Brighton – Victoria 2022

Labor should really target this seat. They came so close in 2018 with no effort or resources whatsoever and a 19 year old candidate. At the very least it’ll force the Libs to have to throw resources at holding it, that could otherwise be used to win back eastern suburbs seats.

Brighton and Caulfield are probably Labor’s two best chances of gaining Liberal seats they didn’t pick up in the ’18 landslide.

IMHO the dumping of Turnbull had the most profound impact in the most affluent seats such as Brighton, Sandringham, Kew, Albert Park and Hawthorn. Last time there was no incumbent liberal mp in Brighton or Sandringham which hurt the Libs here. It is possible that the Libs will rebound especially around Hampton although Elwood is very left wing and if labour may makes in roads it could swamp the Liberal lean of the rest of the seat. I feel Labor has a better chance to have a notional gain in Bayswater and Bass with an incumbent MP.

Newbury announcing a proposed legal service at the Victorian Pride Centre today to coincide with the Midsumma March.

Obviously chasing some of the more progressive vote in Brighton, probably specifically Elwood.

Not sure how successful that strategy will be though. Besides being a transparent election ploy by a party with a horrible LGBT track record in Victoria, wouldn’t it just highlight Labor’s achievement of actually building the Pride Centre itself?

Nimalan the problem with relying on certain booths overwhelmingly supporting you to drown out the rest of the seat (something that the Libs have recently had to rely on in Higgins with Toorak and Vaucluse in Wentworth) is that it relies on the other booths not supporting the other party at just a high rate (this is something we saw in Brighton as the Libs vote dropped) and there’s only so much support you can get from certain booths. The Elwood booths are at 66 and 76 TPP for Labor against the Libs, how much more can they get for a well off area. If they increased their vote in the Hampton booths they won then they could definitely take the seat.

Trent i think it’s more of a give the tiger teeth kind of thing. Now that the centres there may as well put it to good use.

I think it’s likely Newbury, as someone in the hard right aligned with Marcus Bastiaan, will lose. He nearly lost to a 19 year old candidate who had no resources last time. If a teal runs or Labor puts more effort in, the seat could viably flip, especially since the state Libs have become even more inept than in 2018 and clearly didn’t learn anything from their landslide defeat.

Agree Ethan, after the federal result i am now thinking maybe a Teal will run here and take the seat as Dan M pointed out. With the exception of Elwood there is no base for Labor and the soft labor vote may go to Teal.

Brighton is the Liberals Newcastle i.e. a seat that has not been lost since federation and the loss of which would mean disaster for the libs. The teal could win if they find issues to run on. I remember in the last election ALP were ahead here and I was shocked that this could be a historic election in Brighton. I lived in the seat of Hawthorn at the time and the defeat of Pesutto shocked me. I was thinking maybe Labor will gain 5 seats but no way Pesutto will lose ….. maybe to the greens in a decade.

@Dan M the thing about the teals is i just don’t know if they’ll be able to translate their success to state level, and if they do it’s entirely because of Vic Libs incompetence. The whole appeal of the teals is they’re social progressives and fiscal conservatives, they ran on holding a tired Liberal government to account and for change, the Vic Libs aren’t in power so the same messaging that was used against the federal Libs of not doing enough on certain issues doesn’t apply. One of the big issues the teals also ran on is ICAC which i believe the Vic Libs support (although most likely because they’re not in power and believe it’ll hurt Vic Labor).

I agree that I don’t think the teals will translate as well to the state level.

I also think they are less necessary. The main issues that ‘teal’ inclined voters have with Labor are federal ones around tax and the national economy. At a state level, voters are more interested in health, education and infrastructure which are all perceived strengths of Labor. In addition to that, many of the social issues that Brighton voters have progressive views on are also state issues, where Victorian Labor has been delivering some big reforms.

The fact that a 19 year old Labor candidate with no resources came within 1% of winning Brighton in 2018 shows that voters here aren’t scared to vote Labor at state level, and with a high profile candidate & better resources – and also possibly a rising Green vote (in lieu of a teal candidate) to shift more preferences to Labor – I think Brighton, Sandringham and Caulfield are probably the 3 most likely Liberal losses in November without even needing a teal candidate.

I think the prospect of a Teal Wave at the state election is overblown. Teals won at the federal level because of the dissatisfaction with an incumbent LNP Government carrying a lot of baggage over 9 years and they took aim at Liberal MPs. VIC Labor is actually greener than Federal LNP and so climate change may be less of an issue. A new independent candidate or two (possibly backed by new federal independents) may win seats but not to the extent at the federal election.

It’s extremely rare for a party to increase their 2PP and seat count 3 elections in a row and so there may be a swing back to the LNP. To the Victorians here, can the VIC LNP make a comeback despite the federal seat losses?

Votante, Vic Libs does take a more right-wing stance on vaccine mandates and lockdowns compared to the federal party given they were opposed to the pandemic bill for ideological reasons and attended and supported the ‘freedom’ rallies in November which might have all but killed the chance of winning back, pro-vax centrist.
I do agree that there is no effective teal for the State Election possibly since the teal focus more on Federal Issues adding to the the State ALP is more effective on winning (and to some extent losing) voters compared to the Federal ALP

I doubt the Vic Libs can recover too much since they haven’t changed since 2018 after their devastating loss. The swings to Labor in the 2022 federal election in Eastern Melbourne are actually stronger than in the 2018 landslide defeat. At this stage, the state Libs are really basically the Vic version of the UAP. The only 2 things on the state Lib’s agenda is the anti-lockdown and anti-vax stuff as well as promising to tear up the SRL which is not politically smart given it’s one big reason why eastern Melbourne swung so hard in 2018. I think what could happen is that the state-wide TPP may swing against Labor, but the swing would be concentrated entirely in the outer suburban growth corridors and the western and northern suburbs (and only probably only deliver a couple of seats) and Labor might perform even better in the eastern suburbs, where all the currently marginal seats are now, winning seats they just missed out on in 2018. It would be kind of similar to the federal situation in Vic overall, where Eastern Melbourne swung very hard to Labor but everywhere else swung to the Libs pretty strongly, resulting in a tiny 1% swing in the TPP to Labor.

Why the Vic LNP are useless and will not do well at the next state election:

1. No talent
2. Too many tired has-beens in the partyroom
3. No clear set of values, agenda, or policy platform
4. Apart from a few differences in infrastructure projects they don’t really stands for much different from the ALP
5. To borrow a Trumpism, they’re low energy – they seem like deadwood happy to accept the easy cheques that go with being an opposition MP

@Votante, I agree with most of the 3 comments above, especially Dan M’s analysis.

I think it’s very possible that you’ll see Labor’s 2PP decrease but their seat count actually increase, because similar to the federal election:

– The VIC Libs are most likely to get some good swings in the outer north, west and southeast; but that territory includes very few winnable seats. All those outer north & west seats in particular – including Yan Yean which is semi-rural and overlaps with McEwan – are held by at least 16-17% (many over 20%).

– In the inner to middle south east, and particularly seats like Brighton, the Liberals are increasingly toxic and the Liberals hold 3 inner-south seats by less than 1% each and Glen Waverley by 1.5%, all in areas that swung by close to double-digits last month.

– The Liberals will need to dedicate serious resources to holding seats like Kew (4.8%), Bulleen (5.7%), Malvern (6.6%) and Warrandyte (3.9%) as well as Bayswater & Croydon which they hold by <1%.

Building on what Entrepreneur said, the Liberals have a completely baffling platform which only seems to focus on a few things:
1. No more lockdowns (they already ended 8 months ago, and the marginal areas supported them)
2. No more vaccine mandates (mostly gone already and had widespread support anyway)
3. No Suburban Rail Loop (which brings huge benefit to key seats the Libs need to win/hold)
4. Revive the East-West Link (no more federal funding anymore)
5. Hospital crisis (media coverage lately has been showing this is truly a national issue, not a Victorian one, and Dom Perrottet even working closely with Dan Andrews to get national outcomes will pour water on the Vic Libs' attacks)

The Liberals have had to backtrack on a number of positions on social issues after they finally realised that Victoria is far too progressive to back their conservative stances. But it's lose-lose for them; if they stick to their guns they only appeal to a very, very tiny minority of religious conservatives and alienate everyone else; if they backtrack (as they have), their position is basically the same as Labor but less trustworthy or genuine due their backflip from previous stances.

So what I can see happening is that Labor get a statewide swing of about 2-3% against them, mostly concentrated to swings as bit as 7-8% in some of the outer suburbs (where margins are double digits), while Labor actually get a net gain on seats.

I only see the following as being likely or possible Liberal gains – Pakenham (most likely), Hastings, Nepean, Ringwood.

However, I would say Labor almost certainly have the following 4 gains to offset that – Caulfield, Brighton, Sandringham, Glen Waverley.

The on top of that, anything could happen in Bayswater & Croydon (Libs have <1% margins) or seats like Kew, Malvern & Bulleen.

Seeing all the comments here inspired me to look into the Victorian Liberals more as I’m pretty unfamiliar with the state politics down there and they are completely baffling to me. As Dan M said they act as if they’re the UAP. Victoria is a progressive state, but if they just behaved as generic conservatives who campaign on muh taxes and keep their mouth shut on social issues, surely they would do so much better?

Trent, I think ALP would still hold onto Ringwood based on federal results, there was a massive swing to the ALP in the area around Ringwood and Mitcham

Trent,
Ringwood is in Deakin which swung to labor & there were big swings in Ringwood & Mitcham to the ALP, I do agree with Nepean & Hastings though that the LNP could pick both up alongside Pakenham.

@Trent to add to that, the Liberals have fielded a dud candidate in Ringwood who is a former Boroondara mayor and hard-right religious conservative not from the area.

Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t saying the Liberals would win Ringwood. I just listed it as one of the few Labor-held marginals.

The Age has just confirmed that the “Voices of Goldstein” group won’t be supporting candidates in Brighton, Sandringham or Caulfield.

The reason being that they don’t want to undermine Zoe Daniels as an independent voice.

I think that’s a good decision because the presence of a “teal” – who would unlikely win – would probably only hinder Labor’s chances of unseating the sitting Liberal MPs.

I don’t think the Teals would have the same resources in this State Election compared to the federal election since Vic donation limits would hinder any Climate 200’s funding. Teals campaign rhetoric is mostly against the LNP government with them mentioning the LNP conservative policies, especially in the climate and ICAC. This would not likely be used in the state election given the current Vic gov is Labor so the Teals can’t claim Vic Labor is conservative on policymaking. Teal could campaign against Vic Libs on their covid mandate stance but the Vic Libs is not in government

Elwood’s booths make sense when look at the housing structure. It’s like St Kilda in that it has a high median high price but housing makes up a very small amount of dwellings (which could further increase price). Separate houses only make up 13.4% with flats/apartments making up 71.9% and semi-detached, row or terrace house, townhouses make up 14.2%.

I think Labor will easily win this seat with a reduced primary vote on the back of a large swing to the Greens.

I wonder is the Liberal Party (and National Party) pretty much a hybrid of the Democratic and Republican party dues to the “broad church” motto?

I do feel that Brighton will be an easier gain than Kew, Malvern or Sandringham as it has solid progressive territory in Elwood while the three other seats do not.

Agree Marh, especially considering that many moderate Liberals and Nationals like Malcolm Turnbull, Dave Sharma and Darren Chester would never fit in with the US Republican Party. Even some moderate Republicans like Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe would be considered more conservative than most of the moderate Liberals.

Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe remind me of Bridget Archer since they act more like they are independent rather than a party member. I think there are Turnbull-like Republicans (Rockefeller Republicans) like Charlie Baker, Larry Horgan and Phil Scott but all three are governors of Liberal states so they are even more left-wing than some Democrats and perhaps even some LNP figures/governments/opposition in Australia. Australia Tories is more of a mix of hardline conservatives and moderates rather than NZ/Europe/UK (Moderates make most of the stake) and US/Canada (Hardline Conservatives make most the stake)

Everyone here seems to think that this seat and others such as Caulfield and Sandringham will be a Labor gain and it makes sense why people would think that considering the very slim margins, but what makes people think that these seats will swing to Labor (a case can be made for Caulfield considering the federal results). Sure the Vic Libs aren’t great at the moment but what would warrant a swing in this election in Brighton and Sandringham that wouldn’t have happened in 2018. Traditional Lib voters may have bit the tongue and voted Labor to send a message in 2018 but may not want to vote Labor a second state election in a row, on the other hand traditional Lib voters could’ve bit the tongue in 2018 and voted Lib in the hopes of something better in 2022 which hasn’t come.
I think people are using the swing against the Libs in Goldstein to base their views on Brighton and Sandringham but the TPP for last federal election was still 54-46 to the Libs. This outperforms how the Libs did in Brighton and Sandringham in 2018.

@North East The state seats of Caulfield and Glen Waverely should’ve fell to Labor in 2018 given demographically similar seats with higher Lib margins fell to Labor but the Libs miracously just held on. Both seats have areas with some of the largest swings to Labor in Vic in the federal election so its near certain that the Libs will lose both of them. Brighton and Sandringham are a bit more complicated but Labor will be in a better position than the Libs due to how poorly the state Libs have been doing since the landslide defeat in 2018.

@Dan M Agreed on Caulfield and Glen Waverley. I wonder what Vic Labor’s strategy for the election will be, will they target these marginal Lib seats hard or will they work on consolidating their own seats. Obviously they wouldn’t need to put much effort into the west and outer north but they may have to put all their resources towards Richmond, Northcote, Albert Park and the eastern suburb seats Labor won off the libs in 2018.

To be fair I think Caufield is less likely than Glen Waverley to fall to Labor as the both Burns and Southwick is Jewish so I think people care more on local politics in Caulfield. Glen Waverley is different due to large ethnic minority where they are less likely to care about neighbourhood issues.

@ Marh, agreed. It depends on who Labor choose as a candidate last time they chose Sorina Grasso who was also Jewish if she was selected again there is greater chance of a Labor pick up.

As long as Labor select a strong Jewish candidate – and they campaign alongside Josh Burns – for Caulfield, then I would rank it as their most likely gain.

Out of those 4 seats I’d probably rank the order in likelihood of Labor pickups as:
1. Caulfield (dependent on the conditions above)
2. Glen Waverley
3. Brighton
4. Sandringham

RE: The comments about Goldstein still having a 54-46 2PP which was better for the Libs than the 2018 state results, that’s why I rank Sandringham the least likely. 2018 may have been Labor’s high watermark there.

However, Brighton includes a densely populated area from Macnamara which swung massively this year, and I think still has room to swing more compared to 2018; so even if the actual Brighton area itself stays relatively static compared to 2018, or even swings back a little to the Libs, enough of a swing in Elwood could still flip it.

The other factor I will just raise, as to why these seats (but Brighton in particular) may still swing a little bit to Labor, is just due to the total & utter lack of effort and resources they put into it in 2018.

Basically they got within 1.1% of winning Brighton without even trying, they had a 19 year old candidate with no resources or funding. You can only assume that Labor will target the seat a lot more heavily this time, and probably run a stronger candidate too. That could be enough to make at least 0.5% to 1% of a difference, and the redistributed margin is only 0.5% now.

And that’s the other thing too, redistributed margins are really only an estimate, it could be less than that for all we know (or it could be a bit more).

I agree that I don’t think that whole area overlapping Goldstein will probably swing much more (if at all more, it could swing back) than in 2018 if the conditions were replicated, but wildcards such as slightly different boundaries, a different candidate, no doubt a lot more Labor effort & resources than 2018, and also areas like Elwood which don’t overlap Goldstein, definitely make it winnable with such a slim margin.

Brighton moreso than Sandringham in my opinion. I also don’t know if James Newbury is particularly well liked as an MP, as he is from the right faction aligned with the likes of Kevin Andrews and Michael Sukkar. Not particularly fitting in the socially progressive bayside.

Trent
2 things about Brighton:
– In Macnamara, the Libs preselected a dud candidate twice in a row -2022 probably a bigger dud than 2019.
-In 2018, the Elwood booths ALP 2PP were 65% and 75% – there is not a lot of upside there.

@Trent, I think Brighton is still heavily Liberal since the area is full of McMansions and swimming pools so they are ultra-wealthy. Hampton and Sandringham are slightly different as there are lots of medium to high-density housing and many heritage listing terraces. There seems to be some correlation between party vote by the housing type (outside immigrant-heavy areas).

@Marh, just one correction. i would not describe the housing in Brighton as McMansions rather they are actual mansions. I would use McMansions to describe housing in nouveau riche areas such as Templestowe or Hills District. Hampton and Sandringham are still very wealthy just not as much as Brighton. Also need to remember that Black Rock and Beaumaris are usually thumping for the Libs. Sandringham has some marginal bellwether areas as well.

@Nimalan and Marh I’d describe Brighton as Toorak or Canterbury with waterfront views.

Marh, Brighton is old money like Toorak and the housing in Sandringham and Hampton is mostly free standing post WWI and due to that there isn’t that many terraces in that part of Melbourne.

@Trent I think Newbury has come out with some more socially progressive policies, probably to appease people within his seat but the Vic Libs have also been punished for their social conservatism.

@Trent I think Mcmansions can describe a lot of housing in Templestowe well but it also has what you would consider just mansions that you see in Brighton or Toorak. There’s plenty of Templestowe homes that look they belong in Toorak or Brighton

North East, Templestowe does have quite a lot of mansions on mega blocks unlike Brighton

@Dan M, agreed i often describe Brighton as Toorak by sea. I guess the elite of Melbourne has the choice of the leafy inner east or the golden bayside suburbs (shows how natural geography has determined the destiny of suburbs.
@ North East/Marh the use of the word McMansion often is a pejorative one to describe large homes that are mass produced similar to term nouveau riche (which i use a lot to describe my neck of the woods in Manningham), so criticism there from me. I do agree that Templestowe has some actual mansions especially along Serpells Road and Church Road. However, for the most part Templestowe is just Upper Middle Class and no where near as exclusive/elte as Brighton. Manningham/Boroondara while neighbouring LGA IMV are quite different in social class

Glen Waverley ironically does have lots of rebuilt Mcmansions (a lot with French Style) mainly occupied by wealthy immigrants

@ Marh agreed, about GW especially in the Eastern part (around Gallaghers Road/Mt view booth).

James Newbury is not really in the right faction, he convinced them to support his pre-selection bid in 2018 but remember he is an ex-Pyne staffer and was caught up in the Sparke Helmore allegations so it shouldn’t be a surprise that he would have very left-leaning social policy positions.

@Entrepenuer What’s the Sparke Helmore allegations and why would that indicateNewbury having left-leaning social policies.

@Marh What do you mean by there been a correlation between housing type and voting patterns outside immigrant heavy areas. Immigrants aren’t one monolithic demographic and their voting patterns seem to go by wealth. Immigrant heavy areas in Melbourne’s west and north strongly favour Labor but Manningham council area is very good for the Libs and Whitehorse is also (they’ve performed poorer than what they should’ve in this area recently).

What I meant is areas with higher density/heritage terraces falls to Labor on TPP. Post war middle class homes tends to be swings. Mcmansions and mansions are LNP on TPP. Yes, my point is immigrant heavy areas are varied so area with higher East Asians are friendlier to the LNP TPP (although there is massive ALP swing and conversely the others are friendlier to ALP TPP (although there is a massive LNP swing) regardless of the homes built (New estates in the west have a large ALP TPP but Libs lead in the new estate in the South East)

Liberals already putting their focus into retaining Brighton, Sandringham and Caulfield. Already announced promises for a defibrillator trial in the Caulfield area and a major hospital upgrade in Sandringham (which benefits multiple electorates in SE Melb).
Very difficult to see any path to victory for the Liberals if they don’t retain these seats.

Labor is running Port Phillip councillor Louise Crawford here. https://www.portphillip.vic.gov.au/about-the-council/who-we-are/your-councillors/louise-crawford