Higgins – Australia 2022

@Trent
Whilst i agree that Higgins is not a realistic target for the Greens for the reasons you mentioned. A couple of points
1. 2016 was a high water mark for the Greens. However, i dont feel that is a good comparison as Labor ran dead then and many Labor voters voted tactically for the Greens especially in the middle class areas. When Labor started to campaign hard again from 2019 the Labor PV rose. In 2016 the Greens just took votes from Labor without really making a dent into the Liberal PV
2. The boundaries are more Pro-Labor and includes more middle class territory compared to the Costello years . Having said that despite the Labor party throwing the kitchen sink at the seat the Labor PV even with pro-labor boundaries is much lower than during the Costello years when Labor would not have bothered.
3. I think my point above highlights the long term trend is for Labor to decline and the Greens to rise the inner city and affluent core. The middle class parts are a different story.
4. I feel there is some demographic trends that are hurting Labor and helping the Greens on the current boundaries. The public housing housing vote has been diluted with new private apartments. I also feel suburbs such as Ashburton and the area around Chadstone SC are moving from Middle Class to Upper Class as they found in Elite LGAs so will become more Tealish over time. The Greens should aim to outpoll Labor in the affluent core as well and restrict Labor to the middle class parts.

Still think Greens are in with a chance if they can convince voters that Liberals won’t get the seat back and therefore vote Green to send messages on the environment, refugees etc. You’d want voters from both major parties to think it’s a Labor vs Green seat, not a 3 corner contest.

@Nimalan, Labor performed poorly in Higgins in 2016 were due to the Skyrail Project around Carnegie in 2016 (even though it was a state project, Fed and State Libs managed to wedge on this) but the issue faded away once it was built explaining why much of the 2019 swings in Higgins were correction votes for Labor.

@ Marh
I agree the Skyrail would have been an issue in 2016 and Kelly O’Dwyer actually led anti-skyrail protests. The Skyrail later ended up being a positive for State Labor and like the Metro Tunnel and increased the brand equity for Labor especially around Carnegie, Murrumbeena and Hughesdale. It was the very strong performance in the overlapping state seats in 2018 which led Federal Labor to seriously try for Higgins in 2019 and 2022. I would also say the strong performance for State Labor in the Knox area in Nov 2022 which led Federal Labor to seriously consider contesting the Aston by-election as well.

It is interesting to note that both Michelle Ananda-Rajah and Josh Burns came out quick smart criticising the Feds gas decision. Both seats of course have a high Green vote but is there a possible Climate 200 backed Teal in the offing? A Teal in one or both seats would eat into both the Labor and Green vote. Both seats would seem to be a viable Teal target.

@Redistributed a teal could win Higgins but not Macnamara, but the thing is the teals only seem to want to target Liberal seats. That’s why the Coalition says a vote for the teals is a vote for Labor and the Greens, because there are plenty of Labor and Greens seats they could win such as Higgins in Melbourne or Ryan in Brisbane. On the state level they would have a good shot at Coogee which is a Labor seat in Sydney (the Liberals narrowly lost it in 2019 to Labor but in 2023 the margin increased a fair bit). Some may bring up that a teal contested Hawthorn in 2022 which was shockingly won by Labor in 2018 but the only reason they did that is because they knew the Liberals would win it back. They want to get rid of all the moderate MPs so the Liberals never win back those city seats. So Dutton becoming leader is all Monique Ryan’s fault. Macnamara on the other hand will likely be a Greens seat after 2025.

@ NP/Redistrubuted
IMHO i dont think a Teal can win either Higgins or Macnamara for this reason alone. The Teal vote is mostly tactical by Labor and Greens voters when neither of them actually win the seat. Higgins is different from Goldstein and Higgins in that it is a more mixed seat. As both Macnamara/Higgins is winnable for both Greens/Labor supporters of those parties have less need to move to a centrist Teal to defeat Libs. in fact, if a Teal ran in Higgins it will likely help Katie Allen win the seat as the Teal will only likely do well in the affluent core of Higgins around Malvern. Higgins etc and will take votes of Labor/Greens and some may leak back in preferences to the Libs. Hawthorn was a special case where the Labor party did not see them holding it longer term so it was in their strategic interest to loose it to Mel Lowe who they felt had she won would have had a better hold on the seat. What is more likely is that if Labor loses votes to the Greens due to the Gas Policy is that Labor will be knocked out of the 2CP in both Higgins and Macnamara and it become a LIB/GRN seat.

*Higgins different to Goldstein and Kooyong i mean.

* Malvern, Toorak, Glen Iris etc

@Nimalan I was accounting in for the redistribution in Higgins, assuming that Greens-voting areas like Prahran were removed and placed into Macnamara. As for Macnamara, for the Greens to win, Labor would need to finish third because the Liberal vote is too high. In Cooper, Melbourne and Wills the Liberals just run dead (like how Labor runs dead in most rural areas and some blue-ribbon seats in the major cities), but they don’t fully run dead in Macnamara and usually lose it due to preferences (just like its predecessor, Melbourne Ports). If Labor finishes second the Liberals would need to run dead for the Greens to win, because Liberal preferences would flow to Labor. But even then, Melbourne was Greens vs Labor in 2010, 2013 and 2022 but in 2016 and 2019 it was actually Greens vs Liberal, with the change in the party finishing second (Liberal to Labor) in 2022 being the sole reason for the TCP swing against the Greens.

As for Higgins it depends on the redistribution as to whether or not the Greens have a chance there. Caulfield has a high Jewish community which is already hostile to the Greens and is now increasingly hostile towards them and Caulfield is also a blue-ribbon state seat despite currently being marginal (Labor has never won Caulfield). The Caulfield-Prahran swap that many have proposed would see Higgins become better for the Liberals and Macnamara become better for the Greens. Overall, the redistribution in both seats will likely be worse for Labor.

@ Nether Portal
If Higgins was redistributed it will still be a marginal seat as areas like Carnegie, Murrumbeena and possibly Hughesdale, Glen Huntly and Ormond are good areas for Labor and more middle class. If the Prahran-Caulfield swap went ahead yes it would help the Libs in Higgins but will actually hurt the Greens in Macnamara as the Libs may drop to 3rd place and it will be a Greens Versus ALP seat and labor will likely win with Liberal preferences. Hence the Greens now want to keep Caulfield in Macnamara so it is more likely to be a GRN V LIB seat.

Nimalan, if the Greens now want to keep Caulfield in Macnamara then it would go against their past philosophy of wanting better ‘community of interest’. If their main goal is now to try and win the seat by having the best 2CP outcome, then they are probably no better than either Labor or the Coalition in advocating boundary changes purely for self-interest (pseudo gerrymandering in a way, even though they cannot directly influence the process).

@ yoh an
All parties act in self interest obviously they dont state it out loud.

Agree Nimalan, that is why having an independent commission for drawing boundaries is essential because that way all decisions are impartial. Political parties can only offer suggestions which the commission takes into account and will reject them if they do not meet the other criteria (mainly community of interest and connectivity).

I don’t know why anyone would expect a political party to not act in their own self interest. Is anyone else going to advocate for their interests?

Wilson, I know that all political parties do have an interest to remain viable/competitive as much as possible. But at the same time, by engaging in tactics that are in self-interest whilst simultaneously campaigning on and preaching about fair principles can be seen as hypocritical.

That is essentially the argument Republicans have used against Democrats in states who strongly campaigned for independent/non-partisan redistricting when they were in opposition but yet were happy to engage in gerrymandering tactics when they gained power instead.

The redistribution should favour te coalition here especially if they do the Caulfield prahan swap as many people have suggested

@Yoh An while American gerrymandering isn’t anything like, say, Russian gerrymandering, it is worth noting that in the US each state sets not only its state legislative district boundaries, but also the boundaries of its federal congressional districts. Usually these boundaries are partisan with redistricting almost always tending to favour the party winning the most seats in that state.

@np they dont have gerrymandering in russia. for that you need someone who actually has a legitimate of winning. they usually just bar anyone who is a threat and let a few people run to give the appearance of democracy.

on another note what are the chances they will overturn the abolition of higgins?

@ John
It depends on how many people submit an objection to abolishing Higgins and what alternative suggestions they maybe submitted.

@john good i hope they do it just causes too many problems down the line and makes existing problems worse. as much as i disagreed with abolishing hotham that would have been better. abolishing something in the north-east south of the yarra would have been better

@ John
Personally, i submitted an objection to abolishing Higgins ans suggested Hotham instead. If more people do this maybe Higgins can be saved.

@John correct but it’s still often referred to as gerrymandering by Russians and by electoral analysts. Though while Russian elections are rigged the presidential elections are the ones that get rigged the most. Russian legislative elections are different and they use constituencies which have gerrymandered boundaries in favour of Putin’s old party, United Russia.

Anyway, going back to Australia and Victoria in particular (and more specifically Melbourne), I personally think Higgins shouldn’t be abolished given its history of having two sitting PMs (Harold Holt and John Gorton) and the longest serving Treasurer in Australian history (Peter Costello).

@nimalan i also did and submitted my revised proposal in which i abolished Menzies. (however transferring the name)

@NP yea thats not reason enough to save it. remember they abolished the deputy PMs seat of Gwydir back in the day. the reasons i set out are more to do with casuing a flow on effect in the shape of divisions as well as communities of interest

The AEC proposed abolishing Murray in the 2010 Vic redistribution and got enough complaints that they kept it. But that was different because they didn’t need to abolish a seat in 2010, they just tried too based off the numbers.

Can’t think of the last time the AEC has proposed changing a seat and that’s not what’s ended up happening.

@ John
Much appreciated. Also Higgins has better community of interest based on Stonnington Council etc.
@ Nether Portal, if you could also submit an objection as well that will be great. It is hard to argue that Hotham has a community of interest as it a leftover seat.

@Nimalan I’ll write an objection today. Hotham seems like a weird seat without much COI value.

I’ve already objected to the North Coast redistributions in NSW (I linked my maps on another thread). I’ve proposed moving most of the outer Port Macquarie suburbs into Lyne from Cowper in exchange for Woolgoolga into Cowper from Page, with Page, plus Paterson loses more territory west of Maitland West to Hunter and Hunter loses Muswellbrook and half of Singleton to New England. I’ve also objected to the abolition of the name North Sydney since it’s a Federation name.

Also upcoming: new target seat maps using the proposed boundaries to be created tomorrow for NSW (likely at about 2:00pm) and Friday for Victoria and WA (likely at about 6:00pm).

@NP, nimalan i agree the current version is which is why i tried to tighten up the boundaries

In dark Blue https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rJ7ewRB_aCIwwa5jvy0X-Wy291jRkmuk/view?usp=drive_link

i was able to then push Chisholm north and take in all of whitehorse (aside from vermont, vermont south and boxhill north) from Menzies and Deakin

@ Nether Portal
Much appreciated.
I also want the name North Sydney retained as a Federation name. i think Bradfield can be renamed North Sydney and Berowra can be renamed Bradfield.

Nimalan, although the draft boundaries show all of North Sydney (commercial centre and the entire LGA) being placed into Warringah district. As a result, North Sydney is the preferred name to abolish unless they manage to reconfigure boundaries to get North Sydney into Bradfield.

@NP ive proposed moving the outer Port macqurie surrounds SA2 from Lyne into New England instead of Muswellbrook. my paterson loses cessnock surrounds to hunter and the eastern shore of port stephens to page while gaining the rest of maitland lga from pga.

I actually agree with North Sydney being abolished since its namesake is now in Warringah which ive called Sydney harbour. its gone the same way as west,south and east sydney and tbh i think the Sydney name could be cut soon as if the surrounding Grayndler, Wentworth and KS need to expand again that could be an option

give me about an hour and il give you my target seat maps

@nimalan they wont transfer 2 names and i doubt they will since bradifeld is outside the north sydey lga

@John looking forward to the maps.

However, are you saying that Port Macquarie, Wauchope and the Camden Haven would be, under your proposal, moved into the same electorate as Tamworth and Armidale (New England)? I would highly oppose that but I’m probably reading it wrong.

no only the SA2 of port macquarie surrounds from Lyne

@John which towns are we talking about here?

Interesting observation but the ‘teal-tinged’, job-share candidates that planned to run for Higgins, Lucy Bradlow and Bronwen Bock are running for the VIC Senate in 2025 on a ‘Better Together’ ticket. I doubt they would win though.

I think once parliament expands an argument can be made for re-establishing Higgins as there would need to be a division probably centred on caufield. It could take bits off melb macnamara kooyong chisholm