La Trobe – Australia 2022

@ North East/Nicholas, make excellent points. It is true that this is a growth area especially Officer/Clyde North. Beaconsfield and northern Berwick tend a bit more settled and established (these two areas also tend to be more Hillside and thus are destined to always be more affluent. With respect to Pakenham, there are two demographics living there. Pakenham until recently was more of independent country town so the older parts of Pakenham will be more socially mixed and less ethnically diverse than the new housing estates on its fringes. One trend i notice about many growth areas especially in Melbourne and Sydney that it tends to attract a lot of South Asians especially those who came as international students, many of whom are well educated and on high incomes but have low deposits so settled on the urban fringe where there is affordable housing. Nicholas is right Growth areas do have above average income although the caveat is that they contain high levels of workforce participation, fewer retired people, students, unemployed, renters or adult children still living with their parents etc. In terms of why La Trobe had swing to Libs while Greenway etc had a swing to Labor, i am as perplexed as anyone and i dont know the reason. This happened across La Trobe including outside the growth areas in Emerald etc.

This is my electorate and hearing from many people I believe there was a significant swing to right wing “freedom” parties who preferenced against Labor, hence the swing towards Libs. There is also a strong anti Dan Andrews sentiment within this seat too.

Melbourne’s outer southeast (Dandenong and onwards) swung to the Libs. This area has some similarities to Melbournes outer north and south where the lockdowns would’ve negatively impacted people thr most.

I think there are a few factors here.

One is what Zac says, if you look at the primary votes the Liberals actually got a -0.2% swing but UAP & Liberal Democrats got almost a combined +6% swing. So that 2PP swing to the Liberals came in the form of preferences from the “freedom” parties as opposed to a direct swing to the Liberals. This is also why I think Pakenham is the #1 most likely Liberal gain in the November election.

Another point I would make is that I wouldn’t necessarily equate “growth areas” to being Labor turf anymore. 10, or even 5 years ago, absolutely. But things have shifted, especially in Melbourne.

All the areas where the Liberals got a 2PP swing (even if it was only via ‘freedom’ preferences) were in growth areas on all sides of the city – Werribee, Wyndham Vale, Pakenham, Point Cook, Mernda, South Morang, etc. In almost all cases there were big swings against Labor, a relatively static Liberal vote, and a big swing to the “freedom” parties (which flowed to the Libs in the 2PP result).

So there were really two things happening at once. The Liberal vote held up relatively well and they didn’t cop the big negative swings they got in inner & middle suburbs, which I think is simply due to the Liberal Party taking the more Republican direction of appealing to lower income demographics through “anti-PC” culture war rhetoric; and then the anti-Dan / Covid factor swung votes to the minor populists and subsequently to the Libs via preferences.

I think the Andrews factor probably made that more pronounced in Melbourne than in Sydney which is why comparable growth/mortgage belt seats in Sydney held up better for Labor; but even without that factor I think in the long term, if the Liberal Party continue their realignment to a different “base”, the idea that established suburbs will lean Liberal and growth areas will lean Labor may start dissipating.

On a final note, North East touches on another very important point which I have thought about before, which is people sticking to their side of the city. As young couples move out to buy their first homes in growth areas, it’s more likely that those doing so in the north & west grew up in Labor families in the inner-middle north & west; whereas in the outer southeast they are more likely to have move out from the inner-middle southeastern suburbs which are more marginal territory.

Trent, you are correct the Andrews factor did play a role in the swing so many of those votes go to the Libs or the ‘freedom’ party. The reason why the Libs might not have a big swing against them is the fact has to do with Vic Libs more populist and libertarian rhetoric compared to the federal counter parts. I explained in the past thread they are more sympathic to the ‘freedom’ movement and their polices are aimed to cater to them so Matthew Guy may able to get many votes who voted from the ‘freedom’ party in the federal election. This however is not good news if they want to gain back the Eastern Suburbs which is more pro-vax and the federal election was a textbook case of that.

Another factor is the South Asian support for Jason Wood evident from his regular attendance to Indian cultural events on his social media given similar areas in other electorates voted for Labor on TPP

@Trent I think you’re right about what we consider ‘growth’ areas not been Labor turf (although they still win most of these areas but the margin is tightening in places). I think this is to do with these growth areas becoming more settled. This can be said for Scullin, northern parts of Calwell, some southern parts of Mcewen and other areas in Melbourne’s west.

@ North East , agree it is important to distinguish growth areas from established working class areas for example Southern Scullin such as Thomastown are very different from South Morang, Dandenong-Doveton from Officer/Clyde and Laverton from Williams Landing/Point Cook. The older working class areas that i mentioned tend to have high level of disadvantage. Over time many of this growth areas sometimes become more affluent (such Aston which in the 1990s was a growth area) or sometimes degentrify like Roxburgh Park/Hampton Park and resemble established working class suburbs. https://chartingtransport.com/tag/seifa/

Its worth noting that suburbs in this electorate where under lockdown while the rest of the state was not, this area was hit really hard with covid so it would explain why the increase in votes towards One Nation, United Australia, Liberal Democrats & Federation. It’s worth noting that the Liberal primary vote decreased here. Like I have commented in the state election in various electorates I am expecting that anti Dan vote to hurt Labor here like it seems to have federally in these outer suburbian electorates.

i think it is good to revisit this seat and the federal result in May now that the state election has concluded. It seems that in many cases what happened in May was a warning sign for state Labor and in deprived areas like Meadow Heights the anti-Dan backlash was amplified but not in the Growth areas for example there was actually swings to Labor in Officer and in Cragieburn the anti-labor swing was less at the state election than in May any thoughts?

Nimalan
When there are high levels of growth you can’t really the result of one election with another as the shear amount of growth may have moved too many demographic goalposts. You can only really judge with some stability. Growth in prepolling also makes a difference.

In terms of La Trobe Jason Wood is a popular member and he was first on the ballot, the seat of pakenham however had no incumbent and from what was known labor did alot more doorknocks than the liberals, so candidate quality got labor the win in pakenham

I point out that many Anti-Dan votes in the another and West actually somehow went to the Socialist but lots of these prefernces went to the Libs. Any explanation give the Socalist is more supportive on lockdowns (even compare to Labor) and those votes should had went to the “freedom” parties?

*another – I actually mean West

It will be interesting to see with the absence of Daniel Andrews and United Australia if the ALP recovers or will the interest rates and Labor federal asking for a second term as well as an old state ALP government keep this in the LNP hands.

@ space fish
At the state election the outer south east did not really have an anti lockdown backlash for example Pakenham did not really swing pretty much a status quo results

I think the Lib margin is still inflated due to the strong incumbency of Jason Wood (he pretty much post a lot on his social media account) similar to how Alan Tudge manage to swing towards him in Aston for 3 elections in a row. If you look at the state results, it is friendlier to Labor.

Why would people shift their vote or preference towards Labor federally in 2025? If this seat swung to the LNP in 2022 what factors could possibly swing it back in 2025?

From a purely demographic perspective, there is a lot of Urbanization, younger voters and rapid ethnic diversification which in theory should help Labor. However, Jason Wood as done well to build support in the South Asian communities and cost of living issues should work in the LNP’s favour unless there is an improvement by May 2025.

Safest Liberal seat in Greater Melbourne in:
– 2007: Kooyong
– 2010: Flinders
– 2013: Menzies
– 2016: Kooyong
– 2019: Aston
– 2022: La Trobe

Funny how fast things have changed.

What’s crazy is that Aston was the safest Liberal seat (10.1%) only 4 years ago, and is now a Labor seat!

Interesting Nicholas, looking at Labor and it’s basically different every year

2007: Batman
2010: Gellibrand
2013: Gellibrand
2016: Gorton
2019: Scullin
2022: Fraser

Somehow never been Calwell