Corangamite – Australia 2025

This part of Victoria has become much more Labor friendly especially with the demographic changes that occurred during the lockdown years.

Agree, Spacefish. The only liberal booth is semi-rural booth. It was once a Liberal stronghold. Neither Curtin, Chifley, Whitlam, Hawke or Keating ever won it.

It’s funny how even when Labor used to win landslides to government they’ve never held Corangamite or got even close, yet nowadays the Coalition can win government (like in 2019) but not hold Corangamite as part of their set.

Perhaps what is telling is that the redistributions over the last 30 years has pushed the seat far far away from where it used to be anchored around Colac, Lorne, Anglesea to now being purely based on the eastern Surf Coast shire and the Bellarine peninsula, both of which also used to be Coalition strongholds but are now completely dominated by Labor.

@ tommo9
Colac is still conservative, While Anglesea, Lorne etc are no longer in the seat they are still trending leftwards.

The area is popular with sea changers. Torquay has a hipster and surfie vibe and hence its high Greens vote. The southern outskirts of Geelong are more working-class and are part of a commuter belt to Geelong and even Melbourne.

Will swing 2-4% to the Liberals but 2028 might be their last chance to win it for quite some time

@maxin im saying it will be around a 3-4% labor retain margin

This seat had VIC’s largest election-day booth at Leopold Primary School, with 2769 votes cast.

The Greens have announced Mitch Pope as their candidate. Pope is an environmental campaigner who has been spearheading the local campaign against seismic blasting off the Victorian coast. This includes two large community rallies in two of the main towns in the electorate – Torquay and Ocean Grove.
https://timesnewsgroup.com.au/surfcoasttimes/news/surf-coast-community-celebrates-victory-over-seismic-blasting/

In theory in a bad election Labor could lose this seat. In the past this used to be a safe liberal seat… safer than the adjoining Wannon. This has all changed most of the more rural country towns are now in wannon. The demographic changes have helped labor

I’m tipping Corangamite will be a Liberal gain, albeit close, unless Labor’s broader fortunes somehow turn around within the next month.

My rationale in this assessment is that in the upcoming election, Labor are going to be smashed in Victoria in particular – even party insiders are now admitting that Victoria is no longer safe for the party’s fiortunes. They’re tracking for a swing against that’s almost double the national average in this state, and in particular, in outer suburban seats, is where the swing against Labor will be on.

The incumbent MP (Libby Coker) is very low profile and has likely lost the support of the local union movement due to the government’s involvement in the CFMEU fiasco and I dare say her volunteer base has been sapped as well. Darren Cheeseman (who has his office at the same shopping centre as Coker) being booted from Vic State Labor caucus and the allegations against him will likely have a local knock on effect as well.

At the same time, the seat looks safe enough on paper that the Labor campaign could become complacent and direct its resources into more marginal contests, and overlook Corangamite thinking its sown up. The lack of profile of the incumbent, again, is concerning – Coker may look at the Richard Marles in the neighbouring seat of Corio who’s been getting away with being a local non-entity for more than a decade while still retaining the seat by ridiculous margins thinking that she can do the same, to he peril, but that’s not going to work for Coker in Corangamite.

The Liberal candidate (Darcy Dunstan) is also low profile at the moment but he has been doing quite a bit of doorknocking in the Geelong suburbs – his pitch is that he’s a family man and a small business owner; as well as being a political outsider. That sort of ‘grassroots appeal’ is going to go down very well with the aspirational demographic (a predominantly white demographic – in contrast to equivalent areas in the outer west of Melbourne for example: the growth area demographic here is overwhelmingly white; new home owners mortgaged to the hilt, small and micro business owners who may be working a normal job on the side but have aspirations to be in business full time, etc) that dominates in an outer suburban seat such as this.

The Greens candidate (Mitch Pope) will do well in Torquay and in the coastal parts of the electorate and their choice of candidate was a smart move on their part too. An interesting tidbit is that the Greens gained above average swings in outer suburban growth areas across Victoria at the last federal election too and it’ll be interesting to see if that continues to consolidate this year.

Colac is now in Wannon

Also worth noting: in the recent Geelong council elections, in the two outer suburban wards that are part of Corangamite, a progressive independent won one, while the Greens came second in the other (outpolling a former Labor councillor). Also, Dunstan seems to be mainly focussing on being a former SAS soldier and is clearly aligned with the hard right of the Liberal party. I can’t see this sitting well with what is, generally, a progressive electorate.

@WanderWest outer suburbs in Victoria are trending to the right. The cost of living crisis is generally driving outer suburbs to the right – which is that part of Geelong that Dunstan is targeting with his campaign while the incumbent is nowhere to be seen. There’s an electoral realignment at play that has been brewing for at least the last decade. Again, it’s the demographics of these suburban areas (a predominantly white, upwardly mobile or people who aspire to be upwardly mobile demographic) that will favour Dunstan/the Liberal Party.

You’re right though that Dunstan being from the Right of the Liberal Party won’t wash over well in places such as Torquay and the southern half of the Bellarine Peninsula, which are predominantly in the upper echelons of the professional/white collar working class that tend to be increasingly favouring the Greens and Labor – the large overall swing to Labor occurred because of the large swing to the Left at the Torquey and southern Bellarine booths 2022 when in past elections these areas were broadly 50/50. Again a demonstration of this electoral realignment at play.

wasnt anywhere near my radar but recent rumblings have me thinking its in play

It looks like both Coker and Dunstan have held their campaign launches. Usually the attendance of these things relative to the location they’re held is a good barometer of public sentiment and campaign momentum – one has to go out of their way and schedule time to attend a campaign launch, etc.

Looking at the images – Dunstan looks to have had a slightly bigger attendance at his launch than Coker, but not hugely bigger. His launch was held in Leopold, which isn’t exactly a Liberal area – it’s more or less suburban Geelong (which has generally been weak for the Liberal Party). Coker held her launch at a venue in Connewarre – which is at the transition point between the coastal Bellarine and Surf Coast areas (areas which are already strong for Labor). Mitch Pope held his launch in Torquay, a strong area for the Greens, a few weeks before Coker and Dunstan held theirs, and was marginally smaller in attendance than Coker’s but not by much.

Dunstan appears to now have the momentum behind him at this point. I think Coker/Labor have now finally realised this and are scrambling to catch up. The question is whether or not it’s too late.

Pretty sure 2 months is more than enough for campaign work. The Labor party in particular doesn’t have an issue with sourcing volunteers. I don’t think reading into things like crowd size means a thing – people will vote for/against a government for a federal election marginal, not for or against a candidate barring exceptional cases.

I think Labor is feeling confident about Corangamite given its current margin and its demographics (what seachangers and treechangers from the city and Geelong being a generally Labor city anyway). We probably won’t see much attention paid here and even with the Liberals getting a head start, I doubt that their focus is going to be here when they’re more likely trying to get seats like McEwen instead.

As a local, I’m not sensing any momentum for the Liberals in Corangamite. And Dunstan’s choice to publicly align himself with the hard right of the party is not doing him any favours in what is generally a progressive electorate. I don’t think he is the right choice. The Liberals had a significant swing against them last time, despite running the moderate, high profile Mayor of Geelong. I can’t see running a more conservative, unknown candidate working.

Dunstan’s launch was held in a part of the Bellarine where the Liberals won a single member ward in the council elections. It is definitely one of the more conservative towns in Corangamite. Pope held two launches, one in Torquay, one in Ocean Grove. The noticeable difference between the Lib and Green launches was the age of attendees. But that’s to be expected. There are a lot of millennial and gen z voters in Corangamite, particularly in Geelong’s outer suburbs.

On the signage front, the Greens are outnumbering both Labor and the Liberals in the coastal towns, Labor ahead in Geelong suburbs. Liberal posters are mainly on construction sites and places where candidates usually pay to have posters hosted. Dunstan unusually has a lot of large posters on a road that is on the border with Wannon, where almost everyone who drives on the road lives in Wannon. Not sure if he realises the boundary has changed.

Local media seem to be giving pretty even coverage to all three candidates.