Melton – Victoria 2022

This seat is interesting as despite labor Winning office it swung against them in 2014 & 2018. This will be in treating to watch.

Bob, I think the 2018 swing came down to a protest vote against then Labor MP Don Nardella (he retired at that election). He was embroiled in some corruption scandal relating to failure to declare ownership of a second property outside his electorate.

I think the 2018 result was a combination of Nardella, the change in ALP candidate during 2018, a sentiment of the west being neglected and the increased informal vote due to the increased number of candidates (from 8.13% with 9 candidates in 2014 to 10.06% with 12 candidates in 2018).

The Nardella and ALP candidate change issues will almost certainly have diminished in the 4 years since the 2018 election, with the ALP now having a non-Nardella incumbent.

With the redistribution cutting the size of the seat, the number of candidates should decrease and therefore the informal vote drop as well. For example, Jarrod Bingham is described by the ABC Elections Melton 2018 page as living in Bacchus Marsh and did best in Bacchus Marsh booths, which are now in Eureka, so I presume he won`t be running in Melton.

Tom the first and best, does the west still feel neglected now?

I still won’t put this seat as safe as the swings against Labor here have been quite large. The multiple covid outbreaks have heavily affected this area so there may be anger from that still. If Labor has a poor showing on the night here then this electorate could come into play.

TOM, jarrod bingham had a strong showing in bacchus marsh because he was a local councillor that had a lot of local projects supported but like bob turner, ian Birchall and most the INDIES they were supporting each other and all agreed that unless 1 of them got elected they told people to put labor last (how to vote cards) but liberals 3rd last and greens 2nd last that way the seat could be pushed to marninal. now we see the liberals talking about the hospital as much as labor so the we can say the seat is marginal but we still feel neglected

https://www.tallyroom.com.au/vic2022/melton2022/comment-page-1#comment-762028

Thank you for the local info. Being a recent municipal politician in Moorabool I would think decreases the chances he will run in the new Melton, given very little of Moorabool is in the new Melton and almost all of it is in Eureka. However he did run in Gorton in 2019, which did not have any Bacchus Marsh in it but did have Melton in it, so he may run in Melton (if he continues with politics, if he runs in the new Hawke that may indicate his continuation with politics).

Why were there half a dozen independents running here in 2018?

Labor is set to build a new hospital in Melton which seems to me that they are a tad worried about here.

Bob, this is one of the fastest growing places in Australia and it needs a new hospital. This doesn’t mean Labor is worried about it. The Liberals haven’t won a seat in the west for decades and they’re not going to win one in 2022.

The Federal results are not promising for the ALP here

This is the most fascinating contest of the election. An independent, labor or liberal could win or even possibly some anti-lockdown minor party such as LD or UAP (unlikely) . However McGhie is a sophomore and hence should pick up votes so a very fascinating contest. Labor haven’t lost a Vic seat (federal or state) with a sitting member to the liberals since 2013.

Graham Watt, the former Burwood MP, is running here after losing the Ashwood preselection. What a complete joke.

UAP is apparently going to field candidates in every single seat, this could if they do end up doing really help the LNP here.

Bob, they did that at the last QLD state election I believe or at least most seats and look how many seats they helped the LNP win lol. Won’t have any effect, if anything it splits the right-wing vote and not all preferences will come back to the conservatives so it costs them seats.

Interesting to see if the swing against Labor here was a result of the bad Labor MP before 2018 or a shift towards the Liberals. Not a good look for the former Burwood MP to be parachuted into this seat…

@Ham Selecting the former Burwood MP is definitely a bad look for the Libs and also poor strategy, surely they could’ve found someone in the area especially considering that they’re targeting this seat.
This seat is interesting as it’s believed to be in play due to been more marginal than surrounding seats, mostly due to Labor not receiving a swing to it unlike other seats due to issues within the seat such as controversy of exiting MP and late change of candidate. Lockdowns probably weren’t popular in this area but Labor did build a new hospital here. Could Labor get a swing to them here without the controversies they had last election here and a new hospital.

@North East

Labor did not build a new hospital there. They’ve been promising one since the 80s. Dan promised again in 2014 with nothing to show and again in 2018. The thing isn’t due to be finished until 2029, and only has 100 beds for a population that is projected to reach 300k by 2029.

And that date is providing everything runs on time. With the history of Andrews’ infrastructure blow outs and scheduling, I’d project that the hospital project will go well into the 2030s and will be overcapacity already due to the minuscule number of beds.

Dan has added 0 out of 10 new hospitals to the system that he promised at the 2014/18 elections. He has only started works on one, and those works currently consist of merely getting a shovel into the ground.

A swing towards Labor this year has an near zero chance of happening. Add that to Dan’s privatisation of Vicroads almost certainly leading to rego increases impacting mortgage-stress Labor areas in the future, and this is a storm that Labor does not want to deal with.

One of the highest informal votes in the state in this electorate.

No clue what’ll happen here, Labor is very much on the nose in this part of Melbourne, Liberal candidate is a parachuted inner-suburbs MP who lost in 2018 who didn’t even live in Melton until very recently, and the Independent vote was very high in 2018 but split amongst 6 different candidates.

Liberals obviously don’t expect to win this by parachuting an MP from the opposite side of Melbourne. But they think they can keep this marginal. The margin here is clearly low for Labor due to issues as the last election, so a swing back to Labor is possible but also could be canceled out due to lockdown, and anti-Dan in the western parts. Although it is extremely unlikely this candidate is the right one to capitalise on that.

Possibly will stay around the 4-5% margin after the election for Labor.

I wouldn’t rule out a Dai-Le style independent winning here in future if the Liberals cannot. This is still natural Labor territory.

Well, Labor thought they could hold on to Parramatta with Mr Sixteen Million Dollar Bellevue Hill Mansion Man. (And to their credit, they did.)

Labor also thought they could hold on to ultra safe Fowler with Ms. Scotland Island and look how well it turned out for them.

@Daniel I think a Dai Le style independent would work best in areas like Tarneit or St Albans with more multicultural populations and safer Labor margins, meaning the Libs would run dead like how Labor runs dead in the Teal seats.

I don’t think there is a strong Dai Le style independent in the West maybe except for Joe Garra. Correct me if I am wrong

The federal results were much better here than they were in 2018. Most booths were around 60%+ 2PP. Haven’t seen or heard of any independents running here either.

I think the issues with the previous MP in Melton really brought down the Labor vote here last time, but don’t see how Labor could improve much here either – very much a seat they’ll be trying to defend rather than increase their vote.

Based on recent federal figures, Labor’s 2PP was in the low 60’s in Melton following a swing away. The vote for parties with anti-vax platforms (ONP, UAP, GAP) was about 15% in total in Hawke.

Melton’s Labor margin is misleading as there were 6 independents who split Labor’s and even the Liberal’s vote. I also don’t sense any indepedents running this state election. A local version of Dai Le could pop up and stir things up.

Dai Le only announced her nomination at the last minute so anything is possible. That being said, Fowler was the perfect kind of circumstance with a parachuted Anglo lady from the complete opposite side of Sydney who probably didn’t know where Fowler was on a map into a diverse electorate and discarding a local Vietnamese candidate. Dai Le also already had lots of connections in the community, having easily gotten 26% of the primary vote in the 2019 NSW election in Cabramatta without much media attention or effort. The Libs also aren’t running dead here like they did in Fowler or how Labor and the Greens did in the teal seats.

Labor has just announced a plan to remove 4 level crossings in this seat. All of Melton will be Level Crossing Free. This area maybe volatile as a growth area which can swing significantly.

This is a seat to watch, if the anti- Labor swing is on here could be in play however it will be interesting to see what happens if there is one independent & where those votes go.

The level crossing plan smacks of panic especially when they have made no definite commitment toward rail electrification.

@redistributed Agreed. Dan is making billions worth of new promises every day (many of them being rehashed from the 2014/18 elections).

I’m not buying it and it wreaks of desperation – especially these last minute ones in the west. I’m in the west. Dan has done little to nothing for this side of town.

Oops. This is the problem when you’re running for a third election on the back of broken promises. Journalists will dig them up during campaign season.

Electrification and Melton hospital have been promised for the last 4-8 years by the Andrews government. Both haven’t been delivered (despite other projects in marginal electorates being promised after and finished before Melton), with Steve McGhie MP expecting praise for putting up *a sign* for the hospital a couple days ago (hilarious)

https://twitter.com/raf_epstein/status/1577848383502372864?s=21&t=7J_EQwQKmHd5bOELgETcvQ

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=560417332557022&set=a.229979418934150&type=3

Agree Electrification is much needed. Just a couple of points Metro Tunnel is said to be a pre-req for Melton electrification. The other thing is that i feel that it maybe better to have the level crossings removed before the electrification is completed rather than other way around. For example removing overhead wires and signalling to grade separate. There also needs to be additional infill stations at Thornhill Park and Mount Atkinson (Hopkins Road). One the other side of town Clyde extention is also much needed and i am hoping both parties commit to it.

Mark, I agree with you about the Libs problems with trying to run a campaign on false claims of broken promises.
Every Victorian government announcement since Daniel Andrews became premier can be found at https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/
It is easy to compare announcement with delivery.

Anyone have any internal polling here as I would be very much interested to see how much Labor is in trouble here.

Really interested to see what will happen here. The federal results weren’t as bad here as I thought they would be, and Labor is actively campaigning here to try and hold the seat – rather than essentially giving up on some of their other seats like Nepean or Bass.

The liberal candidate is a complete dud, no clue why he’s been parachuted from the old seat of Burwood after he lost preselection there, the Labor MP doesn’t really have a local profile (from what I’ve seen so far) and seems to be quite a unknown. Also a possibility the independent Ian Birchall could do well too.

@watson

I said Labor. Not Libs. Libs haven’t been in government for the past 8 years. Labor has. And had a scroll through your link. A decent chunk of them are broken promises.

Dan coming across as really desperate in promising extra V/Line carriages/services on the Melton line.

The only problem is, he promised them electrification at both the 2014 and 2018 elections, and he’s done nothing for Melton in 8 years.

Mark, i support electrification but do you feel level crossings should be removed first or after electrification? Also Metro tunnel needs to be completed first

@ Nimalan

The problem with that spin from Dan is that Labor has been promising electrification for years before MM2 was a thing.

The level crossing removal is just a panicked election promise because Labor internals are looking bad in Melton.

Agree Nimalan, a lot of infrastructure projects are planned but ultimately require prerequisites otherwise it would create a mess and result in worse situation if delivered than if it were delayed/deferred until a later time.

I think in Brisbane there is talk about a new arterial road for Kenmore-Moggill area but that requires upgrades to the Centenary Motorway, otherwise it would just add to the existing logjam of traffic.

Mark, have you read government business cases that might suggest an alteration of the overall upgrade plan/strategy. These projects take decades to progress and an early business case might indicate electrification is suitable to be started first.

Later assessments may conclude that level crossing removals would be too disruptive, especially as patronage increases.

Well either Labor has stuffed up their planning, or they’ve lied (explicitly or by omission) in their promises. Either way, it’s negative.

And this is clearly a desperate last-ditch announcement as a response to bad internal polling, not something that was on the cards for years.

To understand this, you have to understand how Dan thinks. He doesn’t think in terms of future and what’s best for the public. He thinks in terms of vote security and his own political longevity. A perfect example of this would be the SRL, which is hilariously expensive and doesn’t have a business case. The entire project is about securing votes for Labor in the sand belt.

@ Mark, do you mean Metro Tunnel or MM2 (Clifton Hill to Newport link). Metro Tunnel is a prereq for both Melton electrification and Airport Rail link and is due for completion in 2024 and is being delivered. MM2 is required for Doncaster Rail and a branch line to Wollert and separation of Altona from Werribee line etc. Labor has yet to commit to Baxter electrification but is making Frankston line level crossing free. So it is an interesting question what order projects should come. For example last time the Libs promised to extend the line to Clyde without duplicating the exiting Cranbourne line or removing level crossings.

Sorry I meant metro tunnel. That was never part of the electrification promise and Dan never made it part of it.

He lied by omission. I really don’t see how any of you can believe him.

@ Mark, The PTV network Development Plan which was developed by an independent authority during the previous Liberal Government and released in December 2012 before Dan was elected stated that Metro Tunnel was to be built in stage 2 of plan while Stage 3 of the plan was for the Melton Electrification and Baxter electrification etc. Stage 2 of the plan was for Melton duplication which has now been delivered When Dan was elected he brought some projects such as Mernda extension (originally stage 4) and Cranbourne duplication forward (originally stage 3). i agree that level crossing removals were not stated a pre-req in the plan but is still worth pondering if it is better to be completed first. IMHO it was Tony Abbott who delayed this as he cancelled federal funding to all urban PT projects when he elected in 2013 forcing Dan to fully fund metro tunnel without federal funding. It could have started construction before Dan was elected if it was not for this decision.

Link to the plan below

https://www.ptv.vic.gov.au/assets/PTV-default-site/footer/legal-and-policies/growing-our-rail-network-2018-2025/PTV_Network-Development-Plan_Metropolitan-Rail_Overview_2016update.pdf

Nimalan, I think in Brisbane it is a similar situation with Cross River Rail – that is a major project that adds capacity and is a prerequisite before adding new lines or extensions such as Beaudesert, Gold Coast south of Varsity Lakes and also Sunshine Coast link.

Also your point makes it clear that a lot of election ‘promises’ are actually just short snippets that omit a lot of the meaty details. You have to read independent reports to get a clearer picture of the full plan and strategy.

The vast majority of the electorate are usually too disengaged to look into the actual detail. It doesn’t mean an election promise has been broken, but it does give opponents of the government an opportunity to try to capitalise on that by misleading people and misrepresenting the plans.

In regards to Dan Andrews, I think the way he handled the pandemic is evidence that he doesn’t put his electoral prospects first. Regardless of whether or not one may agree with his handling of it, or approve of the actions he took, that’s irrelevant to this one fact which is indisputable: almost every action he took was unpopular at the time, had a net-negative impact on his popularity, and therefore a net-negative impact on his electoral prospects, and therefore jeopardised rather than cemented his “power”.

So all the talk of Andrews trying to gain more “power” during the pandemic is complete rubbish because as I say, regardless of how much one might disagree or dislike the actions that were taken, they were absolutely not done to gain popularity (which in a democracy is the only way to gain power). He put his popularity and electoral prospects at risk to do what, at the time, he thought was right – again, whether or not one believes they actually were right is irrelevant to this discussion. The main driver was clearly that he didn’t want to look back with regret thinking he could have done more. That’s very different to a “power grab” or making decisions based on popularity.

The same principle can also be applied to a lot of the infrastructure projects. While it has now been clearly identified as a positive that he was rewarded for in 2018; back in his first term (2014-18) the massive disruptions associated with level crossing removals, Metro Tunnel and Sky Rail controversies were all risky in regards to his popularity because there is a view that the public will only see the disruptions and not the end results not being delivered in some cases for another couple of election cycles. Andrews just knew the work had to be done, and hoped/trusted that people would see beyond the disruptions (with no reward yet) and understand the long term benefits.

Obviously the thumping 2018 victory did reward him for that approach so that is probably why in his second term he has had more confidence to be just as bold with large projects. But certainly in that first term there was no guarantee that disrupting people for 4 years, for an end result that was 10 years away, was going to be popular or result in electoral success.

By contrast, I think a lot of that uncertainty about how the public will view disruption is why the Coalition did absolutely nothing during their 2010-14 term. It’s clear that level crossing removals are required, but the thought of shutting down train lines for weeks on end is seen to be politically risky and the Coalition have not been prepared to take those risks.

It’s a similar situation with the Suburban Rail Loop. Do we need it now? A bit but not enough to justify the cost. Will we need it in 2070? Absolutely we will! The best rail networks all connect the lines to each other outside of the city centre, and it’s important for the long term to not only support decentralisation, but to actually encourage it through creating large hubs like Box Hill, Sunshine, Glen Waverley etc that are all well connected to each other and to other suburbs & rail lines.

It’s politically risky to be committing a lot of money and a lot of disruption to something where even the first phase is 13 years away, and Dan Andrews will be in aged care by the time the benefits are fully realised. You don’t embark on a project like that for popularity.

The Coalition by contrast have opted for an extremely short term approach – lower fares for 4 years – the result of which (far less revenue) basically the confirms a complete pause on all network upgrades, improvements, etc. You can’t concurrently expand & improve a system while ripping the revenue from it.

I would argue that the Coalition have the far more populist approach based on electoral success – short term sugar hits like fare reductions, avoiding politically risky disruption, avoiding projects that don’t deliver an immediate tangible benefit for the public before the next election, and approaching the pandemic response in a way that focuses on what they perceive to be popular opinion.

By contrast, the Andrews government has made risky and unpopular decisions, embarked on projects that only cause disruption and expense in the short term and won’t have a benefit realised until after numerous future elections, but are done with the view of “future proofing” the city & state for decades to come.

As I said, while Andrews was very convincingly rewarded for that approach in 2018, it’s still difficult to characterise it as being “populist” and prioritising electoral success.