Prahran by-election, 2025

There’s two possible scenarios.
1. Labor abstains as they didn’t make the final two last time. This would be interesting as it would send Labor voters in different directions and might make it easier for the Liberals to win.

2. The three main parties will run. The Greens vote will drop because Sam Hibbins’s personal vote is now gone and also because of the Greens’ stance on the Israel issue. The southern part has a large Jewish population. I also believe when MPs leave due to poor behaviour or legal issues, their parties would likely cop swings at the following by-election.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Michelle Ananda-Rajah runs here. This is perhaps more winnable than Labor’s third senate spot. Since Higgins will be abolished anyway, there wouldn’t be a point in having a federal by-election.

Whilst this was a former Liberal seat (and a fairly safe one at that) the demographic of this electorate suggests this is a Greens/Labor contest depending on whoever gets ahead in 3CP. Labor could theoretically have a chance with the Greens on the nose due to various reasons but they’re in no strong position themselves in the state as their lifespan is starting to fade. But the Liberals on a state level is also toxic in an electorate like this which is probably the most left wing seat south of the Yarra.

Ananda-Rajah could run but it’s a long shot for her to win because of the reasons above. I predict it’s a marginal Greens retain simply because they appear to be the least worst option for this electorate (as for who’s the worst, I’d have to say the Liberals).

This seat has changed into a left-wing one.

I predict a Greens retain, with a swing to the Liberals because of the war and because the Victorian Liberals have now shown they can be moderate and effective as an opposition. New margin 9%.

I’m expecting an anti-labor swing in the primary vote based on the recent polling however, given victorian liberals recent history of messing things up they could bungle this as well. I don’t see Labor winning this not in this current environment its most likely they will stay in third place and the Liberals will increase their primary vote. It’ll be interesting to see who the Greens select and if the Gaza issue plays here for the Greens positively or negatively.

@votante Labor won’t abstain. What will be interesting if liberals abstain. Labor is a good chance of winning here

A lot may depend on where Sam Hibbins allegations of skulduggery go and where they are traced to. With a reasonable candidate, the Greens are still in with a good chance especially as Labor is on the nose anyway. Hard to see the Libs winning though a swing is possible. If they could find a high profile moderate ….. What might help the Libs is a lower turnout at a by election.

@redistributed the left vote is too high. There will be a swing to the libs but they can’t win unless there is a complete collapse

Greens should comfortably retain but with a reduced margin closer to 2018, then I think at the 2026 election it will likely return closer to the 2022 margin again.

A couple of points relating to other comments:

I don’t think Israel will hurt the Greens here and I disagree that it has a significant Jewish population. The vast majority of the St Kilda East & Balaclava area is in the seat of Caulfield, this seat only has a very small pocket of St Kilda East (bounded by Chapel, Dandenong, Hotham and Inkerman) which is actually the least Jewish part of St Kilda East.

Port Phillip’s share of St Kilda East is only 11% Jewish but I’d estimate that the part in this seat is even less than that. So really it’s just a very small part of this seat that might be around 8-10% Jewish, and they are probably the least likely to have voted Greens in 2022 anyway. Nowhere else in the seat including St Kilda has a significant Jewish population.

St Kilda’s housing commission tower has Palestinian flags flying from it, and I’d say overall this seat would be more pro-Palestine than pro-Israel. If anything the war has probably turned more of this seat’s demographic against Israel.

Also regarding it previously being a safe Liberal seat, I think the last time the Liberals had a margin above 5% was 1992 when the boundaries were very different. It was marginal Liberal in 1996, 1999 and 2010, marginal Labor in 2006, fairly safe Labor in 2002, while the 3 Greens wins went from marginal to fairly safe to safe. So it’s been a mixed bag more than anything but definitely with a trend to the left.

The Greens should definitely pre-select a woman given the circumstances of Hibbins’ departure.

The other point I’ll make is that this seat has by far the most public housing of any seat south of the river as it contains all the towers in South Yarra, Prahran, Windsor and St Kilda. Labor’s plan to demolish the towers will help the Greens.

When, where and how do we vote in this by-election?

The earliest possible date for the by-election, as far as I can tell, is 22 December, and the latest is 16 February.

My Personal bet would be some time in February. Obviously December is off limits, and January is still problematic with many on holidays. 9th of February maybe?

Whoops, I misread my calendar. The Earliest Date is actually, I believe, the 21st, and the latest the 15th.

More stuff has come out about Sam Hibbins as far back as 2016 not too long into his first term. I have a feeling that more stuff will come out especially if it goes that far back. If I was the Greens I would be bracing myself for a loss here.

I don’t know, if it’s not actually Sam Hibbins running, the Greens have strongly condemned his behaviour and said he’s no longer welcome in the party, and then especially if they select a female candidate, I don’t think his own behaviour will do them too much damage.

They’ll cop a swing with loss of incumbency, etc no doubt. And maybe lose a little bit of support over Hibbins’ behaviour. But the average person is voting a colour/team and wouldn’t know or care.

Obviously this will be dependent on the strength of the candidates selected, but I’m tipping something along the lines of:

Liberals – Back up to around 34-35%
Greens – Down to around 30-32%
Labor – Steady on around 25%

Greens vs Liberal 2CP would be around the 56-57% range. Still a comfortable win, but their margin effectively slashed in half.

However, as long as they hold onto the seat in this byelection – and I think they will because I don’t see Labor overtaking them, which is the only way they could lose it – they’ll go into the 2026 election with an incumbency advantage again and probably increase the margin back to double-digits, so in the long term it probably works out better for them than if Sam Hibbins stuck around until 2026.

Seems all 3 parties face headwinds here – greens obviously damaged by the disgraced incumbent, potentially the Israel stuff and general weariness of their parliamentary tactics and increasingly cosying up to the more militant aspects of the far left. Plus I imagine Prahran has something of a transient population – perhaps some of the younger greens voters who are less concerned with that stuff no longer live there but older millennials who voted multiple times for Hibbins are more likely to be turned off with another poll in 2026 on the horizon. Labor would be the likely beneficiaries were it not for the dismal state of their government and the dual unpopularity of their housing activity centres with locals and the social housing towers thing.

However with all that, the Liberals are potentially battling uphill to arrest what has been a significant shift away from them in this seat and this sort of area, their easiest pathway is if Labor chicken out and don’t run, as much as Labor would love to make a dent in the expansion of the greens it’s getting to the point where they need to watch their majority and allowing a Liberal to get in and bunker down before 2026 hardly works in their favour. Liberals need to find a candidate who can paint the greens as extremists, Labor as incompetent and they themselves as sensitive to NIMBY interests locally. Given we’re almost 3 months out from a likely date any danger an independant emerges to capitalise on such a scenario?

Pretty good assessment Max, the only thing I’d add is that this seat doesn’t really have any of the new activity centres in it and has been pretty welcoming of development.

Further east in Stonnington is a different story, but the Chapel St area in this seat is already dense, lots of high rise at the north end, almost entirely flats at the south end and dominated by renters. So I don’t think that particular issue will be a factor here (as it certainly will in seats like Hawthorn, Kew, Brighton, etc).

According to the guardian Labor probably wont run

So i would say a Liberal gain for sure especially with the controversy around the greens member

@Up the Dragons that’s a hot take. If this seat flips then I would safely say the Victorian Coalition will win the next state election and John Pesutto will become the next Premier of Victoria.

If Labor don’t run they must serious believe they are on the nose, even Miles was able to engineer a pick-up against a sitting green a month ago!

I don’t see a 62-38 Greens 2CP in a predominantly left leaning area turning into a Liberal win, because an ex-Greens member who the Greens basically expelled had a controversy.

They might slash the Greens’ margin to 5-6% but the Liberals getting more than 50% in an electorate dominated by young, progressive renters which includes suburbs that have sub-20% Liberal primary votes seems like a big stretch.

It’s no longer the seat or was in the 1990s, or even 2010. I believe it has the youngest median age, and highest percentage of renters in the state.

You have to remember Hibbins isn’t running. The party who expelled him are.

And in regards to loss of personal vote, the Greens also won the primary vote in every single overlapping booth in the 2022 federal election with no incumbency.

For the Liberals to win, they would need to not only beat the Greens in the primary vote (which they didn’t do in a single overlapping booth in either the state or federal 2022 elections), but also scoop up at least half of the Labor voters in their absence, which seems even more unlikely.

Labor isn’t running in this electorate which isn’t surprising given they’ve lost their shine but then again they didn’t contest Warrandyte either when they were arguably more popular. Probably trying to work out a way to win 2026 first before thinking about by-elections.

In the absence of Labor, I reckon most of the people who vote Labor would prefer to vote Greens in this electorate despite of what happened. Yes the MP that exited in disgrace is a Greens MP but the Liberals are toxic and unpalatable in that part of Melbourne (and this isn’t like Hawthorn, Kew which is more old money affluent, or Caulfield which is pro-Israel and conservative), even under Pesutto who is still struggling to control his party in its entirety. I’d have to agree with Trent it will be a more marginal Greens hold.

There’s a few things that probably would have happened if Labor were running:

– Some ALP voters swing to LIB based on Labor’s poor state polling (they still will)

– Some ALP voters swing to Greens based on public housing issue and also Labor being less popular right now (they still will)

– Some Greens voters might have swung to Labor over loss of Hibbins’ incumbency, based on Hibbins outperforming Semmens’ overlapping federal results in 2022, and/or Hibbins’ controversy, but they no longer can so will most likely stick with the Greens

– Some Greens voters may have swung to the Liberals, based only on the Liberals recovering some support statewide over the past year or so

Based on all this, I’d predict that before taking into account where Labor voters’ votes end up, you’d have primary votes of around 35% Liberal and 34% Greens.

There’d still be maybe a 24% Labor vote that needs to go somewhere.

For the Liberals to win, they’d need to pick up half of that. Prahran is the prime Greens’ demographic: young, predominantly renters, highly educated, socially progressive.

Labor voters are more likely to prefer Greens over Liberals in Prahran than they are in more suburban seats.

If the Greens pick up 2/3 of Labor voters in primary votes they could get to 50% without preferences.

Of course, the same logic applies to the Liberals but it feels far more unlikely that 2/3 of Labor voters would put the Liberals first.

If the libs dont pick it up in the by election they have all the more chance to win it in 2026 as things only get worse for labor and the greens

The libs will need to select a moderate woman who is well known in the area for a chance to win either way

Liberals’ chance of winning Prahran in 2026 is about 0.1% lol. St Kilda, Prahran and Windsor are simply not Liberal territory whatsoever, and they compromise half the seat, while the “ceiling” for the Liberals in South Yarra is probably around 50-50 these days.

Back when the Libs were competitive in this seat it contained 70%+ Liberal territory in Toorak, and South Yarra (the seat’s most populous suburb) was more Liberal leaning, so it was really a case of whether the conservative vote north of Commercial Road could overpower the left-wing vote in the south. There is no longer any area that’s over 50% Liberal left in the north to counter the strong left-wing vote south of Commercial Road.

And no Victorian polling has shown any collapse in the Greens vote at all. Labor, yes. But Greens, no.

Latest state Resolve poll for example had, compared to 2022:

* Labor -9
* Coalition +3
* Greens +1.5
* Others +4.5

Not saying that poll would reflect actual results or apply evenly across the state. But if anything, it’s inner-city seats like this that would swing less towards the Liberals than the more suburban ones.

A seat that isn’t even held by the government seems like the last place where the Liberals would get a +12 swing.

@Up the dragons surely you’re joking- No this isn’t a clear Liberal win at all, the Greens are still clearly heavily favoured here. A 12% margin isn’t likely to fall at all. Not saying it can’t go to the Liberals, but no realistic person thinks the Liberals are more likely than the Greens to win. Most of the hype about this by-election I think was about the possibility of Labor taking over either party which would get them the win, but ofc we find out today they weren’t running

I’m thinking Greens retain but the Liberals win the primary vote.

@NP that would have been my guess too if Labor were running, something along the lines of Libs 35-36% and Greens 33-34%, but with Labor sitting it out there probably won’t be much of a non GRN/LIB vote and most of what would have gone to the Greens in preferences from Labor will probably go there in primary votes instead.

I’m predicting in the absence of Labor, Greens will probably end up high 40s and Liberals low 40s because the Greens will get that 33-34% they would have got anyway if Labor ran plus probably an additional 15% or so from people who would have voted Labor. Libs will get their 35-36% plus might get an additional 5-7% from people who would have voted Labor putting them over the 40% mark too.

The low 40s is no where enough for the Libs to win they need close to 47% primary to win the seat. The reason is that Right wing minors who often a presence in parts of suburban such as Family First and the DLP are very weak here. Animal Justice will preference the Greens and will probably get a better vote than DLP and FFP.

Right-wing minor parties may not even bother contesting a byelection like this in an area where there’s really no benefit in them testing the waters. That will increase the Liberal’s primary vote but wouldn’t really give them any source of preferences. Even if they do run, they’d get sub-2% but I don’t even see why they would.

In 2014 on the previous more ‘Liberal friendly’ boundaries, they lost with a 44.8% primary vote, and a ballot with 3 independents, Family First, and a 25% Labor vote for them to source preferences from. I’d say around 45% is their required primary vote in most normal elections, but it would be even higher at a byelection where they can’t rely on getting at least 15% of either ALP or GRN preferences in addition to minor preferences.

I imagine this time the ballot would look more like maybe Greens, Liberals, Animal Justice, 1 IND (probably serial candidate Alan Menadue), and maybe a 5th one – could be VS, could be a second IND, who knows. There are good reasons for VS to give it a shot and test the waters on the southside, at a byelection where it won’t divert resources from their north & west seats.

Especially since a VS candidate got 4% in the most conservative ward overlapping this seat last month (Como Ward, the only one that has no public housing), and around 8% in neighbouring St Kilda, Labor aren’t running, there’s the public housing issue to campaign on in a seat where all 4 suburbs in it have public housing towers, and the COL/rent issue to campaign on in the seat with the highest percentage of renters in the state.

So I’d say the Liberals’ primary vote will be made up of roughly the 35% they probably would have got even if Labor ran, plus maybe another 5-7% out of the ~25% or so that would have voted Labor, for a primary vote of around 41-42%.

Assuming the ‘Other’ vote is around 10% (with no Labor candidate I imagine AJP & INDs would do a little better than usual), that’d already put the Greens on around 48% primary vote which makes sense as it would be around the 33-34% I predicted they’d get if Labor were running plus around 14-15% out of the ~25% or so Labor vote.

That’d mean the Liberals need around 80-90% of the preference flows to win, realistically they’d probably get closer to 30% of the minor preferences in the absence of right-wing minor parties (less if VS run too), especially if AJP come third with around 4-5%.

That brings us back to my original prediction as it would put the Liberals on around 44-45% after preferences. So maybe a 55-45 2CP (which is about 2% lower for the Greens than I predicted if Labor ran).

Then, going into 2026, Greens have incumbency again, the Hibbins saga behind them, Labor will be running again to provide a strong source of preference flows, but any swing against Labor would be more likely to benefit the Greens than the Liberals, and the Greens’ 2CP margin will probably climb back up towards 2022 levels. Maybe around 10% instead of 12%.

So I think long term, this byelection will benefit them more than if Hibbins saw out the term and they went into 2026 with no incumbency and a controversial ex-Green IND as the outgoing member.

@ Trent
I agree with you. Just a couple of points
1. I think if Reason still existed they would do well in Prahran and Albert Park but no other Southern Metro seats
2. VS may do well i think they will do better in the Southern part where they are walk up flats and a less affluent demographic. Interestingly, i think VS appeals to a less affluent demographic than the Greens they are able to poll strongly in places like Broadmeadows, Greenvale, Thomastown, St Albans and Kororoit which in many booths they came third.

Totally agree Nimalan.

Reason used to run here and did pretty well in the inner-south area, as did their predecessor the Australian Sex Party who I think particularly targeted the St Kilda area in their early days since they were about decriminalising sex work. This area is a natural home for Reason who are more ‘left-libertarian’ with a focus on civil liberties, rather than class politics / working class like VS.

Victorian Socialists wouldn’t do well with a lot of the more affluent voters in this seat, but would probably poll quite strongly around the housing commission pockets that are scattered around, as well as with the young renters in the cheaper walk-up flats in south-end like you say. In Labor’s absence I think they could certainly get around 4% at least. Which doesn’t sound like much, but that’s roughly what they were getting in the inner-north prior to their big swings in 2022 as well. So it would be worth them testing the waters in a byelection where they can focus all their resources on the one seat.

That would cut into the Greens’ primary vote but they’d probably get at least 90% of their preferences.

im thinking it will be around 56-57 to 43-44 here. could go either way to labor or greens though but likrly greens retain

@john, Labor are sitting it out. The Guardian reported last night that they’re not running.

I think the absence of Labor will slightly narrow the 2CP in the Liberals’ favour (perhaps to around 55-45), but actually makes it more likely that the Greens will retain overall, because the possibility of Labor overtaking them is now off the table.

Otherwise though, I agreed with you that previously – if Labor were running – I predicted around a 56-57% Greens 2CP as well.

@trent interesting i imagine the greens will win on primary votes or close to it.

For Labor not to be running, their internal polling must be showing that things might be worse than they are letting on. Agree that the Greens would be favoured unless some independent comes out of the woodwork. Lib win might still be possible – some Labor voters will hold their noses and vote for the Libs, some Labor voters might just not turn up, and younger Greens voters may be lost through a lower by election turn out.

Good points Redistributed.

I don’t think a high profile IND would win or could knock the Greens out of the 2CP, but would potentially change the dynamic of the preference flows.

And you make good points that Labor not running will probably result in a higher % of their vote going to the Liberals in primary votes than what would otherwise have gone to them in preferences (eg. Whereas Labor preferences may have gone 85-15 between Greens & Libs, their primary vote might go closer to 65-25-10 with the 10 being others). Similarly, low turnout in a byelection would likely hurt the Greens more than the Liberals.

Those factors are what I think will narrow the 2CP from what would usually happen in a normal election with all 3 major parties running.

Overall a 12% margin to turnaround still seems unrealistic for the Liberals in an area like this but I expect it will be a narrower 2CP than it usually would.

And John is right, the Greens could potentially win off the primary vote alone (or close to it) without Labor running, especially if it’s only small ballot of 3-4 candidates and close to 95% of the vote is split between GRN & LIB primary votes. Doesn’t necessarily mean the 2CP margin will be huge, but the primary votes could be 51-44-5 (translating into only a 54-46 2CP) or something.

@Nimalan @Trent it doesn’t surprise me that the Victorian Socialists poll better in poorer communities given socialism and communism are supposedly pro-working-class (they aren’t really anymore, look at China and the CCP). The Greens on the other hand can appeal to the leftist ecosocialists in the affluent areas or in areas with lots of renters.

Regarding Vic Socialists, they tend to run west or north of the Yarra River. I’m not sure why. They were able to achieve quite strong results in both inner city electorates like Northcote and Brunswick and outer suburban electorates like Thomastown and Tarneit.

On Prahran, now that Labor’s out, I expect the Greens to win comfortably, possibly following a 2PP swing away.

A threat to a Greens win without Labor running is their usual voters don’t show up. Low information ALP voters might not turn up for a byelection (even if there’s a fine), and it’s not as if Vic Labor is going to lift a finger to turn out their members and base. In 2014 and 2018 Greens depended on a relatively strong Labor vote and preference flows to win here.

Greens are the favourites, but they’ll need to run an actual campaign. Luckily I think after the redistribution this electorate entirely overlaps with one of Melbourne or Macnamara so Greens already have motive to campaign strongly here.

@ Nether Portal/Votante
They run pretty much in the Northern and Western Metro as it perfectly balances inner city renters/students activist and working class ethnic communities so that is their best hope to win an Upper house seat. The issue is is that the Southern Metro region where Prahran is the most affluent Upper House region and outside housing commission and some young renters they cannot win an upper house seat. My belief is that the Victorian Socialists are good at picking up angry especially ethnic communities who have grown up in Australia who feel they have grown up on the wrong side of the tracks and in a society that looks down on them so their anti elite/class based rhetoric works well. VS is not looking at picking up Tealish voters so they are able to narrowcast their message better. Interestingly, in the state seat of Melbourne their weakest booth was East Melbourne (most affluent), Mulgrave by-election Wheelers Hill and their weakest seat in both Northern and Western Metro Regions was Niddrie the most middle class and least diverse electorate. If they ran in the South East Metro region i expect them to do very well around Dandenong but the issue is that they will do poorly in the Sandbelt and more affluent seats such as Berwick and Rowville so not enough to win an upper house seat.

@Nimalan, I agree with all that and I think it’s why in 2022 they ran candidates in pretty much every north & west metro lower house seat, as it also helped them boost their upper house vote. There was no reason to do that in southern metro where they wouldn’t win anyway.

But that’s a good reason I think contesting somewhere like Prahran, outside of a general election so there’s no diversion of resources away from north and west metro, and the seat that has most of southern metro’s housing commission and the most renters, makes sense. Especially in Labor’s absence.

@Blue Not John, yep the fact that this by-election will be just before a federal election and entirely overlaps a Greens seat and major Greens target seat, means they have a lot of incentive to campaign hard. I already got an email from the Vic Greens stating the same thing: that Prahran entirely overlaps Melbourne and Macnamara.

I don’t think they’ll take it for granted, I think they’ll go hard to get momentum into the federal election campaign in the same area.

@ Trent
Further to your point it is also why they ran in the Mulgrave by-election and they actually scored pretty well in Springvale and Noble Park areas where people experience postcode prejudice but the no point contesting the seat at a general election as the SE Metro Region covers a more varied demography.

Blue not John
Prahran East, which fittingly, is located to the east of Williams Road., lies entirely within the new federal Division of Kooyong.

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/labor-has-given-up-on-prahran-it-s-an-astonishing-act-of-political-cowardice-20241127-p5ku3x.html

Annika Smethurst really needs to do better research. Toorak was removed from this seat in 2021. She mentions Toorak twice.

@Nimalan, Vic Socialists were able to tap into economic despair and post-pandemic anger in northern and western suburbs. Various socialist parties and Greens did not gain much traction before Covid in such suburbs. Perhaps for VS, the timing was right. Whilst VS aren’t anti-vax or anti-lockdown, their approach on class struggle did resonate with working-class voters.

I also believe, like a lot of other people, she is overstating the impact on the Greens stance on Israel in “the southern part of the seat”.

There are 2996 electors in St Kilda East within the boundaries of Prahran. Port Phillip’s share of St Kilda East is 11% Jewish, so that’s 330 voters.

But even that is probably overestimating it, because the Jewish population is higher east of Hotham St (seat of Caulfield) than it is west of Hotham St where these 2996 electors are in Prahran.

So really, the part of the seat where people are talking about Israel hurting the Greens has around 300 Jewish voters in it.

There are actually more Jewish voters in the Prahran & Windsor (around 435) and South Yarra (around 540) than there are in Prahran’s share of St Kilda East (around 300) and St Kilda (90).

I think a lot of people don’t understand the nuances of the area very well. They see “St Kilda East” and just associate it with the Glen Eira part which is very different.

Yes overall this seat has an above average Jewish population, but it’s around 3.5% of the overall enrolment and most of that isn’t actually in the area everybody is focusing on.

In raw numbers, Prahran’s enrolment is over 45,000 and everyone is talking about Israel hurting the Greens in a pocket that literally has around 300 Jewish voters.