Bellarine – Victoria 2022

@Nimalan thanks for the reply.

I think that some of them are saying it because they got huge swings there in 2022 both federally and on the state level. However, it wasted their chances of gaining seats like Pakenham where the swing was only small.

To be truthfully honest I think the NSW Liberals would more likely win Kogarah than the Victorian Liberals would win Greenvale or St Albans. At least Kogarah has been marginal before (when Chris Minns retires it’ll be in play especially given that suburbs like Hurstville are more Liberal-friendly despite a large Chinese community down there).

@ NP
I 100% with you. Libs got a 15% swing to them in Greenvale and still did not come close to winning it, while Labor only got a 1.4% swing to them in Hastings and won a seat from the Libs. In Bass, labor only got a 0.9% swing and notionally gained Bass from the Libs. In the right circumstances Kogarah is certainly winnable for the Libs it is much more middle class area with some affluent suburbs along the Georges River. It is certainly more winnable than St Albans or Greenvale like you said. It is for the same reason, i mentioned that Labor should not bother with Brighton or Sandringham. Labor would be better off winning a more middle class seat like Croydon where they can better entrench themselves than Brighton or Sandringham. The NSW Libs as i mentioned should look at seats such as Gosford, Strathfield and the Entrance which they missed the opprtunity to entrech themselves when in government last time

@Nimalan I actually find it funny that a faction of the Victorian Liberals want to focus on St Albans. Last time I checked St Albans was a lower socioeconomic area with a high crime rate and full of gangs, similar to Mount Druitt or Doonside in Western Sydney.

Typically it seems that areas with these high crime rates known for gang violence and “eshays” seem to be working-class Labor areas in the outer suburbs, often with high immigrant or ethnic populations and tend to heavily vote Labor. In Sydney, suburbs like Mount Druitt are solidly Labor. The only somewhat Liberal-friendly areas of Sydney that even have gangs are Penrith and Parramatta and they don’t even have many of them (Blacktown itself isn’t Liberal-friendly but suburbs just east of it can be).

Hence, the NSW Liberals won’t target seats like Bankstown, Blacktown or Mount Druitt because they know they won’t win. Even if Mount Druitt has a 15% swing to the Liberals in 2027 they still won’t win.

It’s better not to waste swings in areas like that like the Victorian Liberals may have. It’s like the 2016 US presidential election: Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by three million votes but she wasted all her votes in solidly Democrat states like California and New York, whereas Donald Trump didn’t waste all his votes in solidly Republican states, he won key swing states like Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania which allowed him to win the Electoral College and thus become President.

Somewhat similar to 2022 in Victoria just without the losing party winning more votes: the Coalition got a 2.3% swing to them on a TPP basis statewide, but most of that was concentrated in the outer suburbs of Melbourne in safe Labor seats instead of in key seats in eastern Melbourne. The Liberals gained back the blue-ribbon seats of Hawthorn and Nepean but notionally lost Bass, Bayswater and Glen Waverley to Labor (plus Hastings was notionally Labor) but the way the Coalition had a net increase of one seat is because the Nationals gained two seats from rural independents (Mildura and Shepparton) plus a notionally Labor-held rural seat (Morwell).

A 2.5% TPP swing should’ve allowed the Coalition to gain Ashwood, Bass, Bayswater, Hawthorn, Nepean and Pakenham from Labor plus Mildura from the independent. Add in the Greens gaining Richmond and the Nationals gaining Morwell and Shepparton, that would’ve resulted in:

* Labor: 47 seats (–8)
* Coalition: 37 seats (+10)
* Greens: 4 seats (+1)
* Independents: 0 seats (–3)

@ NP
You are correct St Albans is the second poorest seat in Metro Melbourne and has a very high crime rate. It is like tells NSW Liberals to forget about Pittwater, Manly and North Shore and try and win Liverpool and Cabrammata as there was a TPP swing to Libs last time. The conservative wing argue that it is part of the realignment and seats such as St Albans with low education will trend conservative and wealthy areas will trend left. I remember Petra Credlin described the teal seats as “in transition” meaning Labor may eventually win it. There are some commentators on this forum who have suggested something similar. I sometimes hear Green supporters encouraging Labor to be bolder and that they can win wealthy seats like Brighton to compensate the loss of a seat like Hunter. A lot of Greenvale also has gangs, drive by shootings and high levels of poverty although it includes more well off areas as well. I honestly dont think unionised blue collar workers in seats such as St Albans, Greenvale dont have much in common with regional Australia the other Coalition stronghold after the affluent heartland. See this interview below and let me know what you think.

https://www.skynews.com.au/opinion/andrew-bolt/have-to-convince-people-that-their-best-days-are-ahead-of-them-evan-mulholland/video/84bb69dac6300a0e328f91faf892c678

@Nimalan thanks for the insights. I’ll have a look at the interview.

I’ll offer my perspective as a Victorian

1. The results of the fed election mapped to state figures produced nearly identical results. For all the talk about the Vic Libs running a bad campaign, the same dynamics pretty much had already occurred federally. The only major party seats that voted differently were Bass, Bayswater, Caulfield, Pakenham and Hastings. A lot of these were close and had candidate effects.

2. The 2010 result for the Libs in Victoria was not a very good one. After 11 years of Labor in office, and federal drag, the Libs got just 51.6% of the vote and only 45/88 seats. A one seat majority. Which ended up not even lasting throughout the term. Since than massive population change has occurred in Victoria which has led to:

Regional seats (excluding Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, Bass): 14 seats in 2010 vs 12 now
South of the Yarra: 39 seats in 2010 vs 36 now
North of the Yarra: 25 seats in 2010 vs 28 now

Regional and rural areas + south of the Yarra is losing seats every redistribution and north of the Yarra is gaining seats. There just simply isn’t the maths anymore for the Libs to win without winning a few seats north of the Yarra. The last time the Vic Libs federally or on a state level won a north of the Yarra seat in Melbourne was in 1999 where they won only Eltham. They have to start winning some of them if they actually want to form a stable majority gov.

3. Middle class/educated areas around the world are swinging towards the left. This isn’t just a Vic Lib thing. They of course could try and reduce how much it’s happening, but sometimes change is just going to happen regardless of what you do. I don’t think whatever the Libs do they’ll be able to win Prahran, Albert Park, Ivanhoe, South Barwon outside of massive landslide victories.

4. As to what seats they should target, it’s a hard one. Next time Libs form gov in Victoria, it’s going to involve them winning a few seats we think would be impossible for them to win. A few seats they didn’t win in 2010 that I think are possible for them to win: Sunbury, Melton, Yan Yean, Niddrie, Eureka, Bellarine, Ripon, Monbulk, Cranbourne, Narre Warren South and North.

i actually think the Cranbourne and Narre Warrens maybe harder than in 2010 actually. There has been growth in the ethnic communities especially Afghans and other Muslim communities in the City of Casey. I agree with the other seats Drake mentioned. Although Ripon does not really swing much and Labor having a sitting member for the first time since 2014 will help them there.

Labor can do the bare minimum in 2026 and still win in a landslide. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Liberals are wiped out from Melbourne with help from the Teals and the remaining regional MPs defect to the Nationals.

The Victorian Liberals might as well dissolve, they’re just as relevant as the Alberta Liberal Party in Canada lol.

@Ian Even with Victoria set to record the highest debt in its history I think the Liberals will be so focused on their culture wars and fighting themselves that they just won’t be able to capitalise on any of it. That plus Jacinta Allan is fairly popular and John Pesutto is a nobody.

Electorates like Glen Waverley, Bayswater, Ringwood (Eastern Melbourne generally) are swinging in the other direction towards Labor when they used to be Liberal heartland. That coupled with the Greens growing their influence in inner-Melbourne, we may end up with Labor and Greens being the two majors by about the late 2030s with the Liberals relegated to the crossbench if this is the direction they keep heading, rather than promoting positive policies and having a genuine point of difference to Labor.

OK maybe I’m going a bit too far there but the main point is agreeing that the Victorian Liberals are a lost cause at this point in time and aren’t getting better.

One thing I think that gets lost on some individuals and media figures (particularly conservative ones) is that shared social values do not guarantee votes in the necessary electorates needed to win elections. A socially conservative minded swing voter isn’t necessarily going to vote for the Coalition or any other right-leaning party. All those people who voted against SSM, or in the case of the Dunkley by-election, the voice, didn’t show up to then vote in favour of the Coalition, and if they did, they likely already were doing that long before. Conversely, after SSM’s plebiscite was successful, Labor didn’t then win in 2019 (I recall they even had an abortion policy offering, despite that being under the jurisdiction of the states).

It’s always been economics and practical issues that decide elections (and I suppose leadership appeal), not wars against wokeness. I think in that regard, that’s why Labor has been so dominant in Victoria – they have a track record of building a lot – fairly or unfairly, the tiny blip of Liberal government from 2010-14 doesn’t have a good legacy, it’s instead more known as a do-nothing period of government. Yes, the state is at record debt levels, and there’s blowouts in costs for quite a number of them – but a lot of people would prefer that over a lot less being built – and even when they finally do get turfed out, their legacy will be a lot of the new infrastructure (yes even after the EW Link’s cancellation bill, and the Commonwealth Games debacle).

Though that being said, if the upcoming budget is set to be a horror one as some are predicting that’s full of cuts….I think the Liberals may finally get their chance to sell a message that cuts through that Vic Labor are tired…assuming they’re able to get their own house in order. Agree with Drake though that the electoral numbers are against the Liberals – it’ll still be very tough for them to win.

Agree that 2026 is going to present the Vic Libs with their best chance to win in ages.

1. Assuming fed labor wins 2025, we will have a 4.5 year Labor gov that could possibly be in minority gov, and then a 12 year incumbent state government. The last Vic Election was held during Albanese’s honeymoon period.
2. State dept increasing making it harder for Labor to spend more + potential for a lot of budget cuts which will not be popular.

If the Vic Libs can not capitalise on this then they are screwed.

@drake it will most likely be a minortity labor govt in 2025. i dont think the libs can get the numbers for a majority and labor definately wont, also i believe the crossbench with a few exceptions will be more friendly towarsd albor the the coalition even though most are liberal seats on 2pp. the other problems is tehe libs would have to deal with an unfriendly if not hostile senate and a double dissolution election would most certainly happen prior to the 2028 election

@drake labor would of won the 2022 vic election no matter if people hated albo or not because the vic libs offered no policiy difference and bascially just sad dan andrews bad lockdown bad

Also I don’t know if I agree the Libs path to victory is winning more regional seats. Unlike a lot of other regional seats, the Victorian ones are not moving towards the Libs. Ballarat, Bendigo and Geelong are not moving towards the Libs. Federally, Corio, Corangamite, Ballarat and Bendigo are all 5% more ALP in 2022 than they were in 2007.

Look at the swings in the last 3 elections to Labor in these regional seats:
South Barwon: 16.26%
Bass: 15.64%
Wendouree: 12.77%
Bellarine: 10.92%
Geelong: 10.61%
Polwarth: 8.84%
Eureka/Buninyong: 8.28%

The fast growth in these cities is also helping Labor. At the next redistribution Polwarth might lose Campderdown council and Ripon could lose its more regional areas to fix up the slow growing rural seats.