Calwell – Australia 2025

Labor hold (I mean, there is no other real outcome that is as likely) but a swing away from Labor stemming from cost of living and Palestine, but the swing generated from the latter will be muted as their candidate is Basem Abdo who is Palestinian himself and Labor’s recent shift in UN position will improve their stance on this issue.

But without Vamvakinou there is nothing but a swing against them as she has a big personal vote in the electorate.

@ Tommo9
Victorian Socialists are likely to do well due Palestine that may take votes from UAP last time and flow back to Labor in preferences.

This seat had VIC’s largest election-day polling place at Greenvale Primary School, with 3042 votes cast on polling day.

The Age reports that Carly Moore – Hume City Councillor and former mayor – has quit the ALP and will run as an independent.

@Redistributed Yes, this could be big. CALWELL is a seat to watch!

Carly is very popular in her area. She won more than 80% of the primary vote in her ward in the 2024 council elections, with a retiring member too this could be a Dai le situation

If her PV is around 30% the seat is hers

Mohamed El-Masri has quit the Greens to run as the lead Senate candidate in Victoria for Australia’s Voice.

With a retiring long-serving Labor member and large number of candidates, including an independent with a decent profile, I would expect a result with the same style as the 2025 Werribee by-election, where the primary votes of both major parties were extremely low and despite a large primary vote swing against Labor, disillusioned former Labor voters spray their votes mainly among different minor party and independent candidates. The Labor primary vote may drop to the low 30s while the Liberal primary vote stagnate in the mid 20s. I expect Labor to retain the seat with a 2PP margin between 2 and 5%, making it a marginal seat for the first time since its creation.

I don’t expect Carly Moore to poll anywhere similar to Dai Le’s, because factors that caused massive voter backlash and helped Dai Le win Fowler won’t exist in Calwell. Unlike Kristina Keneally who was a wealthy and white blow-in to a low-income and diverse electorate who understandably caused massive backlash among traditional Labor voters, Basem Abdo is a local of Palestinian heritage and Muslim refugee background who will be much more palatable to the diverse electorate of Calwell with a large Muslim population than Kristina Keneally would to Fowler. Carly Moore is of white background that makes her less relatable to voters of Calwell than Basem Abdo. Notably Basem Abdo also has a mortgage just as many Calwell residents do. Getting a primary vote in the low teens would have been a great result for Carly Moore.

Yeah I agree completely @Joseph, the factors that helped Dai Le win Fowler in 2022 aren’t really there to assist Carly Moore. I expect her and Samim Mosih (another high profile independent, backed by the Muslim Vote campaign) to poll 10-15% each, their preferences helping Abdo to win.

I see Calwell as the Victorian equivalent of my seat of Macarthur: multicultural, low-income, mortgage belt, but importantly a safe Labor seat where I predict this election the margin will shrink massively. Calwell has the disposition of being deep red, yet the overall sentiment here is it will be close. Dutton will be seen as a leader who will be liked by the electorate, albeit on Palestine which may take away prospective Liberal voters.

The Liberals with Usman Ghani seem to be running a strong campaign, easily the strongest in the seat’s history. Labor will reel with Vamvakinou’s known-quality personal vote dissipating, and it’s likely many voters are happy to go Liberal for the first time, or at most that a lot of voters will switch to minor parties (Moore, Mosih, Greens, VS, even ToP), to shake things up here.

I agree with @Joseph’s analysis, well-written but importantly discusses that this seat will have a strong third-party vote. Abdo’s vote will likely dip into the 30s, Ghani should stagnate around 20-25%. If the factors play right here, I can see a big swing here, and while I’d say there’s about a 3% chance of a Liberal gain, I think this is becoming an exceptionally close seat, and by 2028 it should likely end up as a battleground.

Adding on, Dutton will likely be seen as a more competent leader, as Labor has clearly struggles with cost of living, and it’s obviously the big issue here. Leadership will be important, and I would say this seat’s margin will dip a lot, but Palestine may save some votes for Labor, especially with Abdo’s heritage and Labor recently rebelling against the United States’ position on what’s going on in Gaza.

Margin will definitely end up between 1-5% between ALP v LIB. Feels weird that the Liberals are likely to be competitive in such a heartland Labor seat. Would feel even more weird if there was a ‘Liberal MP for Calwell’ which is theoretically possible in the next 5-6 years.

“Labor will reel with Vamvakinou’s known-quality personal vote dissipating,”

… what? She’s one of the most anonymous people to ever have occupied such a safe seat for so long. Every three years she shows up on the ABC call-of-the-board for five seconds. She’s spent 24 years showing up to work on time.

Plus, the big swing you’re salivating over already happened in 2022. Vic swung 1.7% to Labor, Calwell swung 7.2% to the Libs – that’s a 9% drop compared to the state. Right-wing assorted fruits and nuts got 18%, plus another 4% for Vic Soc. It now has a smaller margin than Ballarat. It’s certainly a thing that happened, but it doesn’t get to double-happen.

@Bird of Paradox In fairness I think being the MP for 24 years and having always been elected with over 60% 2PP Vamvakinou would’ve definitely commanded some level of personal vote in the electorate, even if she was a resident of Northcote which is worlds away distance-wise and demographically from the battler Calwell. Whether her personal vote is significant or not will be tested this election.

This is a difficult seat to tell. In any normal election Labor would be in trouble with cost of living hitting this area quite hard. In 2022 this seat swung hard to the right on both Federal and State levels due to lockdown sentiments. Whilst cost of living will play a big role and there will definitely be a swing away from Labor on primaries, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will go Liberals. In fact, it’s more likely, as many mentioned, that the Greens/VS will pick up a big proportion of that swing and flow back to Labor in preferences.

Furthermore, Palestine will absolutely hurt the Liberals’ chances here (same in the case of electorates like Werriwa), even if they’ve got a candidate from a CALD background. Vamvakinou had been very pro-Palestine and it was something that the community backed her in for many years, and Labor has chosen a candidate that reflects on the diverse nature of the electorate who is also a local. All of these, plus Labor’s change in stance over Israel/Gaza will help them retain this seat, even if there is a swing away for obvious reasons.

@Bird of Paradox

Redbridge is finding that the swing in the 5 key VIC marginals they are tracking is already a above 8%, the poll aggregates are currently putting it north of 5%, Liberals got double digit swings at both recent by-elections. The more localised re-alignment may have already begun but the national and particularly statewide mood are quite different now…