Dandenong – Victoria 2022

Easy ALP retain.

However worth noting the huge swings against Labor in Bruce on parimaries at the federal election, with those votes largely heading to cooker parties. The Liberals also took a hit, and enough of those came back as preferences that they didn’t amount to all that much on 2PP.

Still, if enough of the Labor vote here is soft, I expect Freedom Party and Family First to do well here.

A seat to keep an eye on if any political realignments are on the cards in the future. You could imagine in an election where Liberals come to power off the back of Cranbourne and the Narre Warrens that Labor could drop the ball here and lose with a colossal swing.

@ John, Dandenong is the poorest seat in Metro Melbourne. It will be like Labor losing Broadmeadows or St Albans. It is only a small part of the electorate north of the Monash Fwy (Rosewood Downs Booth) that is middle class. It is demographically very different from the Narre Warrens and Cranbourne which include growth areas and in the Case of Narre Warren North quite affluent areas such as Lysterfield South. They could have a 12% swing to Libs and this would still be one of the safest seats for Labor

@Nimalan – indeed. There was a trend in outer suburban safe ALP seats of cooker parties doing well and a primary vote swing against the ALP (and so far LNP as well). It only really affected the outcome in 1 seat (Fowler). However it could be a harbinger of a political realignment in coming years. It could be from a conservative counter to the teal movement at the next election, especially if they get better at targeting seats and preference discipline.

Same goes for St Albans and Broadmeadows

I don’t think it’s a political realignment as much as the right faction of the Libs like to claim. It’s more of a protest vote against the lockdowns and in the case of Fowler, parachuting in KK against a local Vietnamese candidate.

The traditional Labor voters who are not into conspiracy theories will not vote non Labor
On a continuous basis as they realise the liberals cannot represent their economic interests

@John, Fair point. Time will tell if anti-lockdown politics drives a long term realignment or if it a short term wonder like the Scoresby Tollway, Parramatta to Epping rail, CFA issue etc which may be an issue at one state and federal election and then forgotten. My personal view is the latter. The reason is below
1. UAP does not have a clear strategy or base. Each election they talk about something complete different and target different seats.
2. In Dandenong, LDP did very well due to anti-lockdown stance but there policies are complete different from what you think socially conservative working class immigrant communities would support strong support for LGBT rights, Drug Liberalisation, very secular and almost no welfare state something residents here support
3. Dandenong and Broadmeadows due to their largely non christian immigrant populations will not be attracted for realignment to the right on matters such as Australia Day, the Monarchy, The Flag etc so appeals to nationalism does not work. These two seats have amongst the lowest % Christian population. These areas are more like the Bronx or Bethnel Green in the UK rather than white working class areas such as Longman or Capricornia.
4. However, i do think they are vulnerable to a Dai Le style independents if they will taken for granted or Labor becomes increasingly fixated about their wins in Hawthorn or Higgins and appealing to the affluent. To mitigate this seats such as Dandenong should in future be represented by an Ethnic MP with roots in the community. They have done this in St Albans. If Tu Le had been preselected in Fowler then Labor would have held it. In Thomastown they could do this with a Macedonian, Laverton-a Vietnamese and in Broadmeadows maybe Turkish.

Nimalan food for thought.. dai le problem is she is an independent liberal representing a Labor electorate..the voters will not allow her to walk both sides of
The fence..she will lose the only question is when. I suspect at the next election

@ MQ Regarding Dai Le if she gets too close to the Teals i dont think it is good for her as the Teals to many in deprived area like Cabramatta represent elitism. I believe Dai Le will attempt to she represents working class voters and focus on service delivery and not get close to the Libs. However, it is Labor’s fault that Dai Le was elected they took the people of Fowler for granted and parachuted a wealthy woman from the Northern Beaches who sent her son to St Josephs Hunters Hill. If Labor had a half a brain they will learn a lesson and not do this again. Next time in state seats such as Broadmeadows, Dandenong and Thomastown better choose candidates who actually look like the community they represent. If Labor choose Tu Le next time in Fowler then Dai Le chances are much harder but another Anglo candidates and then you can gift her another term.

Seats like Mulgrave, Dandenong (and many in the west) are slipping further and further behind in relation to basic services like libraries and buses. All while sometimes swing seats along the bay get flashy new life-saving clubs that might (for example) only be used a few months of the year. The big drops in Labor primary vote in some safe Labor booths in the federal election indicates increasingly awareness and dislike by voters of being taken for granted.

Objective data shows that the likes of Dandenong are short-changed. 6 out of 19 bus routes at Dandenong station don’t run 7 days despite high usage on the trips that do run, high social needs and other stations having nearly 100% of buses running 7 days. Most prominent in the seats of Dandenong and Mulgrave is the Route 800 along Princes Hwy to Chadstone for which a Facebook page has been set up: https://www.facebook.com/Fix800Bus

Liberals have released a bus policy that proposes a 7 day upgrade to the 800 (and worthwhile upgrades to other local routes). It seems odd that Labor has left this ground entirely to the Liberals in having not proposed any bus upgrades in this campaign for Melbourne. If this is the case then rusted on Labor voters have a diminishing reason to stay rusted on.

For all the talk about realignment, this seat which is the poorest in metro Melbourne has become the safest Labor seat in the state while the wealthiest seat, Malvern is the safest safest metro Coalition seat. The Liberals got a bigger swing to them in wealthy Sandringham than they did here. Even the wealthy parts of Brighton electorate had a bigger swing to the Liberals than here. This is the third best result ever for Labor in Dandenong after 2018 and 2002. If the Labor party wanted to make a point they could have campaigned here and showered this seat with promises and maybe got a status quo result. Even Springvale/Springvale South which is demographically similar to St Albans held up very strong for Labor. Interesting that Matthew Guy’s statement talking about the North and West to be future a electoral opportunity did not mention the South East.