Malvern – Victoria 2022

I’ll just add, or I should say reiterate Nimalan’s point, that teals running in seats that Labor are competitive in actually hinders Labor. It doesn’t help them.

If a teal ran in Higgins – and probably would not have made the 2CP count there – it would actually have helped Katie Allen retain the seat and Labor would probably not have gained it.

The exact same situation can be said to be the most likely outcome in Caulfield, Hawthorn, Sandringham & Brighton, with teal interference probably hindering Labor’s chances of winning those seats.

Hawthorn may be a special case because Labor don’t see themselves holding it long term and think that the teal will have a better hold on the seat than John Kennedy, so it could be a strategic decision to lose that seat. There is no reason to do that in Caulfield though where a Labor MP could well & truly entrench themselves.

@Mark,
That maybe so but the question should be who the voters feel best represents them not so much what is the strategic interest of Labor and the Libs. We have just heard from Nicholas who has stated that he is a voter who should be be voting for the Libs but cannot do so and is forced to vote otherwise like when i said about Higgins voters in May. I also want the Teals to run in Labor seats and i listed some that i think they can do well in. In the Yan Yean thread you mentioned you feel that Labor represents the affluent in Melbourne maybe that not so much as Dan M pointed out because they are excited about Labor but because they feel their own party is abandoning them. If a Teals ran more widely or if the Libs were more to the centre then that will not be the case. Labor would have campaigned in Longman, Petrie etc instead of Higgins. It will also allow Labor to focus on the needs of working people. Regarding Pesutto, i actually think the fact that he lost his seat on live TV last time and conducting himself with Dignity and Grace actually lifted his profile. If there was no Teal it maybe the case that he may have won back the seat of Hawthorn as many moderate Libs who dont want Matt Guy to be premier may still vote Liberal knowing that the Libs are unlikely to form government this time and he may be the last hope to return the Liberal party to where it used to be. The Liberal party was formed in Hawthorn Town Hall over 70s years ago and if there is any hope it can be rebuilt maybe Glenferrie Road is where it should start.

@Nimalan 100% agree. The primary vote for Labor is really low in the affluent inner city areas where they supposedly did well. The key thing is that although the affluent voters would be turned off the right wing populism spewed out by the Libs recently, they inherently are still economically conservative favouring lower taxes and deregulation and the like. That’s why all it would take to win them back for the Libs is due shift the party to be more liberal and centre-right while also reinforcing the traditional economic conservatism the party stands for rather than copying the UAP or the US republican party under Trump.

@ Dan M
Yes if we look at primary votes the story is entirely different and not showing any realignment. In many cases the Labor PV is much lower than in the past (Higgins and Macnamara compared to 2004). Conversely, in none of the poorest urban seats did the Lib PV increase in May and all of the poorest 10 urban seats are either held by Labor or Dai Le.

I noticed a trend how right-wing populism in the LNP won’t likely shore up the same support as in USA (GOP) or Canada (Pierre Poilievre). I think one factor could the lack Libertarianism and political activeness entering Australian culture and the LNP seems to normal shore up moderate support until the teal wave. This explains why Matthew Guy despite policies and rhetoric similar to Pierre Poilievre, he did not get popular support unlike Poilievre

Also in some cases Matt Guy has tried to move back to centre such as Legislated 2030 Climate target, Treaty and also dedicated LGBT Legal service and has been attacked by Sky News for this reason

Their problem is that Victoria’s generally progressive voters can’t really believe or trust that pivot back to the centre, when the leader says one thing clearly as a political strategy but then the party still goes ahead and pre-selects a gaggle of religious conservatives and populist nutters.

The simple fact is that Victoria is socially progressive, even half its Liberal (or former Liberal) voters are. Socially conservative candidates repel at least 70% of the voting population in this state.

If the Liberal Party were entirely made up of MPs of the Turnbull, Julie Bishop, Katie Allen, John Hewson, Ted Baillieu ilk then seats like Hawthorn, Malvern, Kew, Sandringham & Brighton would still be on double digit margins, and the party would actually be electable.

But unless the party purges itself of its entire conservative wing, they’ll never be elected here no matter how Labor are performing, and the sensible Liberal voters will be driven into the arms of centrist independents, or even Labor & The Greens who they might not agree with economically but at least better represent their social values.

The crazies on Sky News, and in their YouTube comments, might not agree with that in their quest to push the Liberal Party further to the right, but pandering to a completely insignificant minority of wacky right-wingers will never win government in Victoria. This isn’t exactly South Carolina.

Agree Trent, the right wing populism displayed by the majority of the modern Liberal Party will work in some areas (outer suburban parts of major cities and also rural areas, but not the affluent inner suburban parts which are necessary to win power in places like Victoria and NSW).

The Coalition probably needs to go back to its ‘broad church’ view where Liberals hold the centre-right position and the Nationals remain the rural, populist brand.

Definitely.

I understand it more at a federal level, because QLD is such an important electoral battleground, and the reason it works in QLD is because it has the least centralised population in Australia with only around 50% in Brisbane. This makes it a lot more similar to a lot of US states where more traditionally conservative rural/regional voters have a lot more influence on the result due to population spread.

But in a state like Victoria, more than 80% of the population lives in its extremely cosmopolitan and progressive capital city. And on top of that, the next 3 largest cities are all Labor strongholds and becoming increasingly cosmopolitan with tree-changers too.

Yes, further to your comment Trent even a city like Brisbane lacks a lot of the ‘affluent’ inner city areas compared to Sydney and Melbourne that would favour moderate, small ‘l’ Liberal candidates over the right wing populist types. There are a few pockets of these suburbs close to the CBD, some examples being Toowong/Indooroopilly, West End/South Brisbane and also Hamilton but these are nowhere near as extensive when compared to Sydney or Melbourne.

In contrast, outer suburban areas where voters are either working class or mid tier (typically self-employed or work in trade sector) make up a much larger proportion of the wider metropolitan area for Brisbane vs Sydney and Melbourne.

The affluent inner-city areas are scarcer in Brisbane, but it would also seem they’re more concentrated and more progressive than such areas in Sydney or Melbourne. It’s what enabled the Greens to win three seats in Brisbane.

Agree Nicholas, although I think the Green vote in Brisbane area was amplified a bit because there were no ‘teal’ candidates running. I feel that the areas covered by Brisbane and Ryan districts are more like suburbs in North Shore and Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, which are quite affluent in nature compared to places in Griffith district which behave more like the Inner West of Sydney.

All both very astute observations @Trent & @Yoh An. Just to build further, even ignoring the regions, Greater Brisbane & South East Queensland as an entity do not share the same coherence and centralization as a city like Melbourne in general. It is more sprawling, less dense, and features its own self-contained pockets and communities of interest – divorced from the Brisbane CBD. These pockets are all geographically distributed between various natural boundaries like rivers, creeks, reserves, mountains and along sea-ways. Ben on this site has mentioned multiple times how this creates more of a mixed and disorganised distribution of demographics (especially wealth), throughout the corner of SE QLD than say in Melbourne.

Greater Sydney is somewhat more closer to SE QLD due to its sprawling geography separated by rivers and reserves. Greater Sydney also features significant business-districts outside its main CBD. However Sydney’s status as the de facto financial centre of Australia does have it host far more affluence and wealth than Brisbane, especially situated in proximity to its CBD and sea-ways.

@Nicholas, I believe the boundaries helped played a factor here in helping the Greens achieve three seats in comparison to Melbourne’s one. In Melbourne, the boundary neatly encompasses the strongest pockets of Greens support into one division. This is great for the Greens in this one seat but it has them struggling in neighbouring divisions like Wills and Cooper where their vote is much weaker and not high enough to make an impact. In Brisbane, its inner-city ring is divided up into three different divisions being split by the river, and extends into leafy greenbelt suburbs. This allows for areas of strong Greens support (albeit not as strong as Melbourne, but enough to make an impact) to be split across three different divisions. This also comes back to the notion that support for any particular party including the Greens would be less-concentrated and more geographically sparse throughout SE QLD.

I agree with the comments below. I would also add that I feel the LNP brand mean that they are underperforming in the affluent suburbs compared to the interstate counterparts. The Lib primary even without a Teal was lower in Ryan than in Higgins, Goldstein or Kooyong etc. Ryan actually returned a notional TPP Labor majority. I feel LNP brand helps in areas such as Blair, Longman etc. If we look at the Centenary Suburbs in Brisbane LNP is underperforming compared to similar areas such as Cherrybook, West Pennant Hills or the Manningham suburbs in Melbourne. The only area in Victoria where i feel this right-wing populist message will work is the La Trobe valley.

@SEQ Observer, they are great observations not only about the geographical differences in Brisbane v Melbourne, that is the areas of the city being less cohesively connected to each other and the CBD, but especially around the boundaries being favourable for Greens gains.

I feel like outside the seat of Melbourne, the strongest Greens areas on both the north side (Brunswick area and Northcote/Thonbury area) and south side (St Kilda area and Prahran/Windsor area) are each split across two seats, being Wills & Cooper in the north and Higgins & Macnamara in the south.

In each case, the strong Greens areas are offset by areas the Greens don’t do as well, such as north of Bell Street in the northern suburbs, the Liberal heartland of Higgins, and the Caulfield area of Macnamara.

If the seats in northern Melbourne put Brunswick were more horizontal rather than vertical shaped, that is, uniting south of Bell St (Brunswick, Northcote, Thornbury) in one seat and north of Bell St (Pascoe Vale to Reservoir) in the other, and in the southern suburbs the boundaries moved Caulfield to Higgins and united Prahran, Windsor, South Yarra & St Kilda in Macnamara, there’d probably have 3 Greens seats in Melbourne too.

@SEQ Observer, If a Teal ran in May in the 3 affluent Brisbane seats do feel that any of them could have been won by them instead of the Greens.
@Trent, Do you feel the reason why the Greens failed to outpoll Labor in both Higgins and Macnamara even though neither seat has really any working class areas these days is maybe the Jewish community in both seats prefer Labor over the Greens if Libs are no longer palatable especially when compared to the results in the 3 Brisbane seats.

@Nimalan, I don’t think so to be honest. It’s definitely the case in the Caulfield area of Macnamara, but doesn’t explain Labor still outpolling the Greens (only just) across most of Port Melbourne, South Melbourne & Albert Park, despite the Greens vote still massively increasing in those suburbs.

I’m really not sure why, but Labor do have a rich history in Port Melbourne & South Melbourne, and perhaps having a popular and visible incumbent helped Labor more there than in seats like Ryan & Brisbane.

In Higgins, I think the stronger Labor suburbs like Carnegie, Murrumbeena and Ashburton are just more traditional suburban ALP v LIB battlegrounds, but I don’t really have any explanation as to why Labor outpolled the Greens in suburbs like Toorak, Armadale and Malvern. Like you, I would have expected them to behave more like the Brisbane seats, and at state level I would probably expect Malvern to be more of a LIB v GRN than LIB v ALP seat too based on its more ‘teal’ demographic.

@ Trent, yes i agree with you. It makes perfect sense in stronger Labor suburbs such as Carnegie and Murrumbeena. Also agree with popular incumbent and a rich history in Port Melbourne/South Melbourne. i am perplexed why Labor outpolled the Greens in the Liberal heartland of Higgins also in Albert Park, Middle Park, St Kilda Road area and the Domain part of South Yarra areas which seems to be more of a teal demographic. I feel residents in these suburbs would have a class based aversion to voting Labor and if not satisfied with Libs will go Green like what happened in Brisbane. The Greens peaked in 2016 in Higgins with Jason Ball but have not grown since despite a collapse in the Liberal vote.

I feel that Carnegie and Murrumbeena is an example of a centre-left suburb where they tend to be relatively socially progressive and university-educated professionals but want to govern more pragmatic and rational so they vote Labor instead The Greens

I agree Marh. I actually grew up in Murrumbeena so I know that area well. It’s very family-oriented which is a big contrast to the Prahran end of the seat, and is much more middle class (albeit upper middle class nowadays) than the Malvern area in the middle. As a result, I think “bread and butter” issues like cost of living, healthcare, childcare, education etc are most important and they are the issues where Labor are generally very well perceived as the party who can get things done in government.

In suburbs like Toorak, Armadale & Malvern though, where the sheer affluence provides a buffer from those sort of day to day cost of living issues, I would expect the Greens to outpoll Labor due to their stronger focus on environment & social justice.

Nimalan: If a Teal ran in May in the 3 affluent Brisbane seats do feel that any of them could have been won by them instead of the Greens?

Potentially. I do think the Greens did really well because of the absence of a Teal choice in the three inner-city Brisbane seats. This had their interest elevated beyond their usual base and heightened amongst punters attuned to the teal-wave. This was just enough to overcome some key benchmarks on 4CP and 3CP to get them locked into a favourable 2CP contest. However I think throwing in the teals into the mix of the contests of Brisbane, Ryan and Griffith might have complicated the field entirely and potentially would have led to messy 3CP and 4CP contests that would have resulted in unfavourable 2CPs for the Greens or removed them from 2CP entirely. The outcomes of which might have even just been a status quo Labor or LNP victory.

One feature of the Greens win was also the elevated climate-change concerns in the immediate aftermath of the catastrophic floods only months prior. Teals might have also been able to ride high on these concerns, but the presence of both parties could have potentially split the field in unforeseen ways.

Side-note: I think that the recent and ongoing flooding in Victoria, will also bolster the Greens and Teals coming into this election.

Another point RE: teal seats in the three Brisbane seats.

I was going to suggest that there is perhaps better teal targets in Queensland than the three inner-city Brisbane seats. For example I think McPherson on the Gold Coast is probably the most appropriate match. A seat like McPherson shares many similarities in its profile with the teal communities of Sydney, particularly Northern beaches. I think that these similarities between the Southern end of the Gold Coast to Sydney’s Northern beaches might be apparent to a lot of people but I might describe them at a later date for those interested.

I feel like what consistently gets left out of the Brisbane seat analysis is just how massive and effective the Green campaign up there was. Yes, those seats could very well have gone teal but the Greens put up a huge amount of effort and that’s what ultimately swung those seats their way.

Interesting. I’m not too familiar with the Gold Coast but my impression is the Gold Coast is considerably more conservative than the Northern Beaches. Income and education is a fair bit lower in the former too.

Gold Coast is not “conservative” I would say they are economically liberal (they are big supporters of tax cuts) but on social issues they are quire progressive. So the northern beaches comparison is almost correct, but I might compare the Gold Coast to western Perth/golden triangle

I have been to the Gold Coast many times so no outsider from other states can say it’s “conservative” if the US political parties were in Australia, it would be like Miami-Dade, strongly Democrat.

Seats in Melbourne lile Malvern probably share similar characteristics being economically liberal. But progressive on social issues and climate change, which was a driving force for conservative losses in traditional liberal seats back in may. Matthew Guy has learnt 0.

Probably agree Daniel and SEQ observer, the results for the state seat of Currumbin (which overlaps with McPherson federal district) were marginal for LNP at most elections except the 2012 landslide. The only ‘safe’ Gold Coast seat is probably Surfers Paradise which is analogous to the NSW state district of Terrigal, other districts are generally marginal in nature and have flipped between Labor and LNP for state elections.

In fact, I probably see the Gold Coast being similar to Central Coast region north of Sydney in that it is swing like and used as a commuter belt region for the principal capital city.

@Nicholas your assessment is true of the Gold Coast more broadly. In terms of attitudes and sentiment, the constituents of the Gold Coast are generally more “conservative”, this is reflected in their high first-preference counts for parties like One Nation and their historical track record of voting for the Coalition.

I would argue attitudes in the recent decade along the Gold Coast’s beach suburbs has pivoted more towards a fiscally-focused “liberalism”. Unsurprising given Gold Coast’s very commercial culture. This has been reflected in recent candidates and campaigns by LNP. Moncrieff MP Angie Bell comes to mind. It is this pivot by the LNP on the Gold Coast which also suggests that is potentially ripe for a progressive or moderate teal-like candidate.

In terms of demographics, the southern end of the Gold Coast is more educated and has a higher-income than its northern end. Both income and education levels are growing quickly in this division. It is an attractive place for young people, particularly young-families to move to and this is reflected in a growing segment of 20 – 34 year olds in this division. This division includes access to higher education institutions like Bond University. On the ground, local issues like over-development and environmental degradation are what energise the constituents of this particular end of the Gold Coast. Its political energy seems to be an extension of CSR – Corporate social responsibility; the phenomena of corporations becoming a vehicle for social and cultural change. This is a political energy adjacent to and highly relational to the teal-movement more broadly.

Income isn’t necessarily the best indication of the Gold Coast’s affluence. Its affluence is more so reflected in its real-estate market, particularly because of its sizable older segment of the population which are sitting on multi-million dollar properties.

During the pandemic, this region was popular for interstate migrants that were buying in the higher bracket of the real-estate market. Interstate migrants buying in the lower brackets were moving into the more affordable dwellings in the North including Logan and Ipswich, much further away from the beaches. The ongoing rental crisis is pushing out a lot of lower-middle income constituents and forcing them to relocate up North or out West.

Basically consider McPherson a more progressive and environmentally focused community than its surrounding divisions to the North. While also being a more commercial and developed community than Greens target seat Richmond (federal) on its southern boundaries.

I say the Surfers Paradise area is strong for the LNP since they tend to be Old-Money areas with an older average age and are probably economically benefitting from their business successes. I don’t think the Teal would make the same inroads to this type of demographic and I believe Gold Coast is rather a higher-density version of Mornington Peninsula.

Thanks SEQ Observer, Agree Gold Coast is interesting. What about Sunshine Coast at a state level? Does seats such as Caloundra/Maroochydore have a “Teal demographic”. At a federal level Fairfax and Fisher both have more inland rural areas.

@Marh, while I do agree with you about Surfers Paradise, the division in particular I called out, McPherson, does not encompass Surfers Paradise. It instead includes suburbs like Burleigh, Palm Beach and Robina. One other thing I would caution about observing the Gold Coast politically, is that Surfers Paradise isn’t a great representative sample of its population because its skyline is mostly made up of hotels and temporary accommodation, housing tourists. It doesn’t actually Yhave a large amount of registered voters proportional to its perceived density.

And while I do see some similarities between the Mornington Peninsula, I still think that the Northern Beaches and Sutherland Shire, at either edge of Sydney, are still more analogous with the Gold Coast.

@Nimalan, I touched on this one a bit on the Nepean profile. But yes, Sunshine Coast does have some teal tendencies, mostly around Noosa. QLD state elections observers would point to the state division of Noosa, which has been held for some time by Independent Sandy Bolton, an environmentally focused “proto-teal” if you will. Noosa is on the Northern edge of the Sunshine Coast where nature reserves meet the beach and multi-million dollar homes. Prior to Bolton’s incumbency, Noosa would feature Greens vs Coalition 2CPs that Coalition would edge out. While Noosa is significant enough at a state level to have a strong teal-vote, it is not quite significant enough at a federal level to make an impact while being housed with Wide Bay, a division which includes a lot of semi-rural constituents as well as considerable levels of support for One Nation.

As an aside, at a state level, there is another division on the Sunshine Coast which curiously includes high first-preference votes for simultaneously both the Greens and One Nation (as well as PUP, KAP, etc) – the electoral district of Glass House.

Interesting. The federal Gold Coast seats (Fadden, McPherson, and Moncrieff) were among the safest Liberal seats a decade ago, and they still are now. How do you explain this?

Because nobody is putting serious effort into them, that is why, Labor always run dead because they have 7-10 other seats they can target before them. I believe the Gold Coast was looking competitive in 2009 when ALP under Rudd was up 59-41 in the polls and he was considering calling a double dissolution I believe on an ETS.

No teal seems to bother either because they wanted to try the experiment in Sydney and Melbourne first considering they are more progressive and less white than many area’s here in QLD.

If the teals were not successful in May, I guarantee there would be no serious independent candidates at the state election except for the rural ones like in Benambra.

Malvern appears to be a liberal retain because of its name
and margin think most falls in Higgins what were the equivalent figures. I would presume this estimate is right.but who knows

Very interesting discussion about the gold coast without mentioning the number of people in Malvern who own apartments on the gold coast……

Original Victorian purchasers were people wanting to be domiciled in Qld to avoid death duties that Joh’s government abolished.

New investors and families moving north to avoid the future possibility of another “longest” lock down in the democratic world.

Labor aren’t bothering here, it’ll stay Liberal rather comfortably.

This seat reminds me of Vaucluse (the state seat) in NSW. Both are blue-ribbon Liberal heartland seats, entirely within non-Liberal federal seats. From memory, this neck of the woods was overwhelmingly Liberal-voting at the federal election, except for Malvern East and Carnegie North. Toorak and Kooyong have an older, university-educated population who are more old-school Liberal.

I’m not surprised that there won’t be a teal candidate in Malvern at the state election. They missed their chance with Higgins at the federal election. Liberal hold for sure.

Yes I tend to count this seat as one of the 5 the liberals will probably hold

Thanks Votante

I understand why a teal didn’t run in Higgins, because there are too many non-teal suburbs like Windsor, Prahran, South Yarra, Carnegie and Glenhuntly and also both Labor and the Greens were seen to have a good chance of winning (Labor did but the Greens tanked).

But Malvern is entirely comprised of the teal-like heart of Higgins, where wothout those other suburbs neither Labor or the Greens are competitive. So it’s more like Goldstein and Kooyong than Higgins was.

I think Kew and Malvern, if a teal ran here, would have been the two best chances of teal gains.

@ Trent, agree with you regarding the fact that there are strong left-wing areas in Higgins which is in stark contrast to Kooyong.
Just wondering if you think if a Teal ran that would mean that the Greens would come second on primaries rather than Labor as it is really only the Glen Eira part and Alamein public housing area that is strong for Labor. Also I am thinking the Northern Fringe of South Yarra close to the River is Teal territory around Como Park. There are apartments here but more period style high end such as the Beverley Hills Apartment block etc rather than the newer ones along Chapel Street etc. These apartments i am guessing would attract a higher income demographic that maybe more like Hawthorn than Prahran/Windsor

Yes I think you’re right Nimalan. When I included South Yarra I was in two minds because the northern part is more teal-ish and in other thread yesterday I made the same comparison to Hawthorn as well. But I think the southern half of South Yarra from Toorak Rd to Commercial Rd is now more like Prahran, so I reluctantly included mostly that part as being less teal-ish.

On the flipside, the eastern portion of Prahran close to Orrong Road is quite teal-ish.

I also agree that if a teal ran, it would gave been an interesting 4 way contest and the Greens may have finished ahead of Labor if teal preferences went that way.

Trent, totally agreed about the Southern part of South Yarra is not that much different to the majority of Prahran these days especially around Chapel Street where there is quite a bit of intensive development. However, I feel that trend is helping the Greens rather than Labor. Also agreed that the Eastern portion around Orrong is Teal-ish.

Regarding if a Teal ran in Higgins in May, methinks even if we just look at the Raw vote before preferences are allocated, I think the Greens may have still finished ahead of Labor. A lot of the increase in the Labor primary vote since 2016 at been at the expense of the Libs and those voters may have voted teal. The only place I think Labor could have increased their primary vote would be in the middle-class Glen Eira portion due to a focus on bread-and-butter issues. While I think the Greens vote would have held up better around Prahran Windsor than the Labor votes in Teal territory.

Also do you feel the St Kilda Road Area (Melbourne 3004) and the part of South Yarra west of Punt Road in Macnamara is Teal-ish?

The St Kilda Road area has Southbank vibes with all the new luxury apartment developments, I guess South Yarra above Toorak Road also does, though it’s arguable that Southbank itself, along with Docklands is pretty Teal-ish being affluent but socially progressive.

At the federal election, the Labor primary vote in Higgins was the highest around the western parts e.g. Carnegie, Murrumbeena, Chadstone. This is where it’s more suburban, rather than inner-city, but still with an above-median income. The Greens primary vote were the highest in South Yarra and Prahran obviously.

Almost all of the said areas are outside of the Malvern state electorate. Any redistribution of Malvern eastward or westward would slice the Liberal margin.

I think a teal didn’t run in Higgins as it has not-so-teal areas as some before have said (e.g. Green strongholds) and also the fact that Labor/Greens were competitive in 2019 and thus the pre-2022 election margin was already thin. Mind you, I was surprised that Labor won Higgins because it’s one of the wealthiest electorates in Australia and it contains Toorak and Armadale.

The Liberals have announced a 800 meter tram extension from Darling Road to East Malvern station. Tram Route 3. This should be welcome it makes no sense that the East Malvern tram route stops a few hundred meters from the station.

@Nimalan If you ask me it should be extended even further to Chadstone shopping centre.

A good proposal but it really seems the Liberals are picking the low-hanging fruit when it comes to their announcements.

@ Dan M
I agree with you 100% regarding Chadstone SC extension for Route 3. The only thing why i still welcome this is that it can be done in two stages first to East Malvern RS and then to Chadstone SC. I agree with Nicholas that the Libs are picking up low-hanging fruit with their PT announcements but a lot of these are critical and often dont get the attention they deserve. There is another example just to south with Tram Route 67 which stops a few hundred meters from Carnegie station. I would like there to be a Tram Network Development Plan similar to Metro Rail and Regional Rail so we can have a pipeline of projects. There is also much needed track duplications of single track sections that does not seem to be getting much attention.