Chisholm – Australia 2025

Who would be leader if Dutton fell under the proverbial bus?

@mick he would need to lose the election convincingly. A narrow loss would likely see him retained as was Abbott

@Mick Andrew Hastie I would guess

On a possible Dutton successor – Geez its slim pickins’
Ley – serious lightweight
Taylor – ditto though he would fancy himself
Tehan – has to hold his seat but …… deputy possibly
Hastie – good media performer and seems to have some intellectual grunt. Would be interesting to see him in a domestic role
Sukkar – deputy possibly …. would fancy himself as well
Hume – wrong house but is a good media performer
Bragg, Paterson – both in wrong house and both have intellectual ballast

So on balance – Hastie as well. Agree with John above, unless Libs lost badly Dutton probably there for a while.

@redistributed a leader can be in the senate

@Darth Vader that’s true and not true.

The title of Opposition Leader has to be given to someone in the lower house, which on the federal level is the House of Reps. However, anyone can be a party leader, though for the major parties they would have to choose someone who is at least running in a lower house seat otherwise that person can’t be Prime Minister, Premier or Chief Minister.

For example, when Campbell Newman was still Lord Mayor of Brisbane but was preselected for the seat of Ashgrove (which he won in the LNP’s 2012 landslide), while he ousted John Paul-Langbroek as LNP leader, former Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney succeeded JPL as Opposition Leader until the LNP won the election.

@nether John Gorton

John Gorton was elected PM from the Senate but it would not have happened if Harold had not gone for a swim …….
A highly unique situation ..

In Canada it seems more common – Brian Mulroney was elected from outside and the parachuted into a safe seat in a by election and then into a Quebec (his home province) seat at the election.
Mark Carney is running for the post Trudeau leadership and is not in parliament – with the Liberals polling disastrously it is hard to see where he could get a seat that he could actually win.

Closer to home, Barry Unsworth succeeded Neville Wran from the Legislative Council in 1986. An MP stood aside for him and it almost came unstuck when he won Rockdale by only 52 votes. These days the risk of coming unstuck in a volatile climate is probably too high.

Agree Redistributed and NP, John Gorton was only ‘acting’ PM or leader whilst still a Senator. He quickly moved into the seat of Higgins within the standard 3-month timeframe permitted for a member to serve as Leader whilst not being a member of the House.

See the answers to my question:
Most not up to Dutton ‘s. Job
Maybe Hastie from wa
So far only john Curtin was pm from wa

I think Angus Taylor might be too. The treasurer is more often then not the no 2 man and therefore is in a position to have the numbers

Sportsbet seems to think the Libs will win this seat.

@Dan M I’m in agreement with that I think they should win this seat based on the swing expected in Vic being higher then the margin here

moving this to my liberal column now based on reports labor have given up

@ john
Poof up they go in a glowing Mushroom cloud ……

A good choice.

To anyone living in the seat: are the demographics in Chisholm somewhat similar to Bennelong? E.g. lots of upper middle class older voters, high proportion of aspirational Asian voters who tend to vote Liberal etc.

Seems like it may face the same fate as Bennelong this election if that’s the case

Wombater
Sort of – but there is nothing to compare to the extreme wealth of Hunters Hill, Woolwich or Longueville. There is more Housing Commission (or post Housing Commission if you get what I mean) in Chisholm than Bennelong. Once you get into Glen Waverley there is quite a big Indian community. Glen Waverley is a bit like Carlingford and Wheelers Hill more upmarket than that. I don’t like Sydney / Melbourne suburb comparisons because there is so much that is intangibly different. Once you are west of Warrigal Road it is a bit like the difference between Lane Cove and North Ryde. I can see both seats going to the Libs.

@redistributed Great to hear your insights. Given the current situation facing both seats, it seems natural to put the two side by side. Thank you 🙂

Similar seats would be Chisholm and Reid

Bennelong and Menzies? Or Aston

So many people seem to be writing this off for Labor given its small margin and the larger than average swing expected in Victoria, but looking at the swings in similar inner city, wealthier areas in Brisbane, Perth at recent state elections, even when there are swings against Labor they are tending to be smaller in this kind of area.

I think this will be a narrow Labor retain.

I think it will be close but libs to win. I heard Garland is invisible

@adam I totally agree with your statement about the swings in the inner city being very small towards the liberals. The only caveat here is that only part of the electorate (ex Higgins) would really be considered inner city. As well as the fact Katie Allen who actually out performed the Liberal party when compared to the liberal party in the senate is the candidate and is very well known in that specific area. This is a naturally liberal seat, it won’t be a big marginal but it’s a liberal gain.

Moreover the sophomore bump here won’t be that strong as Carina has basically been invisible and Katie Allen has a much higher profile as the ex member for Higgins but potentially even with the old Chisholm due to her profile firstly as a paediatrician and her doing lots of media during Covid.

I don’t quite buy into the picture painted by the last Redbridge of Victoria being uniquely bad for Labor. State samples are going to be smaller with bigger margins of error so I don’t think hasty conclusions should be drawn. It could be that there’s some negative effect from the state government but the Federal focus will appear during the campaign. And in particular for a seat like this, it’s hard to see Dutton being a positive plus Labor has been doing very well within inner urban suburbs. So even if Victoria as a whole isn’t great for Labor I would be inclined to think this seat will hold.

Also “based on reports Labor have given up”, John? Where do you get your reports from, Daily Mail?

The idea of Labor giving up here is pure wishful thinking.

im not sure im pretty sure someone posted something about it here. also when you say the inner suburbs im pretty sure that applies to the west and north in labors hearlland. the eastern suburbs have usually been pretty reliable for the libs and they should recover from their bottomed out vote in 2022.

@adda it was reported in a herald sun article about Redbridge polling that they had given up on Aston, McEwen and Chisholm.

Chisholm and the rest of the inner east are the educated suburbs that have been trending Labor for every state and federal election over the last decade – that pattern isn’t about to stop. Couple that with the sophomore boost and this almost certainly will have a lower swing than Victoria’s statewide swing. There is every reason to believe they can hold on.

I don’t know what article this is but it’s a patently absurd claim to say Labor has given up. This is one of the most crucial seats of the election.

thats the one menzies

I agree it’s ridiculous to say Labor have given up, obviously they haven’t and won’t. However Chisholm is not inner city, they won it in 2016 despite losing around 20 seats and the local member is invisible (I know I live here). The libs are favourites here hands down.

Inner urban isn’t inner city, it’s the suburbs that go up to the middle ring. Labor has consistently outperformed over every recent election in each capital city for suburbs of that profile, and especially the same demographics as Chisholm – established, inner-urban, diverse. I would compare this to Reid in NSW. And 2016 specifically is a high water mark for the Liberals in seats like this – where they have afterwards been losing ground.

Should specify educated/high SES in addition with that profile.

I agree Adda that the fact the Liberals overall lost around 20 seats in 2016 isn’t particularly relevant, because despite the Liberals having roughly a -3% 2PP swing nationally and even about -1.5% in Victoria overall, the Liberals had swings TO them in Higgins, Kooyong, Goldstein, Chisholm, Melbourne and Melbourne Ports (Macnamara). It was actually their best election in inner-urban Melbourne in recent memory and I’d also describe that election as a “high watermark” for them (in the modern era anyway) in this particular profile of seat.

this seat has been massively redistrubed though due to the redistribution abolishing neighbouring higgins

I’ll just acknowledge that my use of “inner urban” may be disputed. Chisholm starts where I would consider inner urban and ends in middle-ring territory – that is a band which I would say shares the characteristics I mentioned.

@Adda, I think you will find the economic position is uniquely bad in Victoria, in terms of business closures etc. On a fundamentals level you would expect Victoria to swing harder than the rest of the country, notwithstanding the inner/middle/outer suburbs divide.

The fact that Chisholm swung to the Libs in 2016, helps support the claim that it’ll swing less in 2025. In 2016 the Libs had a moderate Lib leader and did very well with highly educated voters, particularly in the inner city, after getting rid of Turnbull this has been a demographic they have clearly struggled with federally and on state levels. If the Libs had a moderate leader, maybe you could make an argument this trend would reverse, but with Dutton I don’t think so.

If you get a 50-50 result in Vic, which is a big if as it’d be their best result since 2004, you’d get a statewide swing of 4.83%. Chisholm is currently on 3.3%, with the good trend for them in this area, personal vote for their MP, I think it’s very possible Labor does 1.5% better here vs the rest of the state so Labor could hold here. Right now I’d predict a Labor retain.

It has to be remembered that Chisholm was vacant in 2016 on the retirement of Anna Burke. She was very hard working and very popular and she had built up a good personal vote so any swing would have been magnified. And in 2016 Chisholm was definitely not ‘inner urban’. Comparisons with 2016 are drawing a long bow indeed.

For the benefit of those who haven’t got access behind the paywall, the chart shows the swings in Chisholm in 2016:
– On the 2016 boundaries, there was a 2.8% swing from Labor 1.6% to Liberal 1.2%.
– On the 2025 boundaries, there was a 1.0% swing from Liberal 5.3% to Liberal 6.3%.

So yes both sets of boundaries swung but the old Chisholm much more than the current one. It shows how much the old Higgins has changed that on the new boundaries the new Chisholm is Labor 3.3%, 9.6% to the left from 2016.

The current boundaries are very different than in 2016 so are the circumstances, I wasn’t comparing the two seats, I was simply pointing out that saying that area has universally swung to the left is not entirely accurate considering 2013 won by labor then liberals then liberals again and then labor.

Ultimately it’s not an inner city seat, it’s suburban. Even the parts of old Higgins are closer to Glen Waverley in terms of SES then Malvern and Toorak. There’s a reason that in the redistribution East Malvern and Glen Iris didn’t just go into Kooyong.

The Chinese vote swung so heavily to Labor, even the naturally conservative Chinese voters switched. The rhetoric and climate has tempered since then and I would think a significant chunk of voters swing back.

Add in the fact that’s there’s only a small amount of renters and a lot of people with mortgage stress, I would say there’s a pretty compelling argument that the liberals will win here.