Kew – Victoria 2022

I think there’s some talk about this seat moving towards Labor and i think Labor are also hopeful in their chances of the seat although i think it could be one of those examples where the vote increases for the party that holds the seat in the absence of an unpopular incumbent.

Tim Smith has been making some controversial comments lately on issues such as an Indigenous treaty, climate change and the ABC that would more than likely be supported in a socially progressive electorate like this. This area is very ripe for an independent challenger if one emerges, I just don’t think Labor would be able to win this however.

@Ham Tim Smith won’t be representing the Libs at next election. Don’t even know if he’s running.

I heard Tim Smith is actually retiring and not running at this election, following a recent drink driving controversy.

Apologies, I should’ve properly clarified, it was more so the reputation of the Liberal party within the electorate and whether or not a challenger emerges. I still think the Liberal party will retain this but his comments aren’t helping the new Liberal candidate for Kew.

i am actually sad that Tim Smith is retiring he did provide comedy to all of us during the Covid lockdowns. I do personally believe he has the maturity of an 18 year old school boy. He is like a Xavier college student on muck up day.

More Seriously, i think a Teal will be better challenge to the Libs here.

@Ham Fair enough and you have a point about Tim Smith really not helping the Libs and he should probably shut up if he knew what was good for the party, especially in this area. If he wanted to be a prominent figure in politics he shouldn’t have crashed his car whilst drinking. All i know about the new candidate is that she’s a women and i believe beat David Davis for preselection.

Kew could be teal territory as Kew is within Kooyong (the federal seat). I don’t know of any independent challenger here. Despite the controversy surrounding Tim Smith and the teal win federally, I don’t think Labor would win this. Labor would be better off diverting resources to defend heartland seats in working-class, outer western and northern suburbs as well as inner-city suburbs.

Jess Wilson can’t take this seat for granted either. A strong independent or Labor candidate could pop up out of the blue.

At Votante, agree Kew is like Malvern a good teal target. There is no strong left wing areas here as discussed in the Malvern thread. Whilst Brighton good be a Labor target as it contains Elwood where Labor just needs to run up the numbers even if it is a status quo result elsewhere in the seat. Brighton excluding Elwood would be similar to Kew

Kew does have some areas that are friendlier to left leaning parties. Areas around Kew Junction with various tram lines have gotten more medium to high density developments with young professionals moving. I think Kew unlike Malvern will gradually move more left just like it has happened in Hawthorn. Plus many children of old money are now more likely to vote greens/teals

Under federal numbers, this seat would have voted teal by about 1.7%, so it is more favourable to the LNP than Boroondara LGA/Kooyong as a whole. Definitely in the western part of the seat, which is becoming much younger & high density (similar to North Sydney, Crows Nest etc.), expect whichever left-leaning party is dominant here to get most of their votes here. The eastern part, I’m not so sure about. Whilst old money areas are trending away from the Liberals, one could expect the Liberal vote to hold in these places, especially in a traditional 2PP contest. The Liberal’s strongest area seemed to be around Balwyn, which I believe has a high East Asian population. This can be contrasted with Chatswood in Sydney, which is demographically similar (albeit with a smaller Anglo-Celtic population) but voted teal by around 6-7%, largely due to ALP preferencing. These factors, coupled with other factors such as ALP party fatigue & the state Liberals probably doing better than their federal counterparts means that this area will probably still vote Liberal, albeit with a sizably reduced margin.

Correct Kew Junction has some high density but as no rail line likely to be less the Camberwell Junction/Glenferrie precient. We can also see how in another part of Kew, Sackville Ward the Libs got 60% which is very high considering the ALP got a state average of 58% TPP. The same can be seen in Hawthorn for example the Glenferrie South booth near Scotch College remains very strong for the Libs.

@ Boof head, good point about large Chinese community in Balwyn it is concentrated around the Balwyn HS zone. It maybe the case at the Federal election there was some tactical voting there against the Libs in favour of teal. It maybe the case if it was not for this backlash JF could have narrowly survived by improving around Balwyn etc.

I predict if the Teals are weaker than the federal results, it will narrowily be Liberal retained but Labor gaining this seat isn’t out the woods.
– Tim Smith retiring due to drink driving scandal
– Small Liberals in Kew would not dupport Vic Libs for their support to the ‘freedom’ rallies and right wing covid/vaccine stances last year
– A large Chinese population around Balwyn High School zone would likely have a swing against the Libs for their anti-China stance (Vic Libs has similar foreign policy views for China to the Fed Libs). They probably wouldn’t support Vic Libs anti vax and anti-mask stance support and plus Safe Schools issue dyed out

Kew would be the second most ideal “teal” target in my opinion (after Malvern).

While it has some more ‘left-friendly’ areas, there is no rock solid progressive/left territory here. The margin is large enough for Labor to be seen as a long shot, and a teal having a much better chance at winning the seat, and that would be motivation for ALP & Greens voters to throw their support – and first preference – behind the teal.

Most importantly, it will allow Labor to run dead and divert resources elsewhere, while still forcing the Liberals to commit resources to fend off the “teal”.

As somebody who would just love to see the Liberal Party annihilated across the inner suburbs, I think the ideal situation would be if teals only targeted Malvern, Kew & Bulleen (they would have a good chance in Malvern & Kew, Bulleen is a long shot but more to drain Liberal resources) and Labor & the Greens both ran completely dead in all 3, and then Labor throw their resources into Caulfield, Brighton, Hawthorn and Sandringham while the teals stay clear.

Then the teals are concentrating their resources to 3 seats (two of them very winnable), Labor to 4 very winnable seats, and the Liberals need to defend all 7.

Unfortunately that’s already not the case with independents running in Caulfield, Brighton, etc.

I say Labor has a better shot winning Bulleen than the Teals since unlike Kew, Bulleen is mainly middle class with perhaps a mostly non-anglo population mainly Chinese, Greeks, Italians and most recently even some Iranians. I think Bulleen has one of the lowest Anglo-saxon percentage in Victoria

Bulleen is middle class?

While Manningham is slightly richer than Whitehorse proabbly due to better public schools, it still more like an average suburbia than a wealthy inner city suburb like in Boroondara

https://www.tallyroom.com.au/vic2022/kew2022/comment-page-1#comment-774578

When the previous Commonwealth Government scrapped Victoria`s participation in the Belt and Road Initiative, it made foreign policy less of an issue in state politics by taking it out of state hands. This blunted the state Coalition`s line of attack so they are not talking about it much anymore, so it is likely to have a reduced effect.

Bulleen is definitely not on the same level as Kew or the other elite blue ribbon areas but it is still quite a desirable and relatively affluent area and multicultural as well, compared to Melbourne as a whole especially with the huge acre mansions in Templestowe.

Agree with the comments above Bulleen (as someone who lived in the seat since i was 18 months). Manningham is a middle class area (parts of the area are upper middle class) but none of it is an elite/upper class area. Southern parts of Manningham south of George Street are quite standard middle class. I agree with Marh, that Manningham is really only slightly wealthier than Whitehorse. In fact Whitehorse has small part of elite territory around Mount Albert/Surrey Hills while this is not the case in any part of Manningham. Nicholas, middle class is quite a broad spectrum (lower middle Class, comfortable middle class and upper middle class). It can range from Endeavour hills to Templestowe. Marh is spot on about the ethnic demographics. I do feel a class divide when i am in Borondoora but i dont feel that when i visit Blackburn etc. Comparing Bulleen and Kew would be like comparing Cherrybrook to Hunters Hill or Mosman.

How would you describe Templestowe and Park Orchards?

I agree with all that Labor would have a better chance in Bulleen than a teal, but realistically I don’t think either would win.

However, a teal running would make the Liberals dedicate more resources to sandbagging it which is why I just think tactically a teal in Bulleen would be a clever way to make the Libs have to focus on 7 relatively “inner” seats that in previous elections they’ve been able to take for granted, while at the same time trying to win back middle seats and target outer seats.

Nicholas, i would describe Templestowe as upper middle class for the most part, some parts around Templestowe Village (west of Williamsons Road) are more comfortable middle class. I do agree there are some huge brick palaces around Church Road but the population density is low so it only makes % of Templestowe overall population but much of the area consists of McMansions. I would compare Templestowe to Castle Hill/West Pennant Hills. Park Orchards is entirely Upper Middle class but it is a semi-rural area white large blocks so it is hard to compare with purely suburban area like Borondoora. If we compare land price for same size blocks it is not even close. Even the poorest suburb in Borondoora, Ashburton has a similar median house price to Park Orchards (most expensive in Manningham) even though land sizes are smaller. Park Orchards is like Glenhaven/Dural. I feel Borondoora is similar to Kur-ring-gai (even Mont Albert is similar). i always enjoy your contribution so happy for you to share alternative thoughts and if there are better comparisons to Sydney etc.

Thanks @Nimalan for the explanation! Your comparisons seem accurate to me.

I wonder if that should make me feel better about my prospects of someday owning an acreage in Templestowe ($3,000,000 or more) or if it’s a statement of just how locked out my generation is from the housing market!

On the definition of “middle class” – I take it you would describe Cherrybrook as “upper middle class” (and that sounds about right to me). IIRC, SEIFA has Cherrybrook in the 98th or 99th percentile. If we assume that SEIFA rankings align with class descriptors, this leaves very little room for what suburbs could be considered upper class. And those suburbs might end up including The Ponds and Colebee! How do you account for this? Would you say that SEIFA doesn’t paint the full picture when it comes to class?

@ Nicholas, you have raised a good point about SEIFA and whether that describes class. My personal view is it does not and especially for growth areas. SEIFA is about the level of disadvantage rather than wealth. In many cases it does not align especially in areas where there is higher density. Croydon Hills has a SEIFA score of 97. While it is a desirable to live in it is not particularly expensive and house prices are just above Melbourne’s median. Doncaster actually has a significantly lower SEIFA score of 69 and Doncaster East at 78 even though house prices are significantly more in Doncaster area. Why is this? Doncaster has significantly more high density, units so will have some low income/Disadvantaged residents especially around Doncaster Hill where there is some social housing as well. Croydon Hills actually has a higher SEIFA than Templestowe which has a score of 93. In fact Yallambie which is very standard middle class has a score of 94 higher than Templestowe! although house prices are much lower. For Sydney, Kirribilli has a score of only 86 lower than the Ponds but i would describe that area as Elite if you look at house prices, intergenerational wealth etc. So i am not taking SEIFA into consideration when determining social class. Lets look at the Ponds. We need to first remember that it is a growth area which means there results are skewed. There will be fewer retired people, Adult Children still living with parents, Unemployed, renters etc. Property prices are not high here compared to the Sydney average. What sort of residents live in The Ponds etc a lot of them are young South Asian professionals many of them came as International students while they are high income and educated many of them did not have large deposits if they did i feel they may have opted for Carlingford etc where there good quality Public Schools or Strathfield where there is also a South Asian community. Parts of Sydney which i would consider Elite/Upper Class would be the all of the Lower North Shore, Ku-ring-gai Shire, Hunters Hill LGA, Wollahara Council, Dover Heights and Tamarama in Waverley Council, Centennial Park, parts of Strathfield, some parts of the Northern Beaches such as Clontarf, Fairlight, Seaforth, Palm Beach (excluding the more middle Class Forest District and some parts such as Dee Why). In Melbourne it would be Boroondara, Stonnington, Bayside council (excluding more inland suburbs along Frankston Line), Caulfield North in Glen Eira, Albert Park/Middle Park in Port Phillip, East Melbourne, Mont Albert/Surrey Hills in Whitehorse, Eaglemont/Ivanhoe East in Banyule and maybe parts of the Mornington Peninsula such as Portsea, Sorrento and Mount Eliza. Yes i would consider Cherrybrook to be Upper Middle Class. Once again, Nicholas happy to be challenged 🙂

Whitehorse has a mix of elite territory like Mont Albert/Surrey Hills and Burwood to some extent, immigrant heavy Box Hill, truely streotypical middle class Nunawading/ Mitcham/ Blackburn South, tree changing Blackburn and to a lesser extent Mitcham, Upper Middle Class Vermont/Vermont South,Lower Middle Class Forest Hill and mixed income Burwood/ Burwood East

@Nimalan, I think one reason why Doncaster has a low Seifa is due to high percentage of newer immigrants where they are more likely to not declare or only declare a little bit of their income. Immigrant disproportionately work in cash jobs (technically illegal) or/and only have most of their income from relatives overseas which would not be declared to the ATO

@ Marh, 100% agree with your Whitehorse analysis. Just would add a lot of the Box Hill North especially around Kerrimuir locality also fits with the standard middle class like Blackburn South etc and also a bit different from the immigrant heavy Central Box Hill. IMV view a lot of the southern parts of Doncaster are not different from the northern most parts of Whitehorse for example around the Beverley Hills booth. It is also the case that the part of Blackburn around the lake is often more desirable and expensive that the southern parts of Doncaster. Which is why i say that the Manningham/Whitehorse divide is not as sharp as the Manningham/Boroondara divide. It would be interesting to look at Banyule as it has elite territory, Upper Middle Class, Standard Middle Class, Lower Middle Class and disadvantaged territory.

@ Marh, also regarding SEIFA, i don’t dismiss it but like you pointed out it is an imperfect measure. I use it often in my commentary on this forum. It often indirectly measures class but not directly. I think if get an Adjusted SEIFA score that excludes growth areas and only uses owner-occupied single family homes so we compare apples to apples then the ranking maybe a better reflection of class. For example, Ashburton has a score of 90 even though it includes some significant social housing around Alamein which Labor often wins that booth. If this was excluded i believe it will exceed Templestowe and maybe even Park Orchards. Kirribilli will exceed The Ponds etc. In many cases i think SEIFA ranks are accurate description of class for example Eaglemont has a score of 100 and even if there is an adjusted SEIFA it will remain very high.

How would the Eastern suburbs electorates with large Chinese communities vote?

At the federal election, Labor flipped Reid, Bennelong and Chisholm following big swings. There were also big swings to Labor in parts of Menzies, Parramatta and Banks. Since Kooyong had a successful teal independent and there wasn’t a traditional LNP vs ALP contest, it’s hard to know whether Balwyn and Balwyn North voters would’ve swung hard to Labor.

Interesting point @Volante. I’ve read quite a lot about that and it seems to be a consensus that the teals provided an outlet for disgruntled liberal voters to vote against the liberals without having to vote for Labor.

Without the option of a teal, most analysts claim that the seats which flipped teal would still be Liberal, and the number breakdowns support that theory.

The Teal affect at the Victorian election is likely not going to pull the same number of votes that they did federally, thus they’ll mostly being stuck in 3rd (or lower) in the vote count. This hampers Labor’s position when it comes to preferences, hence the little jabs that VIC Labor have already taken at the teal running in Caulfield.

If you look at the swings in seats won by the teals, it is evident that a much larger proportion of Labor and Greens voters switched their vote to the teal than Liberal voters did. The teals only needed enough Liberal voters to switch their vote to get them above 50% when combined with Labor and Green voters, and for their primary vote to be high enough to make it to the 2CP.

Good point Nicholas. “Disgruntled Liberal voters” were not the main reason why a teal won Kooyong (where Kew and Hawthorn are).

Josh Frydenberg got the highest primary vote out of all Liberal seats that went teal. This is probably an indication of his strong personal vote. The swing away was 6.5%. Labor and the Greens lost a combined total of 25.4%. I suspect that many Labor and Greens voters rallied behind Monique Ryan and this helped her score the highest primary vote out of all the teal challengers. The pre-election margin was around 6% (Lib vs Grn) and so not many Liberal voters needed to switch to make Josh lose his seat.

Although, Monique Ryan also attained one of the highest primary votes of all the teal candidates. There seems to be a considerable degree of variation in this behaviour across teal electorates. The other extreme is North Sydney, where Tink’s primary vote was only 25% and the Labor and Greens primaries held up much better than in Kooyong.

Wow fat-shaming…is that you Timmy? I wouldn’t be throwing stones in that particular glasshouse.

With the absence of Tim Smith I would say the LNP have a better chance of holding here.

Does anyone know what the “on the ground” campaign is like in Kew? What is the teal candidate like?

I just looked at Sportsbet (fun to look at despite its flaws and their lack of political insights) for Kew. The odds of an independent win are shorter than the odds of a Liberal win. Labor is a distant third.

I think the Liberals are winning the corflute game for sure. In my block, there are around 75% Liberal ones 10% Teal and like 3 Labor ones. Not all houses have but the breakdown of the percentage is above. I’ve also noticed a lot of Liberal store posters on the main cafes.

Personally, I’m calling Liberal hold Marginally. But would not be surprised if Teals win

My assessment of campaign visibility is that the Sophie Torney campaign has good visibility in Kew (the suburb), less so at the eastern end of the electorate around Balwyn. In terms of predictions my view is much the same as Bingo’s, but if a teal wins a seat in Victoria this looks the most likely prospect.

BT I 100% agree with you! I recently went towards the border of Hawthorn and Kew and noticed Sophie placard in the Hawthorn electorate, like no joke cause across the road was a Kennedy Placard and three houses down was a Liberal Hawthorn one. So unsure why they wouldn’t have Mel.
But personally, I think the Teals best shot in Victoria is Kew though the Liberals seem to have nominated someone strong in both Hawthorn and Kew and Labor seems to recently spend more money in Caulfield. So we will see!

Supposedly there’s Liberal internal polling showing that the Liberals are in real danger in Kew and Caulfield, whilst being a strong possibility of missing out on Hawthorn. Brighton and Sandringham are supposedly safe, however.

I expect the strongest teal results in Metro Melbourne to be in Kew and Hawthorn with a possibility of one or even both winning.

If the Liberal vote drops below 40% in Kew, it would be really difficult for them to hang on. If the teal candidate comes second, then she will get most Labor, Greens and AJP preferences.

Tim Smith accused Matthew Guy of cancelling Renee Heath and claims it’s “cultural Marxism”. The Libs should be happy Tim Smith isn’t contesting here because if he was, he’d be the number one target for the teals. Plus, he has used a lot of harsh rhetoric against China, the most out of any state Lib, which wouldn’t help him in the Balwyn end of the seat.

@DanM that’s very simplistic and assumes that anyone with a Chinese-sounding surname supports China. Many would be more anti than your average Australian.

To be fair, the former federal government was extremely hawkish on China relations and proceeded to lose Reid, Higgins, and even Bennelong, and not make much of a scratch in Parramatta. Although Entrepreneur you are right too.

Many Chinese voters in Australia are anti-CCP, but many more absolutely do take any attack on China as a veiled attack on Chinese people generally. There is a very widespread sentiment amongst Chinese Australians that Anglo Aussie are by default pretty racist towards Asians.

Any party who pretends otherwise is setting themselves up for failure.

@Entrepreneur and Daniel the problem about the rhetoric isn’t about whether one supports the Chinese government or not, it’s more of the fact that the fear that the rhetoric could lead to discrimination and the like. If it was solely about supporting the Chinese government then there would have been a strong pro Lib swing among anti-China voters in the community to cancel out the anti-Lib one instead of the huge and consistent anti-Lib swings in basically every seat with a significant Chinese community. Tim Smith’s rhetoric has been very inflammatory to say the least, on par with what Dutton and the other hawks in the federal government have been using. Contrast that with say the lack of noise put out by the NSW state Libs and Perrottet in particular despite him also being in that hard right faction.

I agree with Dan M, if it was anti CCP then areas such as Templetowe which has a large HK Chinese community especially around Serpells PS and Sunnybank (QLD) which has a large Taiwanese community would have had a swing to the Libs. Also Tangney has a large Malaysian and Singaporean community in all cases there was a swing to Labor above the state average. The NSW Libs seem to be the Gold standard at the moment none of them seem to talk rubbish unlike Victorian and Federal libs. Tony Abbott used words such as “Cult of the Red Empreror” which is quite imflmmatory as it mocks traditional Chinese Culture and the Legend of the Yellow Empreror.

Agree Expat and Dan M, it is the way the political class use language/dialogue that has an impact on voters of Asian background. Labor does this well by using a more neutral tone, indicating disagreement with CCP policies overall but also being open to engaging in constructive dialogue to ‘iron out’ points of difference between the two sides.

In contrast, many on the Coalition side use language that is seen to be openly hostile and without the attempt to engage constructively with their opponents.