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It’s still a tad too early to say if this will have the highest No vote in all Labor seats, but it looks like it will. Could this be under threat in future? The other 3 seats with highest No for Labor are all seen as at risk, Blair, Hunter, Paterson, etc. Why did this vote overwhelmingly No if it is a progressive seat?
I think this seat is like Blair or Longman in outer Brisbane, covering the fringe suburbs of Adelaide which consist of mostly those from white, working-class backgrounds. These are the type of voters who may be less inclined to continue supporting Labor, so I agree that this may become more marginal in the future.
One Point of difference between Adelaide/Brisbane is that the Northern Suburbs of Adelaide is heavily industrialized so has a unionized workforce so it makes it a bit difference from Longman. Longman also has Bribie Island and some more middle class areas. Blair is also marginal as it includes significant rural areas even in 2007 Labor only won it by 5% so not really a heartland as it is a mixed seat while Spence is clearly a heartland seat, it one of most deprived seats in the country. Adelaide is also a more class segregated City with a clearer class divides compared to Brisbane so it makes more akin to Sydney/Melbourne despite being much smaller.
Firstly, Spence is a working class outer suburban seat, not a “progressive” seat.
Secondly, this area has in fact trended towards Labor, as Gawler has become more an outer suburb, and less the country town it once was. Look at the state seat of Light, which has gone from safe Liberal to marginal to safe Labor in a short space of time.
Also, comparisons with recent elections (like 2007) are fraught because this electorate had a whole heap of rural territory when it was called Wakefield.
@ David Walsh agree with you. I compared Blair to 2007 which was a good year for Labor in QLD. Even if we use 2007 as an example Labor would have won it by 16% TPP so much stronger for Labor than Longman/Blair
With the result there’s no douht the LNP will try on a strategy of flipping outer suburban seats by running an anti-woke resentment wedge campaign. Imply that the government cares more about [insert issue] than the cost of living crisis. it may look different in anglo and multicultural working class seats.
They won’t win back teal seats that way except maybe Indi and Mayo, and probably lose Deakin to Labor, Bradfield to teals and Sturt to somebody. But the idea would be to take enough seats off Labor that the teals are kingmakers and hope enough of them choose the LNP (as is tradition in their seats) over Labor. Even if they don’t, they can make 2025-2028 look like 2010-2013 (without the knifing if Labor is wise).
Even if that works though, there’s a lot of safety margin in Spence.
And it may not even remotely work – people were saying the same thing about the Same Sex Marriage postal survey but the story of 2019 was more Morrison reversing Turnbull’s surprise losses than a political realignment.
It’s working class outer suburban Adelaide with a satellite town of Gawler. I read that it’s amongst the most economically depreived electorates in the country.
Labor may struggle to get over 50% here in primaries but it’s still out of reach to the Liberals. Like many other similar Labor seats, Labor is at risk of losing votes to third parties e.g. One Nation, or localist independents similar to Dai Le (pending candidate quality and campaigning).
In 2022, UAP and ONP polled strongly off the back of populism and pandemic politics. Many Labor voters fled to such parties in outer suburban Adelaide and Sydney, even though Liberal Premiers and a Liberal PM declared lockdowns, rolled out vaccines etc. For many reasons, the pandemic disproportionately affected the working class who were less likely to work from home and had less resources e.g. technology for kids, to cope with the pandemic.