Yan Yean – Victoria 2022

Wandong booth looks out of place here but I assume that the demographics change here will lead it to be gained by labor.

Last time, the Liberal candidate was disensorsed which is why all booths in the old Yan Yean voted Labor. Wandong was in Euroa last time which is why it was not won by Labor. In fact the East of the seat is more affluent in Nilumbik Shire, the Plenty booth is usually strongly liberal compare the Plenty booth to the federal seat of McEwen. Assuming there is no disendorsement again then i expect the Plenty booth to be sapphire blue in November.

Agreed Nimalan

This seat is interesting and has changed a lot over the years. It feels like the Liberals have always underperformed here, it was made marginally Liberal in 2002 but the Liberals had a big swing against them that election. It’s also a growth area with new developments throughout the electorate. Despite the Liberals always underperforming it’s always usually a marginal until last election so Labor shouldn’t take this seat for granted, especially without an incumbent. I think Labor will hold but the margin will be interesting.

This seat has the kind of demographics that the Libs are increasingly appealing to at the expense of their traditional affluent base so I’d expect the Libs to exceed expectations here. This is also the sort of demographic that would be anti-lockdown and anti-Covid restrictions so the state Libs pandering towards the anti-vax mob might benefit them here. That being said, I doubt it’s enough to get the Libs over the line to win this seat but it would be one of the few glimmers of hope for the incompotent state Lib party who will probably lose even more seats in their traditional heartland of Eastern Melbourne.

This seats margin is probably deceptive, before last election Labor only held it on a 3.6% margin and got a massive swing due to Labor popularity and a disendorsed Lib candidate. I think the seat is way out of reach on the margin it is now and i don’t think it will get back to that 3.6% margin this election but i think without an incumbent this seat will go below 60% TPP for Labor. Seats that Labor hold by a margin of or greater than 10% TPP that will go below that this election i think are Yan Yean, Wendouree, Macedon, Sunbury, Niddrie, Ivanhoe, Narre Warren North and South, Bentleigh, Mordialloc, Carrum and Frankston

The margin on this seat is very deceiving. The Liberal candidate was disendorsed in 2018 so margin is artificially high, the sitting MP isn’t running for re-election and was previously marginal before the 2010 and 2014 election. Anti-lockdown sentiment around this area is also high – this was one of the areas the federal Liberal’s used the “send Dan Andrews a message” slogan on election day.
Wouldn’t surprise me if this seat flipped to Liberal but surrounding seats on smaller margins didn’t flip.

Not while Matthew Guy is leading them, Unless you are presuming Michael O’Brien takes over again? Guy will lose in a landslide because he and Tim Smith are anti-lockdown. and Andrews response to the pandemic was popular especially to older voters (Like what it was here in QLD and WA)

I do agree that margin is inflated but many growth areas have an anti lockdown sentiment especially due to the fact that home-schooling etc would have had a bigger impact here than in more established areas. However, this election maybe the last opportunity for the Libs to win it as population growth will likely mean that it will loose semi-rural and more affluent areas like Plenty in future redistributions and become just another Northern Suburbs seat.

On Friday I placed bets on the Victorian election, and got Liberals to win Yan Yean at $14. Four days later, they’ve cut the odds down to $2!

From what I’ve seen in previous elections, their odds are a mess initially, and they gradually get cleaned up as election day gets closer. I presume the main input that goes into them adjusting the odds is how people are betting. Perhaps someone bet a few hundred dollars on the Liberals winning here over the weekend.

A lot of the odds being offered are ridiculous. $14 for the Liberals here being one example.

I reckon this should be considered likely to flip to Liberal, it was notionally Liberal before the 2014 election, and only has this massive margin now because of the disendorsed candidate in 2018. If there’s a swing against the government – which is to be expected – this will be picked up by the Libs.

Agree Ham, Yan Yean and the far outer suburbs of Melbourne are a lot like outer Southwest Sydney (around Camden) including new estates like Oran Park and Leppington that are considered swingy in nature and likely to flip to the Liberals as these areas have higher proportions of small business owners/’blue collar’ workers who had limited ability to WFH during covid lockdowns.

A Brisbane area equivalent might by some new suburbs near Caboolture like Burpengary and Narangba, which stuck with the Liberals/LNP at the last federal election.

@Ham, @Yo An I think the margin here is heavily inflated due to the dis-endorsement of the Lib candidate and the Libs could win this seat in the future but i don’t think it will be this election. I think though that th Plenty and Yarrambat booths will skew heavily to the Libs and they could easily win a Whittlesea booth like they did at the federal election.
Also @Ham have the boundaries changed a lot though in this seat, what areas has this seat lost.

I imagine this seat could well have a 10-15% swing to the Liberals but would still not be lost. This seat contains some of the Mitchell Shire, an area which has a lot of resentment for the Andrews government as the only area of regional Victoria being included in Melbourne’s lockdowns. The outer growth area around Mernda and Doreen will also have a big swing as it is Anti Dan territory but Labor will still win all those booths and this will help them retain the seat in my opinion.

Also compared to 2014 it has list more affluent settled areas like Diamond Creek. The Nilumbik Shire portion is the most affluent but is likely to more pro-Dan Andrews. However, the margin is inflated as i pointed out due to disendored Liberal Candidate last time especially around Plenty which would likely swing back if Andrews would be more popular here.

*lost

Agreed Ham.

I think it’s amazing to see that the Labor party now seems to support/stand for the affluent in Melbourne. In a couple of cycles, there’s a good chance that seats in the north and west start flipping blue. Depends on how much the margins are cut at this election.

Mark, i dont think it is so simplistic as that. I agree Covid will lead to a backlash this election in the North/West but i doubt it can be sustained longer term. I dont really see a backlash in the working class Northern suburbs of Geelong for example as Covid did really take hold there or in Ripon which is a low income area. We also need to remember that the North and West are more socially mixed than one expects. For example Point Cook is much more affluent than St Albans. I can see a scenario where Point Cook, Sunbury, Melton and Yan Yean flip but so chance of St Albans, Laverton, Broadmeadows, Thomastown going blue. The affluent just did not suffer as much during Covid we saw this in Sydney even though there was a state Liberal government that made in Western Sydney feel like second class citizens.

Yes, Nimalan, but Sydney also did not have 6 lockdowns, most of which were caused by VIC Government failures for which they tried to blame the public. I oppose the management of both, but at least NSW had less.

Andrews, on merit, does not deserve another term.

The Andrews government has neglected the north and the west quite terribly in all areas of government responsibility, which is why some seats are starting to be treated as potential warning signs of a loss of Labor’s stranglehold (Melton, Werribee etc). This is kind of like in US elections. Despite Ronald Reagan’s victory in 1984 being so large, the farming communities in Iowa and surrounds actually voted less republican than they did in the 1980 election. Then 4 years later in 1988, Iowa and Wisconsin went Democratic, despite a landslide for George HW Bush.

The state election will show whether the swings against Labor in parts of Victoria are part of an ongoing trend or just a blip. If the Liberals were led by someone such as Pesutto this cycle, I suspect Labor would be struggling to form government.

Having lived in the west all my life and currently still, people are far more open to changing their vote from Labor than 4 years ago. I live in a seat that has always gone Labor, and I’ve already seen more liberal signs than Labor. We’ll have to wait and see how it plays out.

@ Mark, you have raised some good points. I agree Pesutto is the strongest person to lead the Coalition. Regarding Iowa, while it maybe seen as a white rural state it does have a tendency to swing a bit like Eden Monaro or Ripon. Iowa gave us Obama but it was solid behind Trump. It voted for Gore in 2000 but Bush in 2004. I agree about Melton especially. It is an area of rapid population growth and is experiencing growing pains it desperately needs a new hospital and electrification etc. I do think that Labor could indeed loose it. Part of this is also demographic change though, new estates such as Weir Views etc is attracting a more affluent demographic often South Asian migrants similar to around Marsden Park in NSW. One thing that i am interested is why is Werribee talked about as a seat that Labor is in danger but not Tarneit, as someone who lives in he west would you have a theory? Anyway i value your contribution

To my analysis, Labor Heartlands in urban areas isn’t that comparable to Iowa. I also don’t think Eden Monaro or Ripon is like Iowa either since they are more tree-changing or unionized communities. A better comparison to Iowa would be the seats of Braddon and Bass in Northern Tasmania and Dawson, Capricona, and Herbert in Northern Queensland (although they tend to be more coal mining) since these seats did not vote Labor last election despite having done in the past (except for Dawson which was always very close to voting ALP and they did vote for ALP in 2016 despite Turnbull winning). For Melbourne North/West, if the swing against Labor due to lockdowns is true by November, it will rather be more like the 2020 US election in Urban Areas where the lower-income working-class neighborhood that were very safe for Democrats has a big swing to Trump (although Democrats still won the neighborhood by big margins) but the higher-income and more educated suburban areas that were usually more favorable to Republicans (although this is different by metros and states) swung to Democrats in most places (again this may be opposite in some areas)

*Dawson, I actually mean Herbert

The margin here is inflated but its a big ask for the LNP to win here, however I’m expecting an above average swing against Labor here on the night with it most likely being double digits or close to something like that.

Its worth noting that this electorate has been historically close even made notionally Liberal but has only been won back by Labor due to the LNP being unpopular at the time

@ Marh, you have raised an excellent point. I would not compare for example areas like St Albans, Dandenong, Thomastown, Broadmeadows which are the strongest Labor seats to West Virginia, Kentucky etc white working class areas or the Red Wall in England these areas are more comparable to Bronx, Compton or Bethnel Green in the UK. So when people talk about the realignment of the working class to the right they are making a big fallacy. Even if the 4 seats i mentioned swing by 12% they will still be among the safest Labor seats in the state although that is not the case in Melton, Point Cook or Yan Yean. Pakenham, Cranbourne and Yan Yean for example have never been Labor Heartlands.

Nimalan

yes Tarneit is another where the liberal candidate seems to have picked up traction vs 2018. It also helps that he’s Indian and his name “Preet” rhymes with “Tarneit” haha

Werribee is just mentioned more because Tim Pallas needed preferences to get over the line in 2018 vs IND Dr Joe Garra.

Ultimately I think it would be good for VIC Labor to struggle. The arrogance in their governance throughout the past 4 years has been evident (completely neglecting community consultations etc etc). The most recent example is Dan fobbing of blatant conflicts of interest regarding investigations into the approval of the Flemington flood wall (Former deputy Labor premier and water minister John Thwaites is the chair of Melbourne Water. Melbourne Water is heading the investigation into the flood wall).

Stuff like that has turned me off Labor this cycle.

Might be a bit of local backlash.

Local Labor candidate Lauren Kathage used under-12 girls school basketball team in campaign photos without parents’ permission and it’s made the press.

@Yoh An, your comparisons here piqued my interest and I attempted to compare this electorate with areas of SE QLD of a similar profile. The best fit based on my assessment seems to be the emerging outer-suburban fringes of Logan & Beenleigh including Bahrs Scrub, Logan Village and Yarrabilba as well as their semi-rural (ex-rural) surrounds. I also consider the places I highlighted to be very similar to Tarneit. These areas have a lot of new dwelling construction, more affordable housing, a large mix of dwelling sizes, are composed of young families, feature an emerging South Asian population, are about an hour away from a major CBD and are suffering from a lack of services. At a Federal level, much of the aforementioned places are situated within Forde and the Eastern corner of Wright.

Apt observers would note that these SE QLD communities have been quite mixed on TPP (ALP vs LNP) but have some of the highest vote counts for parties like UAP and ONP. I imagine the performance of micro-parties in Yan Yean will be relatively strong and the distribution of these preferences will be a key-factor to the outcome here.

Agree that this division will offer the Coalition one of their most likely chances of a GAIN at this election on the back of some purported anti-lockdown sentiment. Although the strong Labor performance in McEwen at the federal election suggests that this is still unlikely and that this sentiment was not as widespread or abundant as it is loud.

Regions like these are generally crying out for more services and would be concerned with much needed state infrastructure being put aside. Coalition would have to be cautioned about being perceived as willing to cut services or any infrastructure plans in places like these if they genuinely hope to realign their base and capture the “working-families” in the outer-suburban fringes like they purport to.

Not sure I’d call Labor’s performance in McEwen “strong”. They got a swing against them and it’s back to being a very marginal seat again.

@Mark

I am referring to the specific parts of McEwen that are situated within Yan Yean. You’re right about the slight swing though which bucked the national-trend. However the results in McEwen were still softer for Coalition than anticipated by a lot of punters.

How do the 2 local candidates compare and what’s the local party infrastructure like for both sides?

Sportsbet has Yan Yean very close – $1.75 to the ALP and $2.00 to the Libs. Does anybody have local insight as to why this seat might be very close?

The margin from 2018 is inflated because the Liberal candidate was disendorsed prior to election day

Sportsbet initially were paying $14 for the Liberals to win here, and cut the odds a few days later to $2.

Leaving aside the 2018 result, winning this seat would require the Liberals to outperform their 2014 result by 4% in an election where their statewide result is probably going to be at least 3% worse than 2014 – not impossible, but unlikely (with the caveat that there would have been a large turnover of voters here since 2014). I think it’s probably better thought of as a 10% seat rather than a 17% one, and it’s a seat that the Liberals would have a decent chance of holding in government, but that’s probably not going to be this time.

BT, makes a valid point this is actually a marginal seat. I think while overall it will be a worse result for the Libs than 2014 they may slightly overperform in this seat compared to the rest of the state due anti-lockdown sentiment etc. I think Labor will be happy if they win this seat with about 55% TPP

Yes as has been pointed out above, this has been a Labor-leaning marginal in the past and would be expected to revert that way in correcting for the inflated 2018 margin. If we assume a disproportionately large anti-lockdown backlash, then it might get to being a “tipping-point” seat or Liberal leaning marginal. But that alone isn’t enough to win if Labor is winning comfortably on 2PP.

In this light, the odds are certainly puzzling to me. Maybe there is some local factor that is being overlooked, or more likely the market odds are simply out of step with the rest of the state (of which, it’s up to the punter to evaluate which market is the irrational one).

Sportsbet odds just follow the money – if the $14 cuts to $2 suddenly, it just means someone dropped a big amount on the Libs winning. The “suddenly” part generally suggesting it was a single person. Not that much money is actually wagered on individual seats, so a punt of a couple of thousand can push odds considerably.

Research has been done into betting odds as election predictors, and they haven’t been shown to be reliable yet.

But as others have said (but worth repeating) 2018 has very little do with Yan Yean this time anyway, as in 2018 there was no Liberal candidate come election day.

@Expat the seat markets are very thinly traded so even a few hundred dollars can impact the odds. This is why Sportsbet often limit how much people can bet.

Labor did really poorly here with this seat now in a competitive position for 2026

This was an entirely expected result. Margin from 2018 was extremely inflated and the seat is normally a Labor-leaning marginal (similar to McEwen federally). In 2026 the new member should have time to build up a personal vote and Labor will generally be looking to address the backlash across the outer west/north from this election.

Basically – I would say Labor won’t be displeased at all to win by 5% here.

While it may look like a terrible result for Labor here. At face value it is actually is probably only slightly worse than what would have happened if it was not for the pandemic. Yan Yean is actually a competitive seat. In fact it was notionally Liberal going into the the 2002 election when Matt Guy first came into politics and contested this seat. It was also notionally Liberal going into the 2014 election and the Libs campaigned hard here which was a good thing as both parties promised the Mernda rail extension. At 2018 election, the Liberal candidate was dis-endorsed for making anti-muslim remarks and Labor got a 13.4% swing to them. The swing back this election was actually less at 11% Danielle Green would have been a popular member here as she delivered the Mernda Rail extension. If we actually look at booth results the only two that the Libs won were outside the growth area (Yarrambat and Plenty) which are in Nilumbik shire and is very affluent so pretty much Libs under performed compared to their 2014 result while Labor slightly over performed.