Richmond – Australia 2022

The Nat Party vote here (2PP) fell only 3.9%. Yes the first pref fell about 12% with about 80% of votes counted.
It is not a total disaster. PM Morrison suffered a 7% swing against him in his seat of Cook. (That is double the swing against PM Howard when he lost his job and his seat in Bennalong in 2007). Many other LNP sufferered way more than 4% swings in this election.
The main reason the Nat first preference vote fell 12 % was that the Liberal Dems ran for the first time and One Nation Party as well. These two (who did not run in 2019) got 8 and 4 % of the vote, which added together is 12% (ish).
I was at polling booths and many said ‘how do I vote liberal?’ – not realising there was a coalition!!! Many voted of Lib Dems thinking their vote was for the Liberals but probably went back to Nats in preferences.

The Green first pref was a big jump- almost 5%- they were leading on election night and every chance for winning the seat. If they only got 2000 more votes off the rusted on Labor voters (Labor minus 2000 and Greens plus 2000 first preference), then the seat will be a Green seat next time. The Greens have to hope that the Nat party vote stays strong and they finish in 2nd place and Labor in 3rd Place. If Nats finish third then they will preference Labor over Green and keep it a safe Labor seat.

Currently Justine Elliot looks like winning but with a first pref way below 30%. (more than 7 out of locals don’t want her to be our MP). It is the (or one of the) lowest winning MP first preference votes in the whole 151 seat parliament. Hardly an endorsing mandate. But a win is a win and she is to be congratulated. Again for the 7th time. I hope Labor do well in the next 3 years.

That’s fair enough Nathan. I made my last comment when Greens were on 31% of primary votes and the nationals were threatening to dip into the teens. Greens have since fallen back massively in the count, presumably after postals and other conservative-heavy votes came in.

I’d be interested to see how the 3CP vote shapes up. I suspect JE holds comfortably and it won’t turn out to be anything like Macnamara or Brisbane, but we’ll see how close it gets after the Independent preferences are distributed.

Interesting to note that at this stage of the Senate count, the Coaltion are tracking 8% higher in the senate vote than the Nats Reps vote in Richmond.

Yep, and as a Queenslander I can’t even begin to wrap my head around that. Do Southerners *really* think there’s any difference between the two? Is it just anti-vax voters doing this? Worth investigating imo

The 2PP gap has narrowed again – only slightly. Now the swing is 3.4% against the Nationals in this seat. This is less than the national average. (in fact every mainland state swing against the LNP was over 4% so to say this National Party candidate underperformed has little basis )

The real gap between Green and Labor first preference vote is less than 3500 votes (so if Greens get 1750 more votes directly off Labor in the 2025 election then it is a Greens seat almost guaranteed. The only condition is that the National Party vote holds and they are in the top two and Labor slips into third.

So either Nationals get 7200 votes directly off Labor/Greens and they win the seat next time
OR
The Greens get 1750 votes off Labor and they win the seat.

I think that is more likely.

the reason the Coalition vote might be in the Senate could come down to:
Kimberly Hone being a far-right nutter who is anti-SSM to say the least or;
Lib Dems being able to keep their name meaning Liberal voters might have voted for them

It is possible that this seat will fall to Greens once Justine Elliot retires. Labor could loose her personal vote in both direction to Nats and Greens. Labor could then fall to third place and the Greens could be elected.

Fascinating to look at a booth by booth swing map for this seat in the 2022 election. Particularly interesting is that Labor went backwards on 2PP in several of the small, inland towns with very high Green votes.

this is definte green target its possible this will fall at 2025 election if it doesnt 2028 ia the year for the greens regardless of if the sitting member retires

@ben I think you’re right, but I’d be curious to know if the Thorpe saga has made an impact on the Greens brand and credibility in a region like this.

Perhaps it will have all subsided by 2025. I still think it will be a criticism trotted out by the two majors to insinuate Greens’ “instability”. But agreed, I’d probably put Richmond under the direction of the Chandler-Mathers team, who ran a fairly disciplined campaign last year. Or if the Chandler-Mathers team wanted to focus their resources on a re-election campaign in the city, they should establish a dedicated Northern Rivers campaign team. This team can focus on Richmond primarily, while growing their Page, McPherson and Moncrieff efforts.

@seq though a shift to the greens in higher primary could temporarily send it back to the coalition as labor preferences dont flow as strongly to greens as greens do to labor

You don’t know if that’s true at a federal level where preferencing is compulsory.

I’m suggesting only a minor boundary change here for the redistribution to retract to the Richmond river on the southern end and renamed to Wollumbin as the nameke now lies mostly in the division of page. On another note I’m surprised the coalition doesn’t run 2 candidates here as a liberal may fair better in the 2pp given the urbanizing nature of the divion and the fact the nats keep going backwards and will probably never regain this seat

Hmm… I am not entirely convinced that the 2016 redistribution was a particularly good one in Richmond (based on community of interests). Instead of half of Ballina LGA, I would have preferred half of Lismore LGA (which was used in 2010 and 2013) but I won’t be commenting extensively on this for I live nowhere near this place.

It contained parts of ballina and lismore and they chose to return all lismore to page in exchange for more of ballina

The Greens have already preselected their 2025 candidate. It’s Mandy Nolan again. I don’t think there’s ever been a Greens preselection this early. It shows that their next lower house target is here, not somewhere in inner Melbourne and certainly not Sydney/Grayndler. The Greens are quite aggressive with their hot-button housing and rental campaign. Also, QLD Greens are partnering with local Greens to target Tweed Heads (strong Nationals area).

The next Labor candidate after Justine Elliot won’t be so lucky. The best possibility is for Labor to preselect her husband. I doubt the Nationals would ever recommend preferences to the Greens like the Libs have done elsewhere. That could be Labor’s blessing.

Richmond is over-quota but not as over-quota as its only neighbour – Page. I can see one or both of these areas getting chopped out: the sparsley populated west (small but very Green-friendly booths); South/West Ballina (not Green-friendly).

If Page absorbs both areas (in the current Richmond) as well as loses its inland western parts to New England, Labor will become competitive again like they were from 2007 to 2013.

And why it was called Richmond in 2009 stuns me as neither the Richmond tableland or river was in the division at that time

@ votante I think Richmond will only under a minor change all I’m suggesting is to the river as the border on the southern end. In my suggestion page will lose kyogle to new england but il still say nat retain. Agreed on the greens angle thpugh I agree it will only be a matter of time before they take over the 2pp vote. That however could be an opportunity for the libs as they will get more labor votes then they would greens. Nats are finished here libs need to run a 2nd candidate to try and get it back as they will fare better in the 2pp v greens then they would labor

Richmond won’t be renamed, because that name was used for one of the original electorates at federation. Kooyong hasn’t been in the Division of Kooyong for a long time now, but that hasn’t caused the AEC to rename it, as it was an federation electorate name. It’s a pity, because Wollumbin is a much better name, as it’s more historic to the area than the name of some English aristocrat who never visited Australia, and can’t be confused for an interstate location the way Richmond can.

Actually Wilson they might if the name is supported enough. Especially since names that no longer have relevance. they don’t always keep federation names. Corangamite was up for a name change. But was not done due to reasons.

There’s also the fact it shares a name with a victorian district in the Vic parliament

Richmond is one of the original federation electorates. Electorates were geographically larger in 1901 and I’m guessing it encompassed the Richmond Valley/River back then. Earle Page was from Grafton and a new electorate south of Richmond was named after him. Richmond shrunk geographically over time as more divisions were added. True that there are Richmonds (town/suburb) everywhere in Australia.

@Potatqes. Ironically, the Nats are most popular in the Tweed where it’s more dense and urban. The Nats had a shocking result in Richmond in 2022. I also think the Libs could do better in the longer-term but the Nats won’t take it so kindly if the Libs run. I am baffled at how some regional electorates like Farrer and Bega (state level) have Liberals running and not Nationals, whilst more urban electorates like Tweed and Monaro (state level) are the opposite.

Votante, for Farrer it was held by the Nationals previously with former Howard government minister and Deputy PM Tim Fischer being its most notable member.

I read somewhere that current MP Sussan Ley is somewhat like former member for Murray Sharman Stone, being a relatively unknown figure who narrowly defeated an unpopular National Party candidate in an open seat intraparty contest.

@votante well wouldn’t they rather libs then labor or greens

Because there is a sitting member in farrer atm. The coalition agreement states they won’t contest unless it’s vacant. Like in nicholls. They should run here and huter

@Marko, it looks like in some of the high Greens-voting booths, both Labor and the Nationals’ first preference vote collapsed, but Labor’s just collapsed by more, and Labor couldn’t recover as much of that through preferences as the Nationals could – the Greens picked up a little bit to hand back in preferences to Labor, but not a lot. This differed to most of the other booths in the electorate, where Labor’s vote didn’t fall by nearly as much.

As @Potatqes has said, I think the Liberals would be better off contesting this seat rather than the Nationals given the Nats have been going backwards here for some time. As has been mentioned, the Coalition Senate ticket outpolled their House vote in Richmond by nearly 9 percentage points, which could more or less be explained by confused Coalition/Liberal voters voting for the Lib Dems in the House (7.7%) instead of the Nats.

Generally, the Greens did really well at the last election to break through in Ballina, one of their weakest spots, getting 9-10% swings in the big Ballina booths. It’s really the Tweed that remains the weak spot, so as @Votante has alluded to, it makes sense for the Greens to target this area strongly.

I actually dont think it is the Urbanisation of the seat that has given this seat a leftwing (ALP/Green) lean over the coalition rather it is the growth of alternative lifestyle communities in Byron Shire that swamp the bellwether/marginal nature of the rest of the electorate. I said in the Tweed thread that i dont believe the Libs can do any better than the Nats currently do in that area I feel the rest of the electorate can swing back to the Nats in a good year when Justine Elliot retires i believe it is her personal vote which holding up for Labor in the urbanized part of Tweed Shire. For the Greens to win they would need the Nats to do well and ensure that Labor is pushed to third place this could happen when Justine retires and her personal vote goes in both directions

See link below

https://www.tallyroom.com.au/archive/nsw2023/tweed2023/comment-page-1#comment-773419

I agree that the booming Green vote and a lesser extent, Labor vote, is due to the growth of alternative lifestyle communities. On top of that, there are sea/tree changers and the decline of agriculture and resources, compared to tourism, hospitality and the health and aged care sectors. Tweed Heads is amongst the top ten largest urban centres in NSW.

I wonder who decides where Nationals can and can’t run. If they’re in Richmond, then why not in Gilmore (or Kiama or South Coast)? I’m not implying that the Liberals can win Richmond or do better but I do see it as a better fit given the demographics, similar to how Liberals run in coastal electorates south of Wollongong.

Justine Elliot won by surprise in 2004 defeating a sitting member, despite a nationwide swing away from Labor. It was partly helped by a swing in the Greens vote. Back then, a double-digit Greens vote was almost unheard of. Since then, she’s maintained a personal vote. Labor in Richmond is in the same predicament as in Sydney or Grayndler – once their popular local MPs go, the new Labor candidate will have an uphill battle.

@Votante good question. Where I grew up (near Port Macquarie on the Mid North Coast, which has always been a stronghold for the Coalition) the Nationals run. The Mid North Coast has two cities with over 50,000 people: Coffs Harbour (>70,000) and Port Macquarie (>50,000), both relatively middle-class conservative coastal regional cities in the seat of Cowper. Yet the Nationals, not the Liberals, hold the federal seat of Cowper, same goes for the state seat of Coffs Harbour. The state seat of Port Macquarie is held by the Liberals because the local member (Leslie Williams) defected from the Nationals to the Liberals over a koala policy that saw John Barilaro threaten to move to the crossbench (which never happened). The Liberals and the Nationals endorsed candidates in 2023 (the Nationals endorsed local mayor Peta Pinson) and the Liberals won the seat. Both parties made the TPP contest at the state election, however, but because three-cornered contests are rare in NSW I doubt they’ll do that again (in both Port Macquarie and Wagga Wagga). Speaking of Wagga Wagga, that used to be a Liberal seat based mostly around Wagga Wagga (which has over 60,000 people), but at a by-election independent Joe McGirr won it several years ago and voters have stuck with him ever since. The Nationals made the TPP contest in Wagga Wagga and finished ahead of the Liberals in 2023, in fact Labor finished ahead of the Liberals. So it really isn’t just a population thing, but also an area thing. My assumption is that at the 2027 state election, the Coalition will only endorse one candidate for each seat; therefore the Liberals will run in Port Macquarie and the Nationals will probably run in Wagga Wagga.

Agriculture is still big in country NSW so coastal regional cities are where Liberals would most likely run outside Sydney. They always run in the Sydney Basin (i.e the Blue Mountains, the Central Coast, the Hunter and the Illawarra, as well obviously Greater Sydney). They also run in seats on the South Coast (federally that would be Eden-Monaro and Gilmore and on the state level that would be Bega, Kiama and South Coast).

In NSW the Liberals run in a couple of seats outside the Sydney Basin and the South Coast. At the 2022 federal election they also ran in Farrer and Hume. At the 2023 state election they also ran in Albury, Goulburn, Port Macquarie and Wagga Wagga.

In Victoria it seems that the Liberals run in any coastal seat (federal and state) west of the federal seat of Gippsland or the state seats of East Gippsland and South Gippsland (the Gippsland Region is a very Nationals-voting region and the most conservative part of Victoria). Obviously this covers Melbourne and Geelong, but also several other areas. At the 2022 federal election, they ran in a few Victorian seats outside Melbourne, Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo: Indi, La Trobe, Monash and Wannon. Indi is the only non-coastal seat among the seats I just mentioned. At the 2022 state election they also ran in several other seats outside Melbourne, Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo; in fact in most seats. However in Victoria three-cornered-contests are common in several seats so the Nationals do run in some of them.

@nther portal
in the case of wagga wagga its becuase of that Darryl McQuire thing
and in NSW there is only OPV at a state level so they dont want to split the vote and possibly help labor win the seat so they have designated seats. Port Macqaurie is diffferent becuse it was a Nationals “designated” seat so they were allowed to run against the member due to them being incumbents even if the candidate wasnt theirs

@potatqes true but I think at the next state election Port Macquarie will become a Liberal-designated seat because they won the seat and Wagga Wagga will be a Nationals-designated seat because the Nationals finished higher than the Liberals in Wagga Wagga. However, it is worth noting that Daryl McGuire resigned before the 2019 state election and at the 2019 state election only the Nationals ran (probably because the Liberals had such a poor performance at the 2018 by-election).

Elliott only won Richmond in 2004 against Larry Anthony by a handful of votes due to the “Liberals 4 Forests” preference scam.

The Nationals crashed in 2022 in Richmond. There were PV swings of over 20% in some places. The candidate must’ve been a detested or controversial one to cop a huge swing. It may be partly because of LDP getting votes from those who intended to vote for Liberals/Coalition as @Greens Political Party Supporter mentioned.

I see the Coalition having a real chance if Elliot retires & there’s a strong candidate. The vote for parties like LDP, UAP, ONP and IMOP will probably wane in 2025 and this’ll give them an opening. The Coalition can score a better 2PP here than in Grayndler/Sydney, but I doubt they’ll win in either one of them. The Greens can’t win this unless they beat Labor on the 3CP count, like in Griffith in 2022.

@Nether Portal, I agree that agriculture still is big in Richmond but certainly not as big as in the inland electorates e.g. New England, Farrer, Riverina. In Richmond, there’s growth in niche types of primary industries e.g. aquaculture, organic farming, beekeeping, and there’s growth in agritourism and farmstays. They’re not super emissions-intensive and land-intensive. Those running them probably have less affinity to the Nationals (who traditionally represented the grazing and animal husbandry industries).

@Votante, I’m not sure Justine Elliot’s personal vote is as strong as you suggest. I’m not a local though so my thoughts could be way off the mark.

I would justify this by saying Elliot’s primary vote has been in a steady decline from it’s 44% peak in 2007 for a number of elections now, similar to other Labor MPs like Michael Danby and Terri Butler.

This differs from the other Labor MPs you mentioned like Anthony Albanese and Tanya Plibersek who have both managed to maintain their primary vote at around 50%+, despite both also facing spirited challenges from the Greens. If MPs are quite popular in their community and have a strong personal vote, then I would expect we would not see such constant leakage from Labor to the Greens over successive elections. This metric would suggest that Albanese and Plibersek have a very high level of popularity in their communities and have a strong personal brand for typically Greens voters, but in Elliot’s case, I don’t think this phenomenon is at the same level.

Also, @Ben Raue made a post about differences in the House and Senate vote in electorates in June 2022. If an MP is quite popular in the electorate, then often it seems their party’s House vote significantly outperforms their electorate’s concurrent Senate vote. For Albanese and Plibersek, their House vote outperforms their electorate’s Labor Senate vote by 10-12% and the Green vote is about 5% worse in the House than the Senate (perhaps indicating a significant personal vote from likely Greens voters), whereas in Richmond, Elliot’s House vote outperforms Richmond’s Labor Senate vote only by around 3.5%, and the Greens Senate vote trails their House vote, so there doesn’t appear to be a large number of Greens voters who specifically vote for Justine Elliot’s brand of Labor like there are in Grayndler and Sydney which has held a Greens surge at bay.

All of this is to say, I don’t think I’d put Richmond in the same category as Grayndler and Sydney for the Greens to win it or for Labor to lose it. That’s not to say that Justine Elliot isn’t popular in the community, but perhaps not to the extent of Albanese and Plibersek, which may make it quite a bit easier for the Greens to win here than those other electorates.

@votante as I previously stated in other posts the liberals should be running a candidate here also. The nats have continuously lost ground and I think have no chance of taking it. They are too conservative for this urbanisisng area and if the coalition ran 2 candidates they would have a better chance. That would open up a four way contest as they greens continue to strip labor votes here it won’t be long before it’s nat v green like in ballina. Especially once Elliot retires
@gpps it will be interesting to see how well the greens do I Grayndler- and Sydney once Albo and plibersek retire as they both will have been in for almost 30 years come the next election

@ John
See my comments above i dont feel it is the urbanisation of the seat which is the issue rather the growth of alternative lifestyle communities in Byron Shire. The Nats still win booths in Tweed Heads which is increasing part of the SEQ megalopolis similar to how Queenbeyan is part of metro Canberra but the Nats can sometimes do well at a state level and win booths there. Basically, it is the swapping effect of Byron Shire on the seat as a whole. I doubt the Libs will do any better in Byron Shire than the Nats currently do and as the Nats hold the state seat of Tweed there unable to give up so eaissly.

* so easily

@nimalan thats why they can both run candidates. the libs would undoubtedly draw more of the centre vote from people not wanting to vote green or labor but arent as conservative as the nats. and there votes usually come back to each other and given that the seat has been labor held for nearly 20 years it couldnt hurt could it? the same as in ballina whats the harm in the libs trying given the nats have not been able to recapture the seat

The Nationals candidate in 2022 was a big time Pentecostal who must have gone down like a lead balloon. Paradoxically the big swings to Labor were in Tweed Heads and Ballina whilst Byron Shire had small swings to Labor or actually swung to the Nats. It is time for the Libs to step back in and give it a crack. The seat is now seriously urban and will only get more so.

The result in 2022 was similar to the result in 2007 so 2025 could be there chance if the swing is on. Based on the results I think there’s only about 2 more elections max before it becomes a Greens v coalition battle. Even though it may be considered a nationals seats I’m sure the nats would rather a liberal member instead of a labor or greens

Tweed (the state seat) remains National because of Geoff Provest, who I guess is a popular local member. Tweed itself could be within Labor’s reach, but not the Green’s, when he retires and there’s momentum behind the statewide Labor party. The Greens got a 12% primary in 2023. The seat has rapidly urbanised since 2007 when Provest won it off Labor.

The northern voters around the Tweed are more conservative than Byron voters as they are significantly older and not really the greenie, hipster, alternative lifestyle-type.

OPV at the state level is a real problem with the Libs and Nats running against each other in Tweed. The margin is really too close for Labor not to come through the middle. The other question is – do the Libs have any infrastructure – branches, members in that part of the world?

I’m not suggesting they run against each other in fact that would violate the gentlemen’s agreement they have but I’m suggesting the libs run federally as well as the nats and the libs run instead of the nats in ballina

@ John, Do you really think the Libs (even Small l Liberal) will appeal more to the hippies and alternative lifestyle communities in Byron Shire. The rest of the electorate (Tweed Shire/Ballina Shire) is not an issue both Nats/Libs can do well in a good year but in Byron Shire even the weakest booth, Bangalow still records a 68% TPP against the Coaltion. That is rock solid territory and i dont even think a teal will make a dent. As Australia’s population grows there will be more alternative lifestyle people who will move to such areas as one day Byron shire could even record a 2PP of 80% against the Coalition

@niamlan couldn’t hurt the nats aren’t obviously making any ground are rhey

@ John
IMHO in a good year and if it is an open seat then the Nats can do well in the rest of the seat (Tweed/Ballina Shire) but i dont think even if Malcom Turnbull ran as the Liberal candidate it would make an Iota of difference in Byron Shire. It is very much on the political fringe and elections are not won in the political fringe, these voters are simply not a good representation of mainstream middle Australia while Tweed Shire and Ballina Shire are. If there was a Teal who ran in the Federal electorate of Melbourne or the Liberals were more moderate then the Libs/Teal can do well in Docklands, East Melbourne but it would not make any impact in Fitzroy. Many of these voters are often still anti-capitalist etc. Another good illustration would be at the Victorian state election where there was Teals in Cauflield/Hawthorn, the teal had much less impact in Caulfield because solid left-voters were less enthusiastic about a centrist option than soft left voters. The Teal/Blue Green voters are up for grabs which is why seats like Brisbane maybe won some day again by the Libs. For the Coalition to win Richmond they would need a thumping result in Tweed/Ballina shire to outweigh the sold left lean of Byron Shire.

what if aadam bandt and albo got done for kidnapping during the election campaign? would the libs win then?

@ John
I did mean to be disrespectful to the Nats/Libs so please dont take it the wrong way. I specifically clearly mentioned the Coalition can do well in Tweed Shire/Ballina Shire and i never said the electorate of Richmond or state seat of Ballina was not winnable at all for the Coalition i said Byron Shire is not winnable. However, i will answer your hypothetical if Bandt and Albo got done for any crime i reckon the Coalition would win Richmond but not Byron Shire i think either Animal Justice or Legalise Cannabis would make the 2CP and win all booths in Byron Shire in a thumping result but will not appeal in Ballina or Tweed Shire. In the Federal electorate of Melbourne i think the Victorian Socialists would win such a case but libs would win the East Melbourne, Docklands, Burnley, Cremorne booths in a thumping result

* did not mean

In 2022, the Nationals candidate got 23.35% of the vote in Richmond, in the Senate – the LNP won 31.4%. Now the Lib Dems did get 7.7% in the reps. In 2019, the result was similar – the Senate vote was higher than the Reps vote. It would seem that there are a substantial number of voters who don’t vote Nat but would vote for the Libs if the option was offered.

John- the Nats and Libs do run against each other in open seats especially in Southern NSW – unless there is an agreement not to.