Carrum – Victoria 2022

Labor federal suffered small swings against them in the Dunkley in the safe labor booths but gained ground in the liberal friendly part.

@Bob Maybe it’s the new wealth of those suburbs.
Maybe someone can clarify for me but I’ve seen comments on this website that this area is actually becoming more affluent around the more working class areas. Is this the case, is it just younger people buying where they can afford. Are people knocking down houses and building bigger ones. If there is a shift it will be interesting to see voting patterns and what trend is s

Can confirm, Carrum/Seaford is rapidly becoming fairly affluent as younger professional types move in (flow-on from Mordialloc, Chelsea etc).

Thanks for the insight @Expat. This might not help the Liberals now but maybe in the long-term as those professionals become older (the current Liberals seem to be off putting to younger generations).

When was the last time in Australian politics that a seat becoming more affluent made it flip to Liberal?

Gentrification seems to be a progressive vote driver all over the world. In Australian politics the main vote shift that seems to happen with gentrification is an increased Green vote, which flows strongly to Labor. That’s a factor of inner city gentrification (more renters and sharehouses, people who use public and active transport, etc.). but someone who moves to an area with a rough or downmarket reputation would tend to be a lot more open minded, and it flows from there.

Carrum is outer suburban. But being near the beach, and the Frankston line giving it a decent level of public transport, implies a different kind of likestyle to Endeavour Hills. It’s not picket fences, it’s people still imagining regular bike rides and drinks in the city. I think that means the people moving in are more Labor/Green tinged.

One other thing to consider is that the Greens have been around for long enough to win over long term voters. It’s possible for first home buyer and young families demographics, people in their mid 30s, to have voted Green at every election since they could vote, and in Melbourne maybe they’re moving out of inner city share houses and apartments to do so.

Not seeing the Liberals pick this one up, and I don’t think the Sandbelt is their path back to government. Kind of hard to see a way forward for Liberals but I think they’ll pick up seats like Cranbourne and the Narre Warrens before this one.

Chisholm 2016
Senate Seat (6th) Victoria 2019
Senate Seat (6th) South Australia 2022
In state politics Carrum 2010.
Would you accept Fowler (independent Liberal)?

@John, Suburban gentrification can help the Liberal party and a good example of this is Carrum. The other example is East Hills (NSW) or maybe Drommoyne (NSW). For example the Libs did not win Carrum in the 1992 Landslide they did win it against the trend barely in 1996. In 2010 and 2014 which were both close elections the Coallition TPP in Carrum was higher than the statewide result. East Hills and the federal division of Banks show the same trend often swinging to the Libs against the state trend. Even in Manamara there has been a long term increase in the Liberal vote around Port Melbourne, South Melbourne as i stated in the Macnamara thread. Look at the Sandridge booth specifically and compare the 2004 and 2022 results.

Up until 2018, it was the case that gentrifying areas were increasingly voting Lib (or Green in the northern and western suburbs of Melbourne). With the fall of Turnbull, the direction has changed with the gentrifying and increasingly affluent areas switching to increasingly voting Labor/Greens particularly in Melbourne while the poorer areas are being more supportive to the Libs.

North East,
If you look at the swings to the ALP they were in the previously held Liberal booths whereas in the safe Labor booths Liberals made some small ground. It doesn’t have to do with the gentrification which I am well aware that its becoming more affluent, I was more pointing out that the working class areas have being leaving the ALP.

@Bob fair point.
@John Aston? Also haven’t a couple of Sydney seats such as Banks and Hughes become more affluent and Liberal.
We’ve seen the green vote increase with gentrification because most of the gentrification we’ve seen has been in the inner city where it was more affordable due to its rough nature so younger people in their early 20s moved to apartments or units there. How many people in their early 20s would be moving to Carrum.
Also the sandbelt pretty much has to be their path, it’s usually marginal swinging territory. They would have to at least pick up some seats in this area.
@Dan M In regard to gentrifying areas getting better for the Libs wasn’t Macnamara at fed and Albert Park at state becoming more competitive before the dumping of Turnbull.

@ North East, 100% Agreed with your commentary regarding increasing affluence and Liberal vote. I could also add Cook decades earlier was mortgage belt and marginal and Casey (suburban part) which Labor has not won since 1983 despite favourable boundaries at the last two elections. IMHO if Turnbull was the leader in 2019 and Danby ran again McaNamara would have fallen to the Libs. Parts of Reid around the Waterfront has also seen gentrification and increased Liberal vote and IMHO if it was not for the Hawkish stance on China, Reid could have been retained by the Libs.

@Nimalan Yes thank you i forgot about Cook, it was a competitive seat in in the 70s as the Libs won the new seat first in 1969 but lost in 1972 and then have held it ever since 1975. The Libs came within couple hundred votes of losing it in 1983 and it didn’t reach a TPP of 60+ until 1996 when it had 8.81% swing to the Libs. Yes, hasn’t the eastern part of Reid really firmed up for the Libs recently which overlaps with the state seat of Drummyone. If the Libs had a more socially progressive slant with Turnbull in 2019 they could’ve definitely had a chance with seats like Macnamara and kept competitive in seats like Jagajaga. They also wouldn’t have lost their Eastern Melbourne and North/Eastern Sydney seats.

@John Your description is right about pockets of Carrum (the suburb) and Bonbeach. There’s a great bikes & boats lifestyle around the Patterson River. But the most populated suburb in the seat is Carrum Downs. This is more worker and tradie territory with poor public transport. Demographics more like Cranbourne than Mentone. Traditionally Labor but may have anti-Dan sentiment this time around. Whereas Patterson Lakes has a mix of richer tradies/boaties/golfers and conservative oldies (though some retirement unit options there are surprisingly cheap) so has been reliably Liberal.

This electorate has voted with the government of the day sense 1996, it will be a good indicator if Labor are in serious trouble or not.

@Bob

Maybe back in the day, but the sand belt isn’t going to be where elections are won and lost anymore, the way it used to be.

I agree Hugo,
I’m personally expecting the entire sand belt to stay with Labor regardless if Labor stay in office or not & possibly increase their margin in some of the sand belt seats.

Agree Bob, it wouldn’t shock me if that’s the case – even if there are swings back to the Liberals, I don’t see how the Liberals can win these seats in a single election with the margins being as big as they are.

My guess with the sandbelt is that Carrum and Mordialloc will swing back to the Libs a bit (nowhere near enough to flip), Mordialloc might have a pretty neutral swing, and Nick Staikos might strengthen his margin even a bit more in Bentleigh.

Sorry, meant to say Carrum and Frankston will swing back a bit.

Agree Trent,
Bentleigh & Mordiallac improve for Labor but Carrum & Frankston don’t change or slightly swing to the LNP.

Early voting at Seaford today. Was pretty quiet. Labor, Libs and Freedom had people handing out HTVs. Pensioners seemed to mostly take the anti-Dan HTVs, whereas people under 50 predominantly took the Labor one.

Anecdotes have limited value of course, but if pensioners in that area are turning away from Labor like that then I assume Nepean is a write-off.

Bass is probably gone too

@ Mark

i think Bass will be hard to predict as it comes in two different parts the Northern parts in Casey/Cardinia Shire Dan will be deeply unpopular and this area had a big swing against Labor at a federal level while Bass Coast Shire is increasingly like Corangamite and a sea change area there maybe a swing to Labor here. At the federal election this area had a swing to Labor so hard to predict as it not a clear community of interest.

@Nicholas

Well – to be fair, at a guess the pensioners in the Carrum-Seaford area mostly weren’t Labor voters to start with. Places like Patterson Lakes (a giant retirement village) consistent vote Liberal, even in 2018.

Whereas the younger folk are much more the Red-Green gentrification wave. Sonya Kilkenny won this seat for Labor on primaries last time.

@Nicholas

I would guess that Nepean would probably be the most likely Lib gain anyway, 2018 was probably a high water mark for Labor there.

A more accurate way to get an idea of how people are voting is to check who is on top when the HTV goes into the rubbish. That’s usually how they have just voted as it was on top when they pencilled in their vote.

To give you an example, at my polling booth at the federal election Zoe Daniels was sitting on top of most of the HTV in the rubbish as voters had just followed her HTV when voting. Shen went on to win the booth and the seat.

So, I wouldn’t put much stock on how the HTV cards on the way in flow, sometimes you can’t even be sure they are voting in the same seat.

@Expat you bring up a fair point about the older voters but it got me thinking. People often talk about how the young vote left and the old vote right but i wonder if in these areas that are gentrifying and becoming more wealthy the gap between how much of each age group votes Liberal or Labor isn’t as high. For example seats like Carrum and Albert Park were a bit more working class so the old guard that are still there are likely traditional Labor voters whereas the 30-39 wealthier people moving in may be more Liberal leaning. Obviously in seats like Albert Park they also have a high green vote from young professionals but more of that comes from the 20-29 demograpphic.

I think equating wealth to left & right is a bit less relevant these days, as we see more & more affluent areas trending left around the world.

I think the way in which people earn their wealth is often more indicative.

Business owners, employers, sole traders, etc as well as “old money” wealth I agree would still very much trend Liberal/Right.

However, those in high income professional occupations I think are more likely to lean left.

Seats like Albert Park, Melbourne and Prahran are affluent but with more of a young, educated professional demographic; whereas seats like Malvern and Kew are more “old money” (therefore, those who are socially progressive are more comfortable with teals than Greens/Labor) and places like Carrum and Mordialloc have more business owners, employers, tradies, etc.

@Trent Good points and adds to the complexity of certain seats.

I will say (living in the seat of Carrum) there aren’t many yard signs at all. BUT the ones that *are* here on actual houses are mostly Labor.

The Lib and Freedom ones are only really on e.g construction site safety fencing. Although on station street in Carrum there are two houses almost directly next to each other, one with a big Sonya Kilkenny sign and the other with an equally large Bec Buchanan.

It’s really interesting to hear all of these descriptions. There is a lot of truth to the phrase “You can never go home again”.

I suspect a large part of what has shifted in this area relates to broader economic and social changes. If we went back to the 1960’s, most working-class people did not move far from where they grew up (in part because they could, as the cities were not as big). And the idea of moving interstate was anathema – why would you move somewhere you didn’t know anyone?

Easier interstate travel and communications lowered the costs of doing this, and the social barriers fell away as people heard of yet another contact who had moved to the Gold Coast, another capital city, or retired somewhere less congested. Add in the last 20 years of narcissism and social media, and I am not sure if there are many places in our big cities beyond the very richest and poorest enclaves where we have families who have been in an area for generations.

In Carrum, all of these trends show up in spades. These areas traditionally had working- and service-class residents, but upon retirement, many took off elsewhere – opening an opportunity for better-off members of the younger generation to have a beachside lifestyle. Those older citizens who did stay have often renovated what were originally fairly humble family homes into giant flashy mansions. And the overall economy has allowed the spread of wealth into these areas, so that they no longer resemble the suburbs further to the east.

As for the voting patterns, I think that there’s a split between two different types of gentrification. I suspect it’s education as much, if not more than, income that will show up in voting patterns. Those who are downsizing, but wish to be close to the beach, and to grandchildren etc, will chose these areas to do so. And they will tend to vote Liberal. Those who simply want the beach lifestyle itself will go interstate where it’s warmer and cheaper.

The younger generations moving in may well be able to work from home now that COVID-19 has proven it’s viable. With more education than older generations, I can see some of these areas turning green in the next 20 years as the downsizing wave tapers off.