Casey – Australia 2019

Casey was fairly secure at Labor’s recent high-water mark in Victoria in 2010. However two redistributions since have each knocked a couple of points off the Liberal margin.

A real smokey this one.

Ben, your assessment is rather cryptic.

DW, I agree. Of all the Liberals’ eastern suburbs seats, I honestly think this is one of Labor’s best chances to pick up.

The mountains towns all had either no swing or swung TO the Liberals in 2016, meaning there’s probably room for a rebound there. The suburban parts are still Liberal, but most of the good Labor/Green areas in the mountains and upper Yarra Valley are now all united in one seat.

OK, more nit-picking…

I see the assessment is fixed. But the geography description needs updating. Casey is now coterminous with Yarra Ranges council. (A fact I only appreciated when I noticed the booth maps had no LGA boundaries!)

CFA would have been a live issue in this electorate, and Tony Smith being a dramatic improvement over Bronwyn Bishop as speaker would have also helped a little bit.

Smith has lost some of his lustre, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Labor, Greens and GetUp run explicit campaigns against the IPA (of which Tony Smith is a member).

Greens will be important here; a strong Greens campaign would be able to seal the deal for Labor, and may put them in a position to pick up the seat at the tail end of a Labor government.

ALP gain but I’d like to see who the Greens candidate is and how well Labor do at rebuilding their brand in outer eastern Melbourne (which seems to be at an all time low).

I completely disagree with most of the comments here. I see no room for ALP gains in Victoria at all. Obviously Corangamite is gone but other than that? Certainly not Casey, maybe La Trobe.

Wreathy, what’s your basis for saying that? Not even notionally Labor held Dunkley?

Wreathy did you miss the redistribution? 4.5 swing needed for Labor to win.

Last federal election Coalition were 48.2 2PP in Victoria, pollbludger has them down to 46.2 2PP in Vic currently. Not much more seat specific stuff required to flip this.

Bennee what’s the Greens 3PP in this seat? It seems like their good areas have come together.

@John, no I said GAINS. Dunkley is a Labor held seat now due to the redistribution.

@Benee, no I didn’t, but you said it yourself though. According to Bludgertrack, there’s been a 2% swing since 2016. That puts Corangamite as gone but nothing else. Unlike yourself, I don’t see much of a reason as to why Labor would almost double that swing to win seats like Chisholm (where there may be a sophomore surge) and Casey (where the Libs are likely to try pretty hard to protect the Speaker). La Trobe is a possibility due to the relatively weak MP as I already discussed.

I completely disagree that doubling the swing from 2 to 4% is not going to require at the very least some concerted seat-specific campaigning, sorry!

If Labor are to win the next election, it’s going to be from WA and QLD, not from NSW or VIC.

@John, tricky to calculate. I don’t feel like going booth to booth lol. Before redistribution the Greens were 15.61% 3PP. It would be slightly higher post redistribution, especially given they gathered better preference flow in pre-redistribution La Trobe than in pre-redistribution Casey.

If you round a bit the 3PP is something like 51 Lib, 32 ALP, 17 GRN (that would make sense, it would confirm a 2PP of 54.5 Lib vs 45.5 ALP).

@Wreathy +/-2.5% average swing in a seat is not unusual.

Let’s have a look at the swing of the government’s 2PP in WA 2016 federal seats (the only state with only Lib vs ALP runoffs).

Burt −13.20 (!)
Brand −7.72
Pearce −5.68
Cowan −5.20
Canning −4.56
Durack −3.98
Hasluck −3.97
Swan −3.75
Stirling −2.85
Fremantle −2.12
Tangney −1.95
Moore −1.42
Forrest −1.25
Perth −1.15
O’Connor −0.38
Curt +2.48 (!)

6 of 16 seats are outside +/-2.5 of the average (which was −3.62).

@Benee of course. I’m not saying that because the swing is projected at 2% that no seat above that is going to fall, my prediction in La Trobe is evidence of this. I’m just saying that I don’t see it as likely in VIC at the moment.

I could be wrong, but I just don’t see it happening. Labor is going to be swept in on a bed of QLD marginals IMO.

@Bennee thanks. That would have to be one of the more achievable gaps for the Greens to overcome outside their well known “winnable” seats.

Have they ever run a serious campaign here?

@WreathyofSydney I tend to agree with your assessment, Labor will win a fair few marginals in Qld, namely Forde, Bonner, Petrie and Capricornia whilst being good chance in Flynn, Dawson and Dickson. As for Brisbane I have a feeling that the Greens will sneak into second with the Libs holding.

In Casey, the Libs should hold, although these changes give Labor a real sniff and if a swing gains steam this seat could cause a few headaches for them. I’d be putting this as a higher probability of falling then Chisholm.
My guess 52-48 to the Libs.

@L96 Exactly. It is worth noting that if Labor do end up winning Casey for whatever reason and in any unlikely outcome, it would probably the highest profile Coalition scalp of the election. Other than perhaps Peter Dutton in Dickson of course.

On scalps:

Dutton and Tony Smith have been mentioned.

Porter would be a high profile, realistic, scalp in WA (unless he jumps ship to Moore as many suspect he will). Keenan is another Cabinet member in a marginal WA seat.

O’Dwyer is in the cabinet if the Greens really do have a chance at Higgins.

I wouldn’t rule out Pyne losing his seat but it depends on what Centre Alliance do – he has a way of hanging on.

The rest are very safe; a surprisingly high number of them are senators on 6 year terms.

The theories about which ALP seats are vulnerable keep changing but none of the Shadow Cabinet look close to unsafe. Some think Lingiari is at risk – Snowdon is in the outer shadow ministry and the only MP elected in the 80s (not father of the house as he was out between ’96 and ’98). That would closest possible thing to an ALP scalp.

Sarah Hanson Young is a high profile senator at a very real risk of losing her seat. None of the crossbenchers on 3 year terms are safe either – highest profile are probably Hinch and Leyonhjelm.

@John

I forgot about Porter but your’re right, he’s in big trouble. If he wants to survive he’s got to move.

Keenan is a possibility although at this point in time I’m erring on him hanging on in Stirling.

O’Dwyer is safe from the Greens I’d say. There are bigger fish to fry and would be better off focusing on Batman instead and try simply to get a positive swing this time around in Higgins.

According to Bludgertrack, there’s actually been a swing to the Coalition in SA. I don’t think that’s going to eventuate come election day but I doubt any seats are going to change hands there regardless. Not to mention the ‘unpredictability’ of how the Centre Alliance factor. Although it would be nice to wipe that smug look of Pyne’s face.

For the Coalition to hold on, they *must* win seats; mere sandbagging isn’t going to be sufficient IMO due to their slender majority:

Therefore, I’d also add Dreyfus in Isaacs. Redistribution has brought the margin down to 2.3%. Not saying he’s going to lose but the Coalition would be fools if they didn’t try to target him. For the wider VIC picture, I’d also add that the impending state election might be instructive as to the political climate there. Of course state and federal are separate but it would still be good to see nonetheless.

I totally agree about Snowdon being a target. That 8% margin is quite deceiving and given the rural nature of the electorate and the Coalition’s candidate, it’s not inconceivable that there’ll be a big swing. Whether they’ll win it though? I have my doubts.

As for the rest of your assessment I agree in full.

Forgot about Dreyfus. He has never lived in his electorate (not even close), and the Liberals will be going hell for leather on his area at the state election. Real upset potential and I’m looking forward to Isaacs getting posted to analyse it further.

Clare O’Neil in Hotham, shadow minister for justice, is also in a much more marginal seat than she bargained for, and doesn’t live in her electorate, but that will be an easier hold for Labor.

Dreyfuss should really jump ship to the new Bruce if he sees himself (or Labor see him) as a long-term prospect.

Bruce is now safe as houses and will probably get safer in the future, whereas i see the opposite happening with Isaacs.

@John perhaps the Greens have done some campaigning here to go for state upper house votes but that would not be near the level of the inner city ground campaigning. The very high left-wing micro vote would seem to imply the lack of a major Green campaign at the federal level.

If all you know about a seat is that it has 3PP 51 Lib, 32 ALP, 17 GRN and the Greens have done no campaigning then it would seem the Greens could be a chance in 2022 if they start now, but demographic and geographic factors undoubtedly matter. The state seat of Albert Park was 3PP 43.7 Lib, 35.8 ALP, 20.5 GRN in 2014 and it could fall this year but it is harder to gain ground where more of the electorate would nod sagely at the phrase “Greens are inner-city elites” and where the Greens can’t get the inner-Melbourne Green volunteer base out.

Prahran in 2006 was 43/37/20, then 49/29/22 in 2010, then the Greens actually won with 46.1/26.9/27.0

Bennee is correct that The Greens aren’t as good as the majors at getting resources to winnable seats, even when it’s as simple as a suburban train trip.

Casey looks like a safe Liberal seat and I would expect it to be held however the state seat of Evelyn went to the ALP in the 2002 landslide so the ALP might be a smokey here.

The name of this seat could be quite confusing for people who are not politically aware, considering the bottom part of this electorate borders the City of Casey, none of which is a part of this seat, as the boundaries of the seat are exactly the same as the Yarra Ranges Council boundary.
I live in the southern part of the seat that was transferred into Casey from La Trobe at the redistribution, and a handful of people I’ve spoken to have mistakenly believed the area was moving out of Yarra Ranges into Casey Council area, after a letter was sent from Tony Smith explaining the move. Clearly they didn’t read the letter properly or pay enough attention, but interesting enough.

Evelyn:
Liberal, Bridget Vallence, 18,566, 49.5%, -4.8%
Labor, Gail Ritchie, 15,166, 40.4%, +8.4%
Greens, Brodie Everist, 3,786, 10.1%, +3.7%

Monbulk:
Labor, James Merlino, 15,912, 41.9%, +3.9%
Liberal, John Schurink, 13,823, 36.4%, -4.2%
Greens, Liz Hicks, 5,826, 15.3%, +2.4%

These figures indicate Greens improved significantly in the Casey electorate and in a 2PP between Labor and Liberals a strong Greens candidate could deliver a Labor victory.

It’s worth noting that both Evelyn and Monbulk had less candidates on the ballot paper than in 2014. I wouldn’t trust Greens primary as a performance indicator, I’d use the 3CP.

It would be embarrassing for the Liberals for a speaker to be defeated in an election, Its never happend before

I’m just gonna point out that the Evelyn result IS the 3CP, as there were only those 3 candidates on the ballot.

Daniel
Speakers have lost their seats before. Sir William Aston was Speaker and lost Phillip in 1972 and in 1975, Gordon Scholes was the Speaker and just held on to Corio to win by 20 votes.
Going back further, Littleton Groom was Speaker and lost his seat of Darling Downs in 1929.
It does happen. Australia is not like Westminster where the Speaker becomes ‘non party’ and is not challenged.

The CFA issue would have hurt Labor here last time round. Even looking at Labor’s 2PP state figures for the 2014 election (I feel Federal Labor won’t replicate the same result as the 2018 state figures) on individual booths, there is a big difference. e.g.

Belgrave South 49 v 58
Monbulk 48 v 56
Montrose 44 v 50

Some of this difference would probably be due to the incumbency of James Merlino in Monbulk, but this seat will definitely be a close one.

I suspect you’ll see a shift to labor in the western seats as rental and housing development density has increased substantially over the short time period from observation, also with that, rental increases have been excessive and traffic congestion as well as eating up of local bush skyline is bring increased frustration in the area, fertile area for disgruntled attitudes

Drove through Casey today, equal number of Labor and Liberal signs.

Tony Smith running more of a local campaign, local messaging.

I think given his tenure as Speaker and his name recognition, I suspect he’ll hold this seat. But may come down to a point or two.

Suspect this seat could be a sleeper. Not much talked about as a Labor prospect, but surely a much better chance than some of the others that are getting attention. The redistribution has given Casey, Labor / Greens areas in the Dandenongs so this seat now has a different complexion. I don’t think being speaker is going to make any difference either way.

Amy Greens PRP? They’ve managed some very high votes here before.

Samantha Dunn leaving the party may hurt them here (solely from morale) – I was hoping she’d be the candidate..

Samantha Dunn was an invisible MP. I had no idea that we even had a local Greens MLC until the election campaign. It was no surprise she lost her seat.

to be fair to her, there wasn’t a major swing against her (and a lot of it would have gone to Labor on the back of Andrews’ popularity) – it was more the organisation of the minor parties against the Greens using party preferences. The quicker they change those rules the better, some of the results in that were a complete farce (most notably Southern Metropolitan).

But back on point not sure you could argue Dunn’s “invisibility” cost the Greens that seat.

@John I didn’t see any Greens signs in Seville or Lilydale.

Agree with Redistributed, I think of all the former Greens MPs, Samantha Dunn had by far the lowest profile.

There is a Greens sign for Janet Rice on Monbulk Rd, Belgrave. Both a Labor and Liberal sign as you enter the electorate in Upper Ferntree Gully and a Liberal sign on Burwood Hwy in Upwey. This is all I have seen in this electorate. Next door in Aston Alan Tudge’s face is everywhere.

Samantha Dunn has a big profile around Belgrave, Tecoma, Selby were she served as the local councillor for many years. But she represented Eastern Metropolotan district whereas this area is in Eastern Victoria.

Does anybody have any predictions who the next speaker of the house will be? It will be a Labor MP almost certainly.

A clear pattern here: strong swings to Labor in the mountains, blunted by swings back to the Liberals in the suburban areas.

The Greens outpolled the Liberals in a few of the mountains towns like Belgrave, Kallista, and Selby.

Daniel, I predict Tony Smith is the speaker of the next parliament