tail is gone then it will certainly be an ALP/GRN seat and Labor will easily win on Lib Preferences.Hence, the Greens now want Caulfield in the seat. I think to encourage right-wing Jews to vote Labor tactically you will need a grassroots campaign with help from Jewish community organisations, synagogues etc. The following article from a Jewish newspaper points out there is no chance of a Liberal victory in Macnamara so best to Vote for Josh Burns to keep the Greens out. We may see more of this closer to the election. For Non Jewish Liberal voters they may not really care as much if the Greens take the seat from Labor especially in a wealthy seat so probably will stick with voting 1 Lib

https://www.australianjewishnews.com/keeping-macnamara-in-safe-hands/

@Nimalan one thing that could happen is Josh Burns might choose to preference the Liberals to over the Greens due to the attacks on his office and antisemitism within the pro-Palestinian movement.

@ Nether Portal
Interestingly, James Paterson called on the ALP to preference Libs ahead of the Greens in this seat. However, even if Josh Burns ends up doing that i am not sure how many Labor voters will follow this. I agree Jewish Labor voters will happily preference the Libs ahead of Greens i am not sure if non-Jewish Labor voters will do so. Macnamara is very secular apart from the Jewish communities, no other CALD communities, very little working class these days. It is also highly educated so i am not sure how many voters will follow the HTV card and they will not need it to cast a formal vote unlike say in Fowler. In areas like Hunter many working class Labor voters would prefer Coalition over the Greens but it is a moot point since the Greens will not make the 2CP.

James Paterson comments
https://www.australianjewishnews.com/alp-votes-could-give-greens-macnamara/

@NP but they wont because they rely on the greens for votes and if they dont the greens will just tie them to the Libs in order to hurt labor

@John the Greens would still preference Labor regardless of what Labor and the Liberals do with their preferences.

@NP yea but the greens will use it to lure voters away from labor

Sky News Political Reporter, Cameron Reddin says based on his conversations with Labor insiders is that Labor feels that Josh Burns increased profile since October 7 may have given him a boost and Labor are a bit more confident about Macnamara. I am assuming this means that many Jewish voters including Liberal voters have a strong degree of respect for him and maybe he is seen as a Community leaders. As i mentioned repeatdely, i dont believe there will be much of anti-Greens swing in the Pro-Israel Jewish community as they would be negligible support to begin with but maybe some right-wing Jews see Josh Burns positively and this may boost him.

I mostly agree with Drake that the average Liberal voter – even in the Jewish community – will not be totally across the dynamics of this seat, enough to realise that the most likely impact of voting 1 LIB, 2 ALP is actually helping the Greens win.

However, I wasn’t aware that there were already articles such as the AJN one Nimalan posted – thanks for posting that, very interesting and I wasn’t aware! – that are already promoting a tactical voting movement within the Jewish community. And being such a close-knit community with their own widely read news media such as AJN as well as the ability to spread messages throughout synagogues and other institutions, I do believe that tactical voting could make an impact.

I completely agree that there would be very little Greens vote in the Jewish community for their position on Palestine to have any meaningful impact on their own vote. The contest, and their success, really just comes down to how the ALP/LIB swings play out.

I don’t really see many GRN>ALP or LIB>ALP swings happening anywhere west of Chapel St. I think the Lib vote probably already bottomed out there in the last couple of elections, while Greens voters have little to no reason to swing back to Labor outside of the Jewish areas which there are really none of west of Chapel St (including St Kilda which is only 2% Jewish, actually less than Elwood at about 3%).

I also don’t think much – if any – of the significant Greens vote across Balaclava, East St Kilda & Caulfield came from within the Jewish community either.

Similarly, there’s no way the Liberals could become competitive in the next couple of election cycles either. Caulfield is already the most pro-Liberal area meaning there just aren’t the numbers for any meaningful ALP>LIB swing to occur (probably only 4-5% of Labor’s overall primary vote comes from there), and the west of the seat isn’t going to see any significant swing to a party led by Dutton campaigning on nuclear power and “anti-woke” messaging. At best, the Liberals might get a 3-4% swing (which would only help the Greens), and even that would rely on some of it coming from the Caulfield area.

That means Josh Burns’ path to retain the seat, and the Jewish community’s best path to ensure they don’t elect a Greens MP, is actually a tactical LIB>ALP swing within the Jewish community. So I expect there will probably be more of a push within that community to promote tactical voting in the coming months.

Whether it works, or whether the swing is enough to cancel out any potential swings against Labor (to either Libs or Greens) elsewhere, remains to be seen. But I imagine the Caulfield area would probably need to see at least a 2-3% LIB to ALP swing for Josh Burns to have a chance of retaining the seat.

I should add too, on the topic of preferencing if it does end up being a GRN v LIB contest, I don’t think there’s any way Josh Burns does a Danby and hands out HTVs with the Liberals ahead of the Greens.

Firstly, Labor HQ would not allow it (they quickly shut down Danby’s alternate cards). I can’t see Burns going as rogue as Danby did.

Secondly, as soon as word got out that Labor were preferencing the Liberals ahead of the Greens, the Greens would run with that as an attack line to reinforce the “Labor & Liberals are the same” and it would almost certainly swing some more progressive ALP voters to the Greens.

I do think what they (including Burns) will do, is “unofficially” promote that strategy within the Jewish community. Like the AJN article says: if you don’t want a Greens MP, you need to vote 1 Labor and then put the Liberals ahead of the Greens. But they’ll make sure that messaging is not coming from the Labor campaign itself.

Ultimately, even if every Jewish Labor voter puts the Liberals ahead of the Greens, it would be nowhere near enough for the Liberals to win a GRN v LIB 2CP. I dare say a lot of Jewish Labor voters already did that last time around anyway; and anybody tactically swinging from LIB to ALP, their 2CP vote was already with the Libs in 2022 anyway. So I actually don’t think it would make much difference at all, might shave 1-2% off the Greens 2CP at most.

I think Labor just needs to make sure they’re in the top 2, preferably in 1st place and make sure that the Liberals are in 3rd place, they’re going to need Liberal preferences to win as I predict Macnamara will become an ALP vs GRN contest next time round.

In saying that, Labor has the best of both worlds as long as they finish in the top 2. They’ll get Green preferences if their main rival is the Liberals, whilst Liberal preferences should favour Labor and help them win if the Greens finish first on 2CP. If Labor drops to 3rd, then it’s a Greens gain for sure.

Yeah you’re 100% right. At the 3CP stage, all Labor need to do is finish in the top 2 to win. The Greens’ path to victory has always been Labor finishing third.

On primary vote terms though, if it’s as close as it was in 2022, Labor really need to finish at least 2% ahead of whoever finishes third to stay in the top 2 by the 3CP count, because typically they get by far the lowest share of minor party preferences.

In 2022:
– Labor went from 31.77% primary vote to 33.48% 3CP (+1.71%)
– The Greens went from 29.65% to 32.84% (+3.19%)
– The Liberals went from 29.00% to 33.67% (+4.67%)

So despite finishing a clear first on primary vote, they were only 0.64% away from finishing 3rd in the 3CP.

@Tommo9 I think if the Greens win it’ll be Greens vs Liberals. If Labor win it’ll be Labor vs Liberals. The Liberal vote in Macnamara is too high for them to miss the TCP, in fact they usually finish first with Labor winning on Greens preferences (look at 2019 in Macnamara and the results for Melbourne Ports throughout its existence).

I’m not 100% convinced that the Greens will win here there stance on the gaza matter could hurt them here with a swing against them especially with the attacks on the incumbent mp.

Liberal, Labor, Greens and Democrats primaries in Melbourne Ports over the years:

1990: LIB 43.6%, ALP 39.6%, DEM 15.5%
1993: ALP 48.7%, LIB 41.7%, DEM 3.7%
1996: ALP 46.4%, LIB 39.7%, DEM 7.1%, GRN 5.2%
1998: ALP 44.1%, LIB 39.0%, DEM 8.2%, GRN 4.7%
2001: LIB 39.7%, ALP 39.4%, GRN 11.3%, DEM 9.3%
2004: LIB 42.9%, ALP 39.3%, GRN 14.1%, DEM 1.4%
2007: ALP 42.5%, LIB 39.7%, GRN 15.0%, DEM 1.8%
2010: ALP 38.2%, LIB 37.8%, GRN 20.7%
2013: LIB 41.1%, ALP 31.7%, GRN 20.2%
2016: LIB 41.9%, ALP 27.0%, GRN 23.8%

And Macnamara:
2019: LIB 37.4%, ALP 31.4%, GRN 24.2%
2022: ALP 31.8%, GRN 29.7%, LIB 29.0%

This resulted in a Labor TPP of:
1990: 52.1%
1993: 55.9%
1996: 56.1%
1998: 55.8%
2001: 55.7%
2004: 53.7%
2007: 57.2%
2010: 57.6%
2013: 53.6%
2016: 51.4%
2019: 56.3%
2022: 62.3%

Are there any other seats with similarly interesting trends I should analyse?

Why was it so low in 1990? Why did Labor do poorly in Victoria in 1990 when it was Hawkes home-state. Cain was a popular premier.

@ Trent
Agree, as i mentioned also in an earlier post. Josh Burns may be only Labor MP in the entire nation who is not attacked by Sky News and is treated well when he appears while everyone else they dont like such as Pesutto, Kean, Crisfaulli etc are attacked maybe that is a sign that tactical voting maybe coming. While if Higgins still exists i think the Libs will release the wolves onto Michelle Ananda-Rajah and say she is not Pro-Israel enough. The other thing West of Chapel Street is where much of the population growth is with all the new apartments so Labor cannot really stop the rise of the Greens their best hope is for the Libs to slip to 3rd place.
@ SpaceFish, i am not willing to make a call on whether Labor or Greens will win. However, as both Trent and i have mentioned repeatedly the Greens have little if any support among Pro-Israel Jews in Macnamara so they will not any backlash for their stance. There is virtually no Muslim community in Macnamara, however, many will be indifferent.
@ Nether Portal, see the article on AJN which i posted. I agree that is a decent Liberal vote here unlike Wills. However, if someone Votes 1 LIB, 2 ALP then it increases the likelihood the Greens win however, if Jewish Liberals voted 1 ALP, 2 LIB then the chance the Greens will fail to win the seat increases. There is no chance of a Liberal Victory anytime soon so even Jewish Liberal Members may tactically vote Labor.

Honestly if Josh Burns wants to preference Libs over Greens then go ahead. Labor need to stop martyring MPs when they go against them. The Greens are obviously anti-Israel, and I don’t think it will go well with the strong Jewish population and Josh Burns, who is of Jewish heritage. Macnamara is very marginal: it’s rapidly gentrifying, bringing in well-educated, progressive young people who have bumped the Greens vote upwards in recent years, and from memory were just 800 votes from technically winning the seat. I’m not sure about prospects of a Green win (Steph Hodgins-May is now in the Senate, and the Greens have chose their 2022 Higgins candidate for Macnamara), but Josh Burns is fortunate Labor has the best of both worlds, in the sense of being able to win on Liberal or Green preferences depending on the scenario.

An example of this martyring is Cate Molloy, the Labor MP for the Queensland state seat of Noosa from 2001-2006. From memory, Labor planned to build a dam on the Mary River within her electorate, yet she was opposed. As a result of expressing an opinion mostly based partially off personal view but also her constituents’ views, she was disendorsed by Labor for the 2006 state election. She resigned from Labor and almost won as an independent. A sad way for an MP to go because she was a maverick for party lines.

What’s interesting about Macnamara from 1990-2019 was how little the margin changed throughout that time. It just was just around the 52-57 range every time barely ever swinging more than 2%. And now you get a 5% and 7% swing in the last two elections.

It’s kind of a hard concept for Lib voters to tactical vote. Most will just think 1 LIB 2 ALP does more to prevent the Greens than 1 ALP 2 LIB because people will still think Labor preferences will flow to the Greens. Libs actually have a decent candidate this time, so I do think 2022 might be a low point for them here for the time being.

@Daniel T 1990 was a weird election. Bob Hawke and Andrew Peacock were both Melburnians (like how both Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese are Sydneysiders).

The Coalition a majority of seats in Victoria (which in recent times has been Labor’s strongest state; the ACT is a territory), while Labor won a majority of seats in Queensland and WA (which have always been the strongest states for the Coalition).

Interestingly Labor has only won the statewide two-party-preferred vote in Queensland at three federal elections since 1949: 1961, 1990 and 2007.

It was also the last time until 2022 where Labor won a majority of federal seats in Western Australia.

The Coalition has only won the TPP vote at a federal election in Victoria once after 1990, which was in 2004.

In 1990 the Victorian economy was about to collapse. The State Bank was in the process of collapse and Victorian taxpayers were in the process of bailing it out. In the months after the election, the Pyramid Building Society collapsed and had to be bailed out. A lot of the mess was caused by Cain government policies. South Australia reached a similar state in 1991. Hence the huge swings to the Liberals. Labor nationally were only saved by Graham Richardson’s ‘whatever it takes’ policy which was basically lining up Democrat and Greens preferences to get them over the line.

In inner metro seats without a “teal” that comes third, the Liberals really need a 44-45% primary vote for a chance at getting over 50% 2PP.

The Libs lost Prahran in 2014 with over 44% for example, and Melbourne Ports in 1990 with just under 44%.

They have no chance of getting close to that again unless there is a major political realignment.

I think Danby was a big factor in the 2013 & 2016 elections. I don’t think his “personal vote” in Caulfield was as big as he thought (the Libs dominated there more than they do now) and he was hated elsewhere in the seat. The first Greens vote I ever placed was in protest of Michael Danby and I wasn’t even as politically engaged at the time.

The Greens were still on the ascent on not as popular as they are now, especially north of St Kilda, so the Libs would also have benefited from the anti-Danby sentiment. It was a perfect storm for them: as well as Danby, 2013 had the Rudd/Gillard/Rudd drama wrecking the Labor brand and 2016 had a lot of inner Melbourne votets thinking Turnbull, getting a “mandate” if he’s elected, would turn the Liberal Party around.

Yet still they couldn’t get over the line and I don’t see the conditions being as favourable to them as that again. The current margin is the biggest it’s been since Melbourne Ports crossed the bay and didn’t include Caulfield over 40 years ago.

I think 2025 will be decided by whether or not a tactical LIB -> ALP swing in the Jewish community can cacel out an expected (small) swing against Labor elsewhere.

My thoughts for a long time have been that there will probably be a very small swing from the ALP next time (doesn’t matter who to), not big but enough to drop Labor to third. But, if the Jewish community do vote strategically it could neutralise it.

Sorry corection. My thoughts had been the small swing WOULD be enough to drop Labor to third, but that now a strategic vote could neutralise it so it won’t be big enough.

It’s also interesting that in 2016 even though there was a tiny swing against the Coalition in Victoria they actually gained Chisholm (a notional gain of one seat for the Coalition in Victoria) and Melbourne Ports was quite close that year. Was this just Malcolm Turnbull’s popularity as a moderate or was their something in Victoria that made voters swing against Bill Shorten even though Shorten is from Melbourne?

Anna Burke did have a personal vote in Chisholm, and her retirement was probably what got the Libs over the line in Chisholm. She was very visible in the electorate and always came across as very approachable and likeable. Otherwise, Malcolm Turnbull was quite popular in Melbourne.

I don’t think it was Bill Shorten so much because he did pretty well across Melbourne seats in 2019.

I think in the case of Melbourne Ports especially it was two factors:

Malcolm Turnbull, I remember the vibes being that he needed to win an election in his own right to have a ‘mandate’ to change the direction of the Liberal Party so there was hope that he would bring them back to the centre, but of course that never happened and he was toppled.

And at a local level, Michael Danby. Extremely unpopular even among Labor voters. This ties into the above factor, because with Turnbull as the Liberal leader (and a team of moderates like Julie Bishop, Pyne etc around him) he made them a viable alternative for swinging/centrist voters who hated Danby.

Because Libs did very well with highly educated and well off/middle class voters in 2016. Labor did extremely well with working class voters in 2016. In 2019 and 2022 the complete opposite would occur. Pretty much all of the seats Labor and the Greens won off the Libs in 2022 had a swing to the Libs in 2016 (Reid, Higgins, Bennelong, Chisholm, Brisbane, Ryan). That’s along with several Teal seats like Curtin, Goldstein, Kooyong which also swung to the Libs in 2016.

By not winning Melbourne Ports (This seat), Bass, Braddon, Lyons, Griffith (It was close), Perth and Macquarie. Turnbull pretty much lost the leadership because people argued being moderate doesn’t ”win” and the coalition was more concerned about seats like Herbert, Longman, Lindsay, Greenway, etc.

Turnbull wasn’t unpopular. his party was. He was sabotaged. Tasmania is moderate compared to states like QLD and WA and the loss of those seats cannot be blamed on him.

Now seats like Griffith, Melbourne Ports, and a bunch of other seats the coalition won in 2016 that they lost in 2022 are now out of reach for at least a generation thanks to their incompetence and ignorance on voting and demographic trends.

The Libs will stay in 3rd place here, I’m sure we can all agree on that.

I know people who had never voted Liberal in their life but did for the first time in 2016 because they thought Turnbull would make a better PM than Shorten, and thought for democracy’s sake it would be good for everyone if the Liberal Party became more “liberal” and moderate again.

You’re right, Turnbull wasn’t unpopular at all. But after winning in 2016 it became clear he was powerless even as the leader to steer the ship in a different direction, and the party toppling him and completely dismantling the moderate wing will have lasting impacts for a generation in affluent, educated & progressive inner metro seats.

Some people thought the big swings in 2019 were just a one-off backlash against Turnbull being knifed, but it was so much more than that. Turnbull in many ways was the last hope of returning the party to its “small l” values, and when that was crushed, it signified a more permanent (or at least long term) turning point for the party I think.

Two things that will work in Josh Burns’ favour now are:

– The possibility of tactical voting in the Jewish community, as described above, swinging some LIB voters to ALP to keep the Greens out (may not be huge but even a small swing will help);

– Dutton’s nuclear policy will be wildly unpopular in this seat, that really sets back any chance the Liberals had at slowly regaining a bit of ground here

I thought they might at least get back up into the 32-33% primary vote range but I think they’ll struggle to get back over 30% to be honest.

From Poll Bludger this morning:

“RedBridge Group has a small sample poll from the Melbourne seat of Macnamara, where Labor, Liberal and the Greens polled almost exactly equal shares of the vote in 2022, with Labor rather than the Greens winning after the latter very narrowly went under at the last exclusion. The good news for Labor is that the poll, which was conducted June 13 to 20, finds the Greens at 21% compared with their 29.7% at the election. The bad news is a two-party swing to the Liberals that reduces their margin from 12.2% at the election to 5% in the poll, with Labor’s primary vote down from 31.7% to 30% and the Liberals up from 29.0% to 36%. However, the poll’s sample of 401 puts the margin of error at around 5%.”

I don’t have any faith in this poll because even beyond the small sample and large margin of error, generally while they adjust for demographics, they wouldn’t adjust for geographic variances within the seat and Macnamara is a seat that has very different voting patterns across it.

So, for example, if Caulfield or even Port Melbourne were overrepresented in the small sample of ~400, that would dramatically overestimate the Liberal vote and underestimate the Greens vote, as they are the most Liberal and least Greens parts of the seat. This would very likely happen if, for example, respondents were more likely to be older than younger.

Yeah i am skeptical as it suggests a massive swing from Greens to Libs not even Greens to Labor. I cant see what could have caused this. The Jewish Green vote would be so small so Israel cannot have driven a big swing to the Libs. Also on other issue such as Climate recent announcements will not be positively received here.

Correction, just got to read the whole Samaras post and it did actually factor in location (West, Central, East).

That said, I still don’t really have any faith in a seat poll like this. I remember the Redbridge state seat polls before the 2022 state election which indicated that teals would win Caulfield, Brighton & Sandringham and they didn’t come remotely close in any of them!

Closer to an election I think what we’ll see is a consistent narrative from both Labor & Greens that it’s a Labor vs Greens contest, a strong campaign within the Jewish community to vote for Josh Burns instead of the Liberals, Dutton’s nuclear announcement will be increasingly unpopular as it’s further scrutinised for its lack of detail and all the holes in it, and the Labor campaign will no doubt be linking the Liberals to Dutton very strongly. All this will be combined with the Liberals probably running pretty dead as they will have to focus their resources elsewhere, reinforcing the perception of a Labor v Greens contest.

I commented on the 2025 thread about this poll. It has the Libs doing better in Caulfield and Albert Park/Melb Ports than their high point of 2016 but much worse in St Kilda.

I think the main thing the polls show is the Libs are unlikely to fall to 3rd place. There is a floor for the Lib vote here, and maybe 2022 was it. The Libs have a much better candidate this time (and they’ve already preselected which shows they have some interest here), and issues that are more favourable to them. I don’t think this will end as a GRN vs ALP seat, I think the Israel issue + better candidate will cause this to have one of the better Lib inner city swings.

Maybe something like 58% ALP or GRN TPP which puts it somewhere between 2019 and 2022.

I have doubts with the Redbridge poll that the TPP would go from 62 ALP/38 Libs backs to a closer 55 ALP/45 Libs as Dutton is unpopular from his culture wars (except for the Jews living in Caulfield) especially his nuclear announcement, opposition to The Voice, calling for the boycott of Woolworths etc.

@ Marh
Also scrapping 2030 Targets and potentially pulling out of Paris Agreements.

In the future this will be like Brisbane and Ryan (unless the next redistribution makes Ryan notionally an LNP seat): a seat where the Liberals “start on top but finish second” (like Arsenal in the Premier League last season); i.e the Liberals will win the first preference vote but lose to the Greens on Labor preferences.

If you see my comment above, of all the federal elections after 1990, the Liberals’ best year in Macnamara was in 2016 when Labor only got 51% TPP, while 2022 was Labor’s best year by far since they got 62% TPP.

It was brought up earlier that most of the seats the Liberals lost in 2022 actually swung to them in 2016 and against them in 2019. This is true, but it has a caveat. While Turnbull being moderate may have helped this, a moderate Liberal might vote Labor or teal but not Greens unless it’s a protest vote or a tactical vote, because the Greens are too extreme.

@Nether Portal, it depends on the income class of Moderate Libs though. If they are higher income, they are the “Never Labor” type which in this group they vote for The Teals whereas for the Middle Class they are open to vote for Labor. For Brisbane and Ryan, this might be due to Queensland’s Greens being more moderate on economic policies unlike NSW Greens.

@ Nether Portal
One difference between Ryan and Brisbane and Macnamara is that both the former seats have very strong Liberal areas like Fig Tree Pocket, Ascot, Brookfield etc but Albert Park/Middle Park which is the richest part of Macnamara is no where near as strong for the Libs, it is more like Bulimba or New Farm. With respect to Cauflield it is hard to determine how strong it is for the Libs due to massive postal and prepoll due to the Sabbath. For this reason, i think it is more like Griffith than Ryan or Brisbane. I actually think there is quite a few moderate Libs who will vote GRN if no Teal option and we saw that in Brisbane and Ryan in 2022. The reason is for very affluent people the Labor party is associated with low SES people so there is a class based aversion.

Port Phillip is also densifying faster than a lot of other inner councils, and I think the demographic shifts that occur with the transient nature of the seat will actually help the Greens, not the Liberals, in a similar way to how South Yarra & Hawthorn’s development patterns have shifted the demographics in favour of the left.

2022 might have been a low point at least for now (or the short term future) because the electorate was desperate to boot Morrison and the Liberal preselected a complete dud; but 2025 under Dutton isn’t going to be the election that dramatically swings that back, and long term I think the demographic evolution of the seat will keep shifting it left.

I don’t see it being like Brisbane or Ryan where moving forward, the Liberals win the primary vote and the Greens win off Labor preferences; long term I see it becoming more like how Prahran is after the 2022 VIC election, where it’s still Greens v Liberals but the Greens also win the primary vote.

For all the reasons Marh listed above, I can’t see the Liberals making significant gains here in 2025.

Agree Nimalan, it is also the reason why the Greens are able to outpoll Labor in places like the North Shore of Sydney and also the Adelaide Hills which are considered affluent in nature.

Comparing the Macnamara result with 2007.

-The Port Melbourne booths are basically the same here as 2007, though Labor did 10% worse in Sandridge.
– Albert/Middle Park 5-10% better now.
– Southbank/South Yarra 15-20% better now
– South Melbourne 10% better
– St Kilda about 5% better
– Elwood 7% or so better now
– Caulfield 10% or so better now

@ Yoh An
The North Shore of Sydney prior to the Teals had a lot of LIB VS GRN at a state level and so was Warringah in 2016. Kooyong would be LIB VS GRN most likely if it was not for the Teals. The people who are voting GRN instead of LIB are either young renters or socially progressive people who are voting on social issues.
@ Drake, in 2004 Labor got 75% TPP in Sandrige and it used to be the strongest booth for Labor in Melbourne Ports but these days the most left wing part is St Kilda. That area may have had some older working class residents who once worked in the wharfs but has had massive gentrification since.

Nimalan, the dock workers usually live more around Port Melbourne and South Melbourne which is why the ALP’s support is solid in Port Melbourne, however the Port Melbourne area has demographically changed as many factories have been replaced by apartments, whereas St Kilda has for a long time been a diverse suburb with renters, musos, younger professionals and alternative lifestyle types.

@ Pencil
Agreed, most of the old Brownfields industrial land is being turned into new apartments and the remaining working class residents in workers cottages/Terraced homes will eventually move out and replaced by a much more affluent demographic.

The only residential part of Port Melbourne that still feels somewhat working class is the Garden City area.

That said though, even the most gentrified parts feel very different to the rest of Port Phillip these days including even South Melbourne which it was once more similar to.

It’s hard to describe, but in a way the culture feels more suburban despite geographically being very inner city and quite dense. It could be the relative lack of PT (one tram route, no trains) and its isolated location attracting people with different values, or could be tied the suburb’s history, not sure.

I’m guessing though the Fisherman’s Bend development will be culturally, politically and demographically more like Southbank & Docklands.

On another note, the Inkerman St housing commission tower in St Kilda now has multiple huge Palestinian flags flying from windows on upper levels, which I think in a way symbolises the divide between views on the issue on either side of Chapel St.