Melbourne – Australia 2022

Greens hold.

I agree with Ryan, Greens hold.

While not having ever been to Melbourne, I can already tell that Kensington does not belong in Maribyrnong as well, and the drawing of the boundaries in Melbourne seems to be more convenience for the AEC committee as opposed to communities of interest. I know they want to follow the creeks as boundary markers but surely Brunswick and Kensington would be better in one electorate and Fawkner and Tullamarine in the other, given the demographics?

Labor was going run Emma Dawson – a director at Per Capita – as their candidate for Melbourne. She had the backing of prominent Labor figures and was lauded as someone who could win the seat back from the Greens.

Dawson withdrew after Labor announced their policy changes on negative gearing and CGT.

Ryan,

The creeks define the main transport patterns (and therefore to some extent, community of interest) in this part of Melbourne. Moonee Ponds Creek in particular also served as something of a social divide between then-working-class Brunswick and Coburg, and middle-class/affluent Moonee Ponds and Essendon.

Further north, the creeks are even stronger boundaries, because there are fewer crossings north of Bell Street. Fawkner would feel a much stronger connection to Coburg (south) or Campbellfield (north) than with Reservoir or Tullamarine.

That Fitzroy East booth must have one of the lowest Liberal primary votes in the country at 7.9%.

Even with Emma Dawson this wouldn’t even have been close. The Greens are a power house in the CBD and even when Bandt retires I expect the margin to still hover around 10% you just need to look at the state results as well. The Greens are the party the people of Melbourne trust to combat climate change.

Bandt could get a further swing to him and this will remain GRN vs Liberal

Don’t rule out the Greens expanding their caucus under Bandt.

I agree, Daniel. Why would left-wing voters boot out a well-established left-wing MP for a candidate from a party that largely doesn’t share those views?

“The government has just bought 8 floating Chernobyls”. The usual moderate incisive commentary from the member for Melbourne

I predict Adam Bandt will retain. But Labor will recoup some of their vote and finish in the final two party preferred margin.

WD, there’s no doubt it will go down a treat in Fitzroy, though….

You have to remember last election the Labor candidate was dis-endorsed. This would have significantly impacted the Labor vote in Melbourne. One other factor is what will be the impact on the Greens vote now there are Green Councils in this region and the impact of various resolutions and the like.

Barring a massive scandal, Bandt’s as likely to lose this as David Littleproud is to lose Maranoa.

What reasons could there be for a Melbourne constituent who has voted for Bandt over the last few elections to consider switching to Labor now?

I don’t understand why labor throw resources here, it’s almost like they have never accepted the Greens winning here. The Labor should focus on gaining Chisholm & La Trobe rather then here.

In both 2016 and 2019 Labor came third here. In both 2010 and 2013 when the Libs came third, there was a quite a big preference leakage to the Greens – I assume the Libs preferenced the ALP. Should Labor come second and Bandt’s vote drop a bit it and the leakage kept in check it becomes a marginal proposition. Labor do need the right candidate though – that will be the hard part.

With the ALP now backing negative gearing, all stage 3 tax cuts and now nuclear submarines, I don`t see the ALP making much headway in Melbourne at this election.

redistributed: That’s plausible but unlikely by the next election. Bandt’s already sitting on 49% and has since become Federal leader. He can expect growth in his primary vote from that alone. And as others have said, what does Albanese’s ALP, which has been veering further and further right, have to pitch to the most progressive seat in the country? A lot would have to change before Labor become a threat here again.

Anyone who predicts Adam Bandt has a chance in hell of losing Melbourne has got to have a screw loose.

Even if Labor preferenced the Liberals here in huge numbers Bandt would easily be re-election because not only will Bandt win the TCC but he will also win the primary vote. Any suggestion that he will get under 50% of the primary vote has no clue what they are talking about.

I predict Bandt will win this seat in his own right without preferences. It will be historic for the Greens to win more than 50% but it looks as if it will happen this time. afterall he only needs a 0.7% swing in the primaries to achieve this.

Both majors will likely get swings against them here but it will nevertheless remain GRN vs Liberal.

The Greens just have too much support here for Labor to come 2nd place. The progressive vote almost entirely goes to the Greens here now.

Won’t even be a contest will be called as soon as the first booth comes in.

Daniel I agree. I can’t envision the Greens not getting a swing towards them, and as you say it only has to be 0.7% to win an outright majority for the first time.

1. It’s the long term trend here. The Greens vote has just not shown signs of going backwards.

2. The MP is now the party leader, which has raised his profile even more.

3. Labor are going to the next election with a far less progressive policy platform than in 2019 which will drive more inner Melbourne voters (not just in this seat but also probably Wills and Macnamara) from Labor to the Greens.

Trent {& Daniel)
Your third point is intriguing . Wouldn’t there be a prevailing trend in all 3 seats from ALP to Green ? Can this be quantified ? If so what would an above trend result look like ? What are the implications ?
Likewise what would a below trend result be ?

without going into much detail what would a broad appraisal be ?

WD, regarding point #3 there wouldn’t be a trend yet because that point refers to a comparison specifically between Labor’s platform in 2019 vs 2022, and 2022 has not happened yet so there is no data. At this stage it’s just prediction.

What I think we saw in 2019 though was Labor bear almost all the fruits of the swing against the Liberals, because Labor had a bold policy agenda that probably appealed to progressive Melbourne voters just as much as it repelled moderate Queensland voters (and probably lost them the election), so voters had less reason to vote for the Greens.

I think candidates played a huge part in 2019 too. The seat of Melbourne was the only one where the Greens had the advantage of incumbency, and therefore they did the best there.

In both Macnamara and Cooper, deeply unpopular Labor MPs (Danby & Feeney) were replaced which saw the Labor vote rebound significantly in both. In Cooper where Labor had the most progressive candidate, it was at the expense of the Greens who ran a bad candidate, whereas in Macnamara the Greens vote held up and Labor’s swing appeared to come entirely from the Liberals.

2022 will be a different story, because firstly Cooper and Macnamara won’t have the factor of Labor “upgrading” unpopular MPs; and secondly Labor’s platform is likely to be less appealing to this part of the country, which is an opportunity for the Greens to swoop in with more space to fill on Labor’s left.

In short, I just think there were too many significant candidate factors in 2019 to glean a “trend” from.

Trent
Thanks for such a thoughtful reply. I can’t see anything that doesn’t seem cogent, & reasoned.
“Labor had a bold policy agenda” the uncomfortable feeling is around how much of this was actually understood ? or was it just perception? Or was it just about climate change…..? I sense that it was different in different parts of australia, which you seemed to say yourself. eg the “blue green ‘ seats in sydney
You seem to be making the proposition that policy position will be very influential. How would you regard the proposition that Albo being perceived as a “weak”or invisible, leader might be even more influential in shifting votes from labor, to the Greens ? eg i’d expect Kearney to suffer most from this, perhaps Khalil, but not Burns.

I know i asked a difficult question (to quantify) so thanks again for such a manful effort.
cheers wd

Khalil would probably be the most affected considering Wills is the most marginal of the LAB v GRN seats. There was only a swing to him of 3.24% at the last election so I have a feeling it could be in play. The candidate the Greens had in Cooper was quite frankly very average so this probably compounded the other issues they had.

I still feel like Macnamara is the most takeable of the four they have some chance in (the others are Cooper, Wills and Kooyong) because the margin the Greens have to make up on the primary vote isn’t very small.

It’s hard to figure out whether the Greens will do better, worse or just the same in Kooyong given the higher profile of the “Voices for Kooyong” group. What happened in 2019 was that V4K sucked the Labor vote down enough and send the preferences to the Greens to make it marginal.

Lets face it Adam Bandt wouldn’t be in parliament if the Liberals hadn’t directed preferences to him in 2010. That fact also the incumbent Lindsay Tanner retired also helped. Bandt didn’t even beat the Labor canidate Cath Bowtell on primary votes.

Thats why some of these predictions of the Greens adding to their tally. Need to be taken with a grain of salt.

I mean Trent has suggested Josh Burns benifited from ‘upgrading’ of a bad MP in Macnamara. And could be in trouble this election. That’s opposite to political logic where Burns should benifit from a sophomore surge.

The Greens themselves have said Griffith is the best chance of a gain. Which may dismiss the logic by some that they are in good chance of gaining extra seats in Victoria.

Also when Adam Bandt retires I don’t agree the logic the Greens are lock of holding it. If the Greens think their a better chance when Anthony Albanese retires in Grayndler and Tanya Plibersek retires in Sydney. Then I’m not sure why the reverse logic gets applied here.

Personally I’m guessing the political climate is better for the Victorian Greens this time around than last, when they were racked by factional divisions and interpersonal spats. The other assumption is that the Greens’ inner-city party organisation and natural strength has grown/is growing independently of those transient, candidate-specific dynamics. I can say for sure that latter assumption is absolutely true in Brisbane, where the volunteer base has mushroomed in the past couple years. I don’t know how true it is for NSW and Victoria. Josh Burns has every chance of holding on, and that’s even more true for Khalil and yet more so for Kearney. But not certain.

Political Nightwatchman
All sound deductive reasoning
Re Josh Burns i agree completely. He is all shiny & new, the libs will go backwards, maybe the greens too.
He will be “a fish out of water” if the boundaries change next time as Trent & everyone except the AEC think !
The greens have one shot at Griffith this time
But i agree with Ryan that Wills is a better prospect for the greens.

You know Labor has serious problems when there isn’t a single seat safer than the Greens margin here in Melbourne. It’s even safer for the Greens than Calwell for Labor!

This could become the safest seat in the country after the election surpassing Littleprouds margin of 25%. And I predict Labor will not have any seats above 20% after the election either.

2CP doesn’t capture the full picture here. I’d be curious to know the GRN vs ALP 2CP margin here. I expect it to still be safe, but not certainly not over 20%.

Nicholas – if you look back to 2013, which was the last time that Labor made the 2CP, you’ll see that Liberal preferences split of 66-34 ALP-GRN. Presumably that’s with the Liberal HTV having ALP>GRN.

Alternatively, you could look at the 2013 3CP: Greens 46%, Labor 29%, Liberals 25% — and then the Lib ballots split at a slightly more even 63-37 rate.

So looking at the 2019 3CP, we see Greens on 55%, Liberals on 24%, Labor on 21%. Splitting the Liberals 65-35 results in Greens 63%, Labor 37%.

AEC figures for 2019 show 67.06 % ALP/ 32.94% LIB

There seems to be consensus that Labor will never get this seat back. Perhaps a parallel would be the NSW seat of Bligh/Sydney which will in all likelihood never be recovered by the Libs.
What is illustrative is that if, IF (& YES its a big if) the Libs preferenced the Greens in Wills that could easily be the end for Labor in that seat.

It’s no secret that there is a view (within the coalition) that Labor should be put last on the HTV unless or regardless of an agreement on preferences.

Winediamond – with the seat of Wills, there would have to be a significant preference flow from the Libs to the Greens. As per the last election Labor was 44%, Greens 26% and Liberals 17%. Greens and Liberals don’t even make 50% together.

James
i did cover myself (if if if)!. You’re correct. However the numbers are more complex than appears.
In Wills only about 95000 actually voted formally id guess around 80+% – spectacular lack of engagement.
A lot of minor parties Khalil did get 13500 prefs +a swing of 3+%.

A margin of 15000 votes might appear impregnable But i’ll bet Pete doesn’t take much for granted.
What would it look like if even half the non voters turned up ?

How about an atypical Green candidate ?
Gee what might they look like !
Perhaps? Someone that might talk about improving the lives of the people they are supposed to serve, as opposed to “the greater cause(s)”!!!!.
Someone that doesn’t need to shower preach, & lecture, how they “are better, more pure,& just simply more perfect” than others–IE someone with some common humility !!!

in truth Pete Khalil knows there are plenty of potential game changers. That is perhaps Why he is one of Labor’s best performers. Actually i believe he is just a good man, & his personal vote is a lot more important than might appear.

To cause maximum mischief the Libs should preference against the sitting member – Labor 2 in Melbourne, Greens 2 in Wills, Cooper, Grayndler , Sydney. ALP and Greens resources would be tied down.

I wonder what Adam bandts personal vote is. Something tells me Labor is treating this similar to seat of Clark it will come back once the member retires. There is always talk of the greens winning this or that seat and they never do.

Because preferencing the ALP above the Greens in Melbourne would make such a huge difference…
The Greens’ resources wouldn’t be stretched, just Labor’s. The Greens already notionally held South Brisbane after the QLD LNP changed their preferencing strategy.

It is interesting to compare the Reps vote with the Senate vote in Melbourne. In 2019, the Senate % were Lib 22% (with the donkey vote at he tope of the ticket), ALP 30.9%, Greens 34%. That suggests :

1: Adam Bandt does have a significant personal vote
2: There is a potential upside to the Labor vote especially when they had a disendorsed candidate last time.

But with:
1.4% for AJP
1.2% for HEMP
and the Pirate Party outpolling PHON, there’s a fairly good chance most of the “other” voters voted for Bandt anyway.

Ryan Spencer
quite true but i was talking Wills

redistributed
Bandt is in no danger at least for sometime to come. What could affect him is things heating up with China/ Taiwan. That could be a wakeup call for many …..!

The Greens vote will likely increase at the next election given there’s a bucketload of small left-wing parties who would likely get the chop.

@Ryan,

Which left Micro Parties do you think will likely get chop due to the new requirements?

Australian Affordable Housing
Australian Democrats
Australian Progressives
Climate Emergency Action Alliance: Vote Planet
Federal ICAC Now*
Health Australia Party
ICAN
Informed Medical Options Party
Reason
Science
Secular Party
Socialist Alliance
Socialist Equality
Transport Matters
Victorian Socialists
VOTEFLUX
Western Australia Party

Pretty selfless of the Greens to vote against the bill despite the fact that they stand to benefit second most after the LNP. Obviously the anti-vax parties aren’t necessarily left-wing or even politically quantifiable, but there are some Greens-leaning voters who would lean to them.

That means the only left-leaning parties left are:
The Greens
Labor
Animal Justice
HEMP
Sustainable Australia
The New Liberals (TNL)

A number of these parties have already only just escaped deregistration and there’s very little chance that they’ll survive.

This party’s registration was approved just before the changes came into effect.
In other news, the Indigenous-Australia Party claims to have enough people to meet the new threshold, so we’ll see how that goes.

Thanks. I agree with the rest, however I thought Reason might survive. I thought they had a solid base in the Northern suburbs of Melbourne and Fiona Patten being relatively popular. Victorian Socialists might survive for some time but probably won’t be able sustain and will face deregistration because of the infighting within the Party.

More likely Reason will just remain as a state based party then.

On the Vote Flux website, you can join up for free and you are a member for life. It would be interesting to know how the AEC view “membership for life”. They show their member numbers with an ever upward trajectory.

@redistributed

My understanding was that the AEC can randomly sample the people a party claims are “members” and if they are uncontactable or say “wtf? who are they?” the party is at risk of being deregistered.

Clearly, Flux performs some additional scrutiny on the members they actually submit to the electoral commissions.

A minimum annual party membership fee should be a requirement of registration. It would make having a party where most of the members are not interested in running the party harder.