Albert Park – Victoria 2022

Fishermans Bend is due to have a social housing put in with rest being turned into high rises, this should benefit the ALP here & help the Greens here as well.

With the federal results, I think we will see the greens do really good here.

It’s interesting that the Greens have seemed to underperform in Albert Park compared to Macnamara; especially since Prahran is right next door.

Martin Foley being a high profile incumbent has probably aided Labor in Albert Park. Being promoted to Health Minister during the pandemic has really elevated his profile since the last election too, but it will be interesting to see whether that’s a net positive or negative for him.

In any case, huge Greens swings across these suburbs in Macnamara only 6 months prior to the state election should give the Greens some momentum going into this campaign. If they can achieve similar swings and get the Greens’ primary back into at least the low to mid 20s, they should set themselves up well to make it a more marginal contest in 2026 as part of a two-election strategy.

The Greens performed abysmally at the last state election. If their support rebounds to the same level as at the last federal election, that’ll amount to a huge swing in many seats including this one.

Every question time, most opposition questions are directed to Foley, and they’re always about someone who called for an ambulance or presented at an emergency ward but had to wait an unacceptable length of time.

His answer is always the same. He begins with the same emotionless prelude, and he speaks seemingly as slowly as he can, sometimes even stuttering despite how many times he’s repeated it: “I thank the honourable member for his question, and while I am not briefed on the particular set of circumstances put forward by the honourable member, I am happy to follow up if the honourable member provides them to me. But what I can say is our health system has faced a one in one hundred year pandemic…”

Every question. Every question time.

He seems like he just doesn’t care. I’m not saying he doesn’t, but if he does, he really doesn’t show it.

Martin Foley is retiring. Labor could very well lose this seat as well.

They won’t lose this seat to the Libs, maybe to the Greens but Labor would be favoured to retain. Maybe in 2010 or 2014 the Libs would’ve gained if Foley was retiring then. Certainly not now though. This is an area that’s probably the most hostile to the direction of the state Libs in the entire state.

Yeah I meant to the greens. It still takes away from Labor either way.

The Greens vote should improve here

I don’t think there’s any chance the Greens could win this time because the swing required is just way too big.

Labor’s primary vote in 2018 was 43% and the Greens only 16%. Labor really need to collapse to closer to 30% for the Greens to win and I think that’s just a bit too much of an ask.

I do agree though that the Greens will improve dramatically. I think Labor’s vote will fall back to the mid-30s, the Liberals will probably hover around 30%, and the Greens could very possibly get a dramatic swing into the mid-20s, but that would still be a comfortable Labor win.

Greens will probably put more resources into Richmond and Northcote, and holding Prahran (where they will no doubt improve their vote but the very real possibility of it becoming a Greens v Labor 2CP will make it tougher to hold).

@Trent Agreed the margin is too much for the Greens to overcome. They will improve here in this election though and will looking to make up as much ground as possible to target it in 2026.

Upper house MP Nina Taylor from the Southern Metro Region will move into this seat according to The Age.
Greens did abysmally in 2018 but performed quite well on these boundaries on a federal level in Macnamara in May. I know federal results don’t translate well into state results but Greens should have a decent lift in their vote this time around.
This also used to be a marginal contest with the Libs pre-2018, wonder if they’ll improve notably this time?

Interesting! I literally just checked the letterbox an hour ago and had a pamphlet for Nina Taylor (a “local update” newsletter as the Southern Metro MP).

I wonder if that was timed to raise her profile in the area before moving into the lower house seat.

My prediction for Albert Park is:
– Greens will improve quite a lot, enough to put them in a better position for 2026 but not enough to be competitive this time;
– Liberal vote may remain pretty static. It may improve a little bit, but it plummeted in May (worse than 2018 state results) and in the long term this area is moving away from the Liberal Party, or more accurately, the Liberal Party are moving away from even trying to appeal to this region/demographic

I think the 2PP will remain around 60-40, but Labor’s primary vote will go back into the 30s and the Greens will go back into the 20s, there could be a good 8% transfer between Labor-Greens (eg. Labor go from 43 to 35, Greens go from 16 to 24).

I project Labor would win this seat but there is a large chance that it would be Labor-Green TPP since
– The Liberal vote improvement in the area that happened in the past decades has now seems to be gradually reversed since apartments are propping up by young professionals and Labor/Green improvement on white-collar educated votes recently indicated from the federal results
– Small Liberals/Moderates seem to disapprove of Matthew Guy in a similar way to Scott Morrison/Peter Dutton. I think Guy already had a controversial reputation for many years from approving too many high rises in the CBD without scrutiny, the Ventor Scandal, and the dining with Mafias. These already makes the Guy unpopular.
– That is not further helped by Vic Libs populist hardline language against Andrews with literal opposition to any covid mandates. While it may have worked to some extent in the Labor heartlands that are affected by lockdowns more and with high vaccine hesitancy, this in reverse also made moderate Liberal voters view that Vic Libs is aligning themselves with the fringes especially when Vic Libs supported the anti-covid mandate rallies last November. I have pointed out in the past thread that the November rallies might have somewhat might have been one of the key factors why the Eastern Suburbs turned away the Libs in the last federal election and vice versa in the North and West.
– Then Vic Libs admitted they might not put so many campaign resources in their heartland for November’s election campaign

Nina Taylor has confirmed she is the candidate for Albert Park at the election. Labor retain, but Greens will make inroads as they had a shocker at the last election. Liberal vote stagnant.

If left-wing Liberals disapprove of Matthew Guy that would be quite funny because the conservative ones don’t like him either.

@Entrepreneur Matthew Guy returned to power with the support of the hard right faction like Tim Smith so it’s fair to say he has more support from the conservatives than the moderates where the previous leader Michael O Brien is aligned.

There’s no such thing as a “left-wing Liberal” in Australia. There are moderate, centre-right Liberals to counter the hard-right conservative faction, but none are remotely “left-wing”.

Malcolm Turnbull is a perfect example. There was absolutely nothing even remotely left-wing about his economics or ideology. He was simply intelligent enough to recognise that it’s the 21st century, not the dark ages, and that our social policies should reflect the world we live in, rather than the world the ACL want us to live in.

Still no Greens candidate here and we’re less than 50 days before early voting starts. I think this’ll quite easily be a Labor retain but could get quite interesting in future elections – any reason why Greens seem to be awfully slow with many of their preselections?

Kim Samiotis announced as Greens candidate. Previously ran for Isaacs.

The Labor candidate has a decent profile already as a Southern Metro MP, I receive mail from her all the time, so I don’t think of all Labor’s incumbency advantage will go with Foley. She has some incumbency advantage still.

The Liberal candidate is a total newcomer (but female and appears relatively progressive for the Libs – upcycles clothes, has a community veggie garden and is involved in the arts) but their 2018 candidate was a well known and highly visible local councillor and he failed miserably so I don’t see her improving.

I think Labor will hold easily with a reduced primary vote but little change to the 2PP. I don’t think the Greens will come close to matching the May federal results here (whereas in Prahran I think they will) but they will definitely improve on 2018.

My prediction:
– Labor mid-30s
– Liberal high-20s
– Greens low-20s
– Independent ~10%
– Others <5%

2PP around 62-38.

Predicting Labor holds Albert Park.

Forget the fact that the Greens almost won Macnamara federally. Macnamara has the St Kilda East, St Kilda West and Elwood triangle. At the state level, these three suburbs are in three different electorates.

I’d argue they’re even split across 4 electorates – Albert Park, Prahran, Caulfield and Brighton. The Elwood part of Brighton looks very odd in that electorate too. If those suburbs were all in one electorate Greens would do very well.

Thoughts on how the independent will go here? Haven’t heard much about it since it was announced.

Votante and Ham, I agree.

While the Greens did increase their vote all over Macnamara this time, it’s still by far the most heavily concentrated in St Kilda, St Kilda East, Balaclava & Elwood.

Even St Kilda itself is split between Albert Park & Prahran, then you have St Kilda East split between Prahran & Caulfield, Balaclava entirely in Caulfield and Elwood entirely in Brighton.

In Caulfield, Brighton and Albert Park, the Greens vote is much lower across the rest of those seats outside the St Kilda area, which in all 3 really only makes up a pretty small corner of each; whereas like you say, Macnamara includes all of those 4 suburbs which make up roughly a third of the seat.

Prahran is the only one of those state seats where the Greens are just as strong across the rest of it too.

But if a new seat entirely based on the former City of St Kilda existed – St Kilda, St Kilda West, St Kilda East, Balaclava and Elwood – I think it’d definitely be a safe Greens seat (and a GRN v ALP one at that).

@Trent there’s a reason why Labor was opposed to the original proposed changes in the federal and state redistributions to put the entirety of Prahran and St Kilda in one seat.

Antony Green makes a great point about the Greens’ chances here on his ABC election guide, in classifying the seat still as “Very Safe Labor”.

The overlapping federal numbers that are buoying the Greens’ chances would actually have dropped the Liberals into third place, and still easily elected Labor on Greens preferences.

If the Greens have any chance at making the 2CP here, it is actually far more likely that they will leapfrog the Liberals rather than Labor, which means unless the Liberals decide to run a “Put Labor last” campaign and actually preference the Greens ahead of them, Labor should still win in any scenario.

Antony Green has calculated the overlapping Macnamara results, have a look at them and how they compare to 2018:

PARTY – /

LABOR – 43% / 33%
GREENS – 16% / 32%
LIBERAL – 31% / 26%

So no matter which way you look at it, based on 2018’s results the Greens are only 15% behind the Liberals but 27% behind Labor which makes it far more likely that they overtake the Liberals; and to reinforce that, in the more recent federal results that’s exactly what happened.

What I predict here, with the added dynamic of an independent, is something more along the lines of:

Labor – Around 32-35%
Greens – 25-30%
Liberal – 25-30%
Independent – 5-10%

I think the Greens & Liberals will have a VERY close race for 2nd place, possibly decided by the preferences of the independent, Reason & Animal Justice (Reason + AJP will favour Greens, Independent who knows).

So it could equally be an ALP v LIB or ALP v GRN contest, and unless the Liberals preference the Greens over Labor, either way will be a comfortable Labor win.

Sorry typo above in second paragraph, should be:

The overlapping federal numbers that are buoying the Greens’ chances would actually have dropped the Liberals into third place, and still easily elected Labor on LIBERAL preferences.

Ugh!! I wish I could edit comments. Also for some reason missing the headings I put above those results, I think because I put < characters around them.

Meant to be:

PARTY – [2018] / [AG's overlapping federal calculation]

Part 3 of analysis, in which I did a heap of manual look-a-like audience clustering using 2021 Census data across the Victorian State Divisions. I looked at the Greens best new prospects.

This division came up as the most frequently aligned with the currently held divisions by the Greens on many metrics. Its demographic changes between the 2016 and 2021 Census also makes this division much stronger than it was previously on metrics that bode well for the Greens -ie. high proportion of people between 20 – 34 and low proportion of people between 0 – 14. One factor that I think might have hindered Greens performance here in 2018 is political literacy – since this is such a young division, I think a lot of first-time voters might have taken to heart the misleading notion that voting for X is a vote for X. A line that is usually pulled out to demoralise Greens supporters and soften their votes. It sometimes takes a few elections for constituents to realise that this notion is unfounded and/or that they might actually have the numbers to get ahead of this if they collectively commit to their Greens vote. I also think the Greens surprising results in Queensland will have Greens supporters in Victoria quite emboldened and eager.

Unsurprisingly, the next two divisions that also appeared alongside the other Greens prospect seats in various demographics were the divisions that appeared in a Greens 2CP count last election: Richmond and Northcote, both had very high levels of atheism, education, individual income and finally, people in the 20 – 35 bracket.

One final random outside prospect is Hawthorn which I expect to be a close 4CP contest given the independent in the mix.

As for Albert Park, I think Trent’s expected first-preference spread is fairly spot on.

The Liberals launched their campaign in Port Melbourne while i dont think this electorate is in play at all for the Libs it maybe a sign they dont want to abandon the affluent like Sky News and Tim Smith suggests.

My opinion is that this seat is being considerably underrated for the prospects of a Greens pickup – I expect their vote to shoot up considerably, and for the Liberal vote to decline, based on their underperformance in 2018 and patterns seen in similar seats over the last few years (the most obvious of which are the federal election’s numbers). On 3CP I think they are more likely than not to end up in 2nd place. Then with the preference decision taken by the Liberals a split in Liberal preferences of about 65-35 Liberal preferences can be expected (I also expect minor parties to have a very favourable split for the Greens against Labor).

Labor either needs to rely on the Liberals remaining ahead of Greens on 3CP or they will likely need to have a primary of at least 35% (closer to 40 to be safer) to not be beaten in the 2CP. The former is dicey thanks to the general attrition of Liberals and rise of Greens in seats like these, and the latter is made more difficult by Foley’s retirement.

Agree with @Adda. Underperformance in 2018, a promising federal result, a retiring incumbent, and Liberal preferences – the Greens have good chances here.

Weighing in I think whilst the Greens are swinging hard here, off the back of the federal Macnamara, it won’t be enough. The primary results from the fed have the (south) St Kilda direction with 30-40% but the majority vote from (north west+central) Port and Albert Park between a lacklusture 13-27%. Based off 3PP the possibility of a win needs that magic minimum 27% primary votes securing 2nd place with pref from third place. Luckily enough that can be LIB this time. Considering the delayed campaign start to Kim Samiotis (GRN) compared to pseudo-incumbent Nina Taylor (LAB), who has 6x the social media presence, I’d have a guess the state ground campaign is sub-par to improve from the fed results. So all comes down to if the smaller electorate with less total voters is beneficial enough to claim it outright.

Or is there an absolute groundswell campaign a foot that just can’t be seen from a far?

Greens need a massively swing to win here, I think it might be slightly out of reach this election. Likely Labor retain.

I think Albert Park will fizzle out and be a standard ALP v LIB race, easy ALP win (higher 2PP but lower primary vote than 2018).

It’s not Labor the Greens need to catch here, it’s the Liberals.

If the Greens pass the Libs, they should win off Lib preferences because the ALP primary will very likely be under 40% (maybe closer to 35%).

But the Greens are starting 15% behind the Liberals.

The Greens will get a pretty good swing, but a lot will be at Labor’s expense.

The Liberals will go backwards again, but copped a -10% swing last time, so this time will be much less.

There’s also an IND running, they will probably eat into some of the Greens vote in the north of the seat (South Melbourne) where she is based, and where the Greens vote is much “softer” than it is in St Kilda.

But even if the Greens catch the Libs on the primary vote, the IND’s preferences will probably keep the Lib in front on in the 3CP.

So my guess is, Greens get a good swing, but the Liberal vote doesn’t collapse enough to drop them to third. ALP vs LIB race, to the tune of 65-35.

It’s tossup territory on whether they can bridge the gap this election. But based on the last few years of elections (2020 QLD, 2022 Fed chiefly) these kinds of places have seen a concentration of the Greens vote in young, inner city areas even if the statewide numbers were neutral or even dropped. There has also been a corresponding drop in the Liberal vote in those same seats. So I am fully expecting the same trend.

I also think a lot of left-wing voters who would normally be in the Greens column gave their vote to Labor in 2018 out of general approval of their performance. That’s further supported by the federal numbers here having the Greens in second place. With a more bruising term this time around for the government, along with the retirement of the incumbent, I expect the votes this time to look a lot more like the federal results than 2018.

Will it be enough? Maybe not. But I think the 2018 gap between the Liberals and Greens is deceptive.

@ Trent, in terms of the independent are you referring to Georgie Drawbridge? i actually did not focus on this seat. I dont know much about her but looking at a website she seems to be a “quasi teal”. Do you how strongly she is campaigning

Yep Georgie Drawbridge. She’s apparently a “well known” local from the South Melbourne Market and had a bit of media attention when she announced she was running, but that has completely fizzled out since the focus has been on the Greens gaining this seat.

I haven’t been up around the South Melbourne, Albert Park or Port Melbourne area since the campaign started so I couldn’t tell you how visible her campaign is up there, but there’s no sign of her whatsoever in St Kilda. That said, surprisingly the Greens’ Albert Park candidate has been pretty invisible in St Kilda too, whereas Sam Hibbins stuff is everywhere.

My observation is that west of St Kilda Road is mostly just Labor material and everyone else invisible; east of St Kilda Road is all Greens material and everyone else is invisible.

My prediction with Georgie Drawbridge’s vote will come from the following:
– Disaffected Lib voters who don’t want to vote ALP/GRN (preference will prob go back to LIB)
– People who swung LIB to ALP in 2018 and now don’t like either
– Possibly some people who swung LIB to GRN in May in the absence of other non-major options

All 3 will be concentrated in the north of the seat, and will probably only top out at about 8-10%, maybe even less, especially since the seat has really become seen as a Greens v Labor contest (which I don’t think it will be).

Thanks Trent, i think you are right maybe 8-10% Max. Last election there was a 10% swing from Libs straight to Labor on primaries so that vote could go to her best case. If he was well resourced i think she could get 12-13% if she had backing of Climate 200 etc. I am curious if Labor PV will fall >30% in Albert park and >25% in Prahran for the first time ever.

I think in Prahran it could be around 25% but in Albert Park the absolute lowest it might go is about 32-33% (I’m predicting closer to 35%).

I predict the Liberals will be under 30% in both for the first time.

Good point Trent about Libs. I think the Greens will overperform in Prahran compared to the Federal result and Labor underperform.

Every election I have high hopes for the Greens in Albert Park but they always underperform. I think there’s no doubt they’ll do better this time, but not to level required to leapfrog the Liberals and win the seat.

I think the results will fall somewhere in between VIC 2018 and FED 2022.

Whereas I agree in Prahran, I think the result will be much more similar to the federal result, the only difference being maybe a little better for LIB and a little worse for ALP, putting both of them around the 25-27% range (compared to 23% LIB and 30% ALP federally) while the Greens match their high-30s federal result.

The Greens candidate in Higgins was nowhere near as strong as an 8 year incumbent Sam Hibbins in Prahran; whereas the Greens candidate in Macnamara was much stronger than their Albert Park candidate.

Trent i think Labor may underperform a bit in Prahrab compared to the federal result especially in the MacNamara part where there was a popular sitting local member something Labor does not have in Prahran. They may also want to shift resources to seats where they under threat from hostile independents such as Ian Birchall or the Libs. the greens will back Labor in any minority parliament

I agree. I haven’t really seen any Wesa Chau / Labor campaign at all in Prahran. But Nina Taylor posters and billboards are all over the Albert Park side of St Kilda now.

The Liberal candidate, strangely enough, seems to be putting more effort into Prahran than the Labor candidate. That, and the absence of the Morrison factor, are why I think the Liberal vote may only decline to around 27% (compared to 23% federally) while the Labor vote may reduce to around 25-26% (compared to 30% federally), keeping Prahran a GRN v LIB contest, albeit a more lopsided one than 2018.

To see how far off the Greens were from making second place and then potentially winning off Liberal preferences, here are the 3CP results:
ALP: 39.45% (-6.65%)
LIB: 34.66% (+1.19%)
GRN: 25.89% (+5.46%)
Swings are compared to the 2018 3CP.

Dragwidge (IND) was eliminated fifth to produce this 3CP, and her preferences (2901 votes) split:
GRN: 41.19%
LIB: 29.44%
ALP: 29.37%