Pakenham – Victoria 2022

The population growth through here has accelerated which should benefit the ALP here & help them hold.

Agree Bob, this seat is mortgage belt and service delivery is a critical issue here. I wonder if Jordan Crugnale will contest here instead of Bass.

She lives in Inverloch, which is in Bass, but I would imagine they would want her to run here instead as she has the advantage of incumbency.

Labor candidate for Pakenham is Emma Vulin.

https://pakenham.starcommunity.com.au/news/2021-12-16/new-faces-for-pakenham/

Jordan Crugnale has a very high profile in the South Gippsland region and she was the mayor of Bass Coast. Running in Bass would give the ALP the best chance to win Bass.

Has Brad Battin decided where he’ll run?

@AK I think he has been preselected in Berwick

This will likely be a Liberal gain if the Federal election is anything to go on

Liberals would be the favourites here after the results in La Trobe.

The 7.9% redistributed is due to a weak Greens campaign in Bass, Greens will get around 11-14% in the state seat. They achieved in Officer (Fed) about 12-14%, swing of 3%, and Pakenham got about 12-15.6% (Fed) with 2-8% swings.

Three important notes re La Trobe results, unlike the Fed Labor candidate the State candidate lives in the local area, secondly unlike the Fed Liberal MP, an incumbent of 20 years, the Liberal candidate will almost definitely be a first time candidate for any level of government, and third the Federal Liberal was a Government MP able to promise money, and this advantage will be for State Labor this election. I wouldn’t look too far into the Federal results.

I’m predicting a very close contest, no favourites in this contest, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a strong vote for Independent/s or other parties.

@E23 All governments promise money regardless whether they’re in power or not. It’s a new seat so Labor won’t have an incumbent either.

David Farrelly announced as the Liberal candidate for Pakenham

Michelle Maibaum announced as the Greens candidate for Pakenham

It’s also worth noting that the suburbs that are within this electorate were locked down longer then the rest of the state so I am expecting a anti-Dan factor to play here.

Brett Owen, who’s been on the Cardinia Shire Council for 17 years, and served as Mayor in 2013, 2017, 2021 has announced his standing as an Independent. He went to Officer Primary & Pakenham Secondary, and 26 years with Victoria Police. Makes this seat very interesting.

In the current climate I would expect Labor to retain 3% margin seats. As you pointed out Pakenham is largely in.La trobe at the federal level which I think Was one of the only Vic seats to swing against Labor. Also I think Pakenham is undergoing pro Labor demographic change

@E23
What are his policies?

With the absence of the UAP it will be interesting to see where those voters go.

Well, the Vic Libs are increasingly becoming just like the UAP in terms of policy and rhetoric so I’d expect the UAP dissolving will be very good news for them here and in the outer western and northern seats.

That is true, any news of One Nation fielding candidates in Victoria?

It is the AEC party registration that has been ended. The VEC party registration appears to potentially be ongoing:

https://www.vec.vic.gov.au/about-us/media/application-for-registration-by-united-australia-party

I think the UAP does have enough members to receive party registration at a state level. The main question is here, will their vote share decline & if so, by how much? Brett Owen was also mentioned, what are his political leanings? I would assume he would be a right-wing OLC type, but please correct me if I am wrong.

Whatever the case, I do expect the right wing minor vote to increase, as anti-Dan sentiment is much stronger down ballot. However, I would not be surprised if it does decline, given the incompetence of UAP/One Nation types.

Why are the UAP deregistering? Having a senator I thought meant they were exempt from the 500 member requirement

Despite this being a notional Labor seat I think this is highly likely to flip to a Liberal seat in November, especially if the federal results are to go by.

La Trobe swung to the LNP (2PP terms) at the federal election but the swings were bigger in Calwell, Scullin, Gorton and Gippsland. UAP and ONP don’t get much traction at state elections outside QLD and so I doubt they’ll make a huge impact here at the state election. Their voters and who they flock to at the state election will determine the 2PP swing.

I still see this as a Liberal win because of a low, notional Labor margin and an anti-Dan sentiment.

@Entrepenuer Palmer probably can’t be bothered with the upkeep and maintenance costs of running a party. Doesn’t he do this after every election.

i still think it will be a close contest despite La trobe electorate results, as both the labor and greens candidates are really giving it their all in campaigns.

Mathew Guy was out here campaigning the other day & it’s worth noting that Daniel Andrews hasn’t visited out in this electorate. I do wonder about other seats throughout the outer south east.

Liberals did very well here at the federal election. Should be an easy gain and I imagine Labor have written this seat off.

Labor won’t be too concerned if they lose this seat and others like Nepean etc. since they already have so many from 2018 and are likely to pick up a couple in eastern and inner south-eastern Melbourne.

Bob, his been to Pakenham, and Emma Vulin, the Labor candidate works for him. I still think it’ll be too close to call. All four of the candidates are nice people, and are running for the right reasons. Without polling, I don’t think it’ll be easy to predict. This will be a cost of living, health, and education election and both major parties are throwing big $$ around. I’d hesitate to compare Labor’s federal result in La Trobe with their potential result in November, remembering they would have won this seat by 2% in 2018.

Surprised that nobody has commented on this seat. What’s the case for Labor holding here?

I don’t think there is a case for Labor retaining Pakenham, it is an open seat and an area that swung against them federally. I think this will be one of the first ALP seats to fall.

I don’t think Andrews has even bothered campaigning here. Says it all really.

I think the case is quite simple. This is an area where service delivery is a big deal and the ALP state government has that service delivery and building infrastructure as a major trademark. The voters in 2018 trusted them with that and they can do it again, although I still expect a loss. But it’s worth noting the federal-state split was significant before the election and the swing was not that huge towards the Liberals (unlike some safe Labor seats).

Well, it’s looking like this definitely was being dismissed too easily here. I wasn’t picking it as a retain myself (and it still might not end up as one) but I think the case I outlined was reasonable and might be a good explanation of the result.

An embarrassing result for the Liberals here.

Pakenham was written off largely based on the result in La Trobe in the federal election. Makes me wonder if the La Trobe result was down to Jason Wood’s popularity.

@Nimalan pointed out in the Bayswater thread that Knox LGA was considered the new Liberal heartland in Melbourne after the 2019 federal election, but now the Liberals have decisively lost Bayswater. Perhaps the same could be said of Cardinia LGA after the 2022 federal election, but now the Liberals may have failed to win Pakenham!

So, the Liberals don’t have a base in the inner east, the mid-distance east, the outer east, or the outer southeast. They’re getting banished from Melbourne.

@Nicholas the Libs still held their ground in Manningham LGA with barely any swing occurring but they did nearly lose Menzies in the federal election.

Pakenham, only an 8 vote difference at this time! Likely from postals favoring the Libs; they might just win this.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/vic/2022/guide/pake

From what I can tell on the PB progress by seat, ot looks like all the postals on hand have been counted in nearly every seat already, so I assume the majority of what will be left is remaining postals yet to be received, and absents, which I assume should outnumber the remaining postals in most seats?

Tight..absents behave like normal votes.. only late incoming postal left..some will
Not be returned

Yeah on the balance of remaining votes, I would think they should skew towards Labor (or IND in Mornington and Hawthorn).

In both seats I’d expect another 1000-1500 postals but about 2000 absents which are usually even more left than normal votes.

Similar in Pakenham too.

In 2018, Caulfield had nealy 6000 absent votes that went 60-40 to Labor!! Already 4500 postals have been counted there, so while Southwick is clearly too far ahead now, it could swing back a LOT and be a tiny <0.5% margin again if there's a high number of absents again.

As of right now, Labor only leads by 8 votes! So tight, but Liberals probably have an edge here. Labor has an edge in nearby Hastings and Bass. But Liberals have an edge in Hawthorn and I simply don’t know what will happen in Mornington.

This is a terrible result for the liberal party as I thought & clearly so did they that Dan was unpopular here but there is a chance that Labor will hold on.

Was around 3% margin so the bias Was a in favour of alp
Hold..

ALP currently leading on first preferences by 1% and yet 2PP of 50-50 is a bit strange. Doesn’t seem at a glance that the Liberal should be gaining on preferences from the observed primaries. Greens have more than One Nation + Freedom, Brett Owen has an open preference ticket and there’s also Animal Justice and Legalise Cannabis.

Legalise Cannabis is a single-issue party which means preferences could go either way and Owen voters might’ve favored the Libs.

New batch of primary votes have been entered with no 2PP count yet, most likely absent prepolls. They are as follows:
Labor – 563 (28.55%)
Liberal – 784 (39.76%)
Brett Owen – 88 (4.46%)
Greens – 138 (7.00%)
Legalise Cannabis – 121 (6.14%)
One Nation – 39 (1.98%)
Family First – 64 (3.25%)
Freedom – 66 (3.35%)
Animal Justice – 63 (3.19%)
DLP – 42 (2.13%)
Rajvir Sagoo – 4 (0.20%)

My best guess is that the 2PP from this will be around 56-44 to the Liberals, which would put them ahead by 200 votes or so.

This seat is extremely close with the LNP leading by votes as of current when I wrote this, Labor could still hold on here.

Sorry I was supposed to say 5 votes