Bulleen – Victoria 2022

RedBridge isn’t credible. You should check out the awful polling they manufactured to suggest a ‘teal wave’ in Melbourne. Skewed questions followed by weird numbers like “primary vote Lib:45 Teal:32 2PP:56-44 for teal. Totally true!”

Also Kos Samaras has a conflict of interest. His partner is a sitting Labor MP and he used to work at Daniel Andrews’ campaign strategist.

The Labor candidate is Ian Rogers, who I believe doesn’t live in the electorate. He tried to run for Labor preselection in Melbourne and presented himself as “Radical Left” and in fact was considered the most left-wing candidate in that preselection. Labor clearly doesn’t take this seat particularly seriously which should be a relief to Matthew Guy and indicating both parties will once again neglect this seat like they have always done.

This seat is probably one of the worst ones to run such a candidate. It’s not exactly a haven for the hard left and socialism.

Liberals announced, Tram extension to Doncaster

https://www.matthewguy.com.au/media-releases/2022-10-16-extending-route-48-tram-to-doncaster?topic=transport-infrastructure

they announced this into 2006 as well.

@Nimalan

How do you feel about that announcement as a Manningham resident? How does it compare with the SRL?

@Nicholas
On Principle i support the tram extension. I would note however, that trams/Bus Rapid are complement not a substitute for heavy rail. For example Tram Route 109 was extended to Box Hill in 2002 even though it has a rail station. This allowed Box Hill Residents better access to Kew/North Richmond etc. Even SRL (which i support in principle) is not a substitute for a City-Doncaster rail which still needs to be built at some point. Otherwise there will be just one railway station for over 100,000 Manningham residents and this will lead to crowding at either Box Hill or Heidelberg for City bound Manningham commuters. My personal preference would be for MM2 to be prioritised ahead of SRL as that it is needed to build Doncaster Rail, Wollert Rail and improve rail services along the Wyndham growth corridor as well. Also there should be a Tram Network Development Plan and Bus Network Development Plan as well similar to what have for Metro Rail and Regional Victoria.

This is the first time it’s come to my attention that I was born before Box Hill had trams! I have no recollection of there not being trams… I would have been only four years old.

Box Hill must be one of the most public transport saturated suburbs in Melbourne, if not all of Australia. How has Doncaster been left so far behind?

@ Nicholas, The tram used to terminate at Union Road. This was a less logical terminus. The reason i support a Tram Network Development Plan is that we can have a pipeline of tram projects which is staged. There are many extensions that are needed some are so small for example Route 67 to Carnegie which ends just a couple of hundred meters from the station or Route 3 just 500 meters from Malvern East railway station.

By-election soon?

Telling, I think Matthew Guy is just stepping down as leader but remaining in Parliament. I don’t believe he is resigning his seat completely.

Third time’s the charm 🙂

As a lifelong resident of this area ,I would say the Tragedy for the Libs over the last 8 years occurred when the old Doncaster electorate was abolished and Mary Wooldridge was left without a seat and had to move to the Upper House. Mary Wooldridge was my local MP and i knew her very well. This is a part of Melbourne that is neglected and taken for granted. Mary Wooldridge by contrast took this seat seriously and advocated for it. Mary Wooldridge had attempted to run for the seat Kew (but lost to Tim Smith and we know how much of a great asset he was for the Libs). Matt Guy was earmarked for the Bulleen electorate which was vacant. However, as large parts of the old Doncaster electorate including my home went into Bulleen i feel Mary Wooldridge should have been preselected over Matt Guy and been a potential leader.

Normally, opposition leaders don’t leave parliament after losing elections as leader. He is welcome to run as the party leader in four years time if he wants.

@Votante well he lost in 2018 by a huge margin then lost again in 2022 by a similar number of seats. The Libs would really have to shoot themselves in the foot to let him run the party for a 3rd time.

Libs are pretty good at shooting themselves in the foot.

@Dan M. I was being sarcastic. He was the opposition leader because there weren’t many leadership contenders available from 2018 to 2022 and O’Brien hardly cut the mustard during his time.

Matt Guy thought he could pull off a Mark McGowan by winning on his second attempt after suffering a huge statewide 2PP swing and losing seats on his first attempt.

Does anyone think Matthew Guy will stick around and serve in the upcoming Liberal government in 2026?

How he returned as Liberal leader in 2021 is beyond me. The Libs under Michael O’Brien were getting far better polling, such as 48.5% 2PP in 2020. I don’t think Mr Lobsterhead will be sticking around.

I hope he retires, he has led the Liberals into 2 of their worst election results. Bulleen needs some new talent.

@Daniel T the upcoming government? You think the Coalition will win? I mean it’s possible and I really hope they do but it’s tough given their current situation in Victoria.

NP, If they don’t win 2026 despite the poor budgets and the fact Allan is another John Brumby then they will never win, as it stands, If Labor scrape it narrowly then 2030 will be the revolutionary/change election like 1992 Victoria/QLD 2012/NSW 2011 and will be an absolute landslide for the coalition.

Guy should go while Labor is still in gov because if he retires when the coalition is in government, there is a small risk this goes Labor if they become unpopular in government.

So you’re saying that if Labor win in 2026 then the Liberals will never another election in VIC, yet if Labor win narrowly in 2026 then the Liberals will win a landslide in 2030?

SCart, I meant after that. At some point we run the risk of becoming like Japan or South Africa where there is just 1 party winning because no opposition party is credible enough.

I suspect the Liberals will win a landslide in 2030 if they narrowly fail in 2026 however I could be wrong and Labor could simply keep winning, in any case, the Liberals will be doomed if they cannot beat a highly incompetent unpopular government after all these failed budgets.

So if they don’t win either of the next two elections, THEN they’re fucked.

It’s pretty close to that point already, the Coalition have only won the 2PP in Victoria twice this century, at the 2004 Federal election and the 2010 State election.

This is a structural problem for the Liberals, areas such as the eastern suburbs where they could rely on have trended towards Labor, they’ve fallen back considerably in Ballarat, Bendigo and Geelong to the point where most of those seats are out of reach. Seats they won in 2010 when they just scraped into government such as Prahran, Bentleigh and Mordialloc will be extremely unlikely to swing back.

I don’t think they’ll win in 2026, Labor could very well end up in minority but they should at least target the outer south east and regions to set them up for 2030.

@Daniel T I agree they need to win after that budget. I wouldn’t call the 2012 Queensland state election “revolutionary” since it only lasted one term but I would definitely say the 2012 NSW state election was revolutionary, if not more than that. Safe Labor seats like Camden, Drummoyne, Holsworthy, Parramatta, Penrith, Riverstone and Winston Hills (formerly Seven Hills) became high-priority key seats and Western Sydney went from being a Labor heartland to a key battleground for both major parties. Seats like Bathurst swung to the Coalition at record levels and aren’t ever going back to Labor. Yet NSW Labor still only have minority, so that shows that the 2011 landslide win for the Coalition has had a lasting impact, especially in many Sydney seats that are now key seats.

Also, South Africa isn’t entirely a dominant-party state anymore. The ANC just suffered a massive swing against them, lost KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) to the MK Party and came close to losing Gauteng to the DA. The DA still only governs in Western Cape though where they’ve had a majority since 2009.

NP – several of your ‘safe Labor seats’ pre 2011 were actually won by the Libs in 1988 – Camden narrowly won by the ALP after an adverse redistribution. Where 2011 differed is that the margins in Penrith and Parramatta were so much larger and that the Libs could hold for several terms. Drummoyne is different but it has also moved west into areas like Concord where the Libs did better. I could see Bathurst going back to the ALP – it is a seat that gives big personal votes to its MPs and when they retire that is when it changes hands. Lets see what happens when Trevor Toole retires.

Redistributed, I don’t think Bathurst is recoverable for Labor even as an open seat. It may be like a seat such as Flynn which Labor can come close (2PP margin within 5% during a favourable year) but otherwise is simply too conservative leaning.

Redistributed, I don’t think Bathurst is recoverable for Labor even as an open seat. It may be like a seat such as Flynn which Labor can come close (2PP margin within 5% during a favourable year) but otherwise is simply too conservative leaning.

I would not write Bathurst off for Labor. There is a pathway to win. .. open seat and 2 elections and a candidate in either the Lithgow or Bathurst end who is very popular

I’d put the Liberals chances of winning the 2026 at less than 5% based purely on the electoral map and the fact that very little polling has shown that they have recovered any ground since 2022 despite the last 2 years being by far their worst of this term.

This isn’t to say there won’t be a swing to them, or that Labor won’t end up in a minority government, or that the electoral map becomes more competitive for 2030, but the Coalition actually WINNING the 17 seats required to form government in 2026, on this current electoral map where only 8 ALP v LIB seats are even considered “marginal” (by contrast, 14 of the Liberals’ 19 seats are classified as “marginal”), is extremely unlikely.

If that were going to happen, we should already be seeing significant movement in the polling and we aren’t. I mentioned over in the Hawthorn comments that I also find it hard to believe that 2025-26 will be worse for Labor than 2023-24 was. The last 2 years have been almost exclusively bad news: terrible budget, unpopular decisions, cancellations, delays, cuts, leadership change, you name it and with really no major achievements to go with it. Yet the needle has barely moved despite all that.

If the Libs failed to capitalise on this particularly bad window, I don’t see how the next two years – with Labor in election mode, most likely releasing more “election friendly” budgets and cutting the ribbon on major projects – is going to be any easier for them.

I also can’t see any revolutionary election occurring here either. By 2030 I agree the electorate will probably be ready for a refresh, and want to put Labor on the bench for a term. But I think that will be it. It’ll be 2010 all over again. A narrow Liberal victory that lasts a term then gets put in the wilderness for another 12-16 years. The only thing that will prevent that, is the Liberal Party moving significantly to the left as a moderate/centrist party.

@trent i think there only chance is a minority govt with the greens tbh

* Correction to first paragraph, I meant the last 2 years being by far Labor’s worst of their term.

The Greens would never form a minority government with the Liberals anyway. The way the numbers would work, in any hung parliament the Greens would likely be able to choose who to form government with.

Even if the Coalition won 43 seats and Labor only 40, and the Greens had the other 5, they can still choose which of the two parties they want to give their support to. They would put out a list of demands, and while neither major party would want to agree to all of them, it’s safe to assume Labor would agree to a lot more of them than the Liberals who are ideologically opposed to them.

Also, can you imagine the backlash from Sky News and the more conservative wing of the Liberal Party if they even entertained the idea of forming a coalition with the Greens? They’d lose their minds! There’s no way it would happen.

@trent im talking say labor is reduced to 43 the greens 8 and the coalition 37 which in my opinion would be the bare maximum. i think the coalition can get to 36 and if the greens take those 4 labor seats that puts them on 8 but because reducing labor to 44 wouldnt be enough lets sy the coalition can make 37. the coalition might do a backroom deal to preferenc the greens in those 4 seats as well as their current seats which they probably only one on lib preferences in 2022 in exchance for supporting them i minority govt. the greens get something and so do the libs. the only way the greens will probably take those 4 seats is with lib preferences otherwise it will be a labor majority

Yeah I understand the scenario that you mean, but I just don’t think either the Liberals or Greens would agree to form government together.

It’s a terrible deal for both of them because it would cause such backlash among both of their bases, that the short term gain of a single-term governing together (which would be completely unproductive as they would barely agree on anything) would not be worth absolutely destroying their chances in subsequent elections.

Liberal voters would abandon the party in droves after a term of Liberal-Greens government that would be completely chaotic and unproductive. Greens voters would flock to Labor after voting Greens put the Libs in power. They’d both be in the wildnerness for a generation and not recover from that.

For the Liberals, yes at least it would remove Labor from government for a term, but at what long term cost, and could they really govern the way they want if every piece of legislation needed the Greens’ support? They may as well not even be in government.

For the Greens, they don’t even need to make a backroom deal. If the Liberals preferenced the Greens already in key seats in 2022 without any sort of “deal”, there’s a good chance they’ll do it again. The Greens don’t need to play any part in that decision, or give anything in return.

The Liberals’ best strategy would actually be to preference the Greens anyway and hope for an ALP-GRN minority government, which they’d hope will put off a large enough cohort of ALP-LIB swing voters to help them win in 2030.

That’s a much smarter strategy than trying to form a Liberal-Greens government that won’t be able to pass anything and will just ensure both party’s votes are decimated in 2030 and beyond.

Agree Trent, having the Liberals preference the Greens to force Labor into a minority government is a smarter move because it would force Labor to adopt unpopular policies as a sort of ‘price’ for getting support from the Greens – much like the 2010 elections for Tasmania and Federally.

That way, the Liberal Party/Coalition are in a better position to court swing voters and try and win government the next time around.

@trent yea im just speculating. anyway i doubt the libs could ever reach the 37 seats and i seriously doubt the greens will get all 4 but i think they can get 3 but i think footscray will be out of reach.

@Redistributed there is no way they’ll get Bathurst back also the MP is Paul Toole not Trevor Toole.

I do agree that the margins held up in some areas and redistribution had an effect but still, it made many areas competitive. The one mistake they did make was the sitting Liberal MPs in Greater Newcastle failed to entrench themselves in their electorate and grow the Liberal Party there (though to be fair most of them were subject to ICAC investigations and were kicked out of the party before resigning entirely, plus Robyn Parker (a former MLC) retired from politics after just one term as the member for Maitland). If they had done that they may have retained at least one of their Newcastle seats (margin-wise Charlestown would’ve been the most likely given that the Liberal margin there in 2011 was 9.9%).

The Liberals also didn’t entrench themselves well enough in the Central Coast hence why they only hold one seat there (Terrigal) while the others (Gosford, The Entrance and Wyong) were lost to Labor in 2015 (Gosford and The Entrance were extremely close though, in fact Gosford was the closest seat in the state).