Call of the board: regional Victoria

Part four in the region-by-region review of the results in each seat at the May federal election.

This site’s slow-moving Call of the Board series, which takes a closer look at the results for every seat at the May 18 election, now makes it to regional Victoria. This area once enjoyed its fair share of marginal seats (see Ballarat, Bendigo and Monash/McMillan below), but now has only Corangamite to offer in the way of reliable election night seats-to-watch. Nonetheless, there were a few interesting things going on in the results for those who cared to look. (And while you’re here, note also the post on Brexit developments immediately below this one).

Ballarat (Labor 11.0%; 3.6% swing to Labor): Labor has been strengthening in this once highly marginal seat since Catherine King gained it at the 2001 election, at which it was the only seat in the country to shift from Coalition to Labor (with some help from the retirement of Michael Ronaldson, later a Senator). The only serious speed bump in that time was a 6.8% swing to the Liberals in 2013, reducing her margin to 4.9%, which she has now almost made good with successive swings of 2.4% and 3.6%. The Liberal primary vote on this occasion was down 4.0% despite the absence of the Nationals, who polled 4.2% in 2016, although they did face new competition on the right from the United Australia Party, which polled 4.6%.

Bendigo (Labor 9.0%; 5.2% swing to Labor): Victoria’s other regional city seat has followed a similar pattern to Ballarat over time: won by Labor from the Liberals in 1998, retained only narrowly in 2004 and 2013, and now looking secure again after successive swings of 2.5% and 5.2% in 2016 and 2019. The current member, Lisa Chesters, has now almost made up the 8.2% swing she suffered when she came to the seat on Steve Gibbons’ retirement in 2013. The Liberal primary vote was down 6.1% amid an overload of competition on the right, with One Nation, Conservative National and Rise Up Australia all in the field alongside the ubiquitous United Australia Party.

Casey (Liberal 4.6%; 0.1% swing to Liberal): Located on Melbourne’s eastern outskirts and held for the Liberals by the Speaker, Tony Smith, Casey was one of many Victorian seats that looked promising for Labor after the state election, but singularly failed to deliver on the day. Smith actually picked up a very slightly swing on two-party preferred, and none of the primary vote swings were particularly significant. Labor tended to do better in the more urbanised western end of the electorate, particularly in those parts of it newly added from La Trobe in the redistribution.

Corangamite (LABOR NOTIONAL GAIN 1.1%; 1.0% swing to Labor): Corangamite was designated as a notional Labor seat by the barest possible margin, so whoever received the swing was almost certain to win the seat. That proved to be Labor’s Libby Coker, just, in a result perfectly in line with the state average. Defeated Liberal member Sarah Henderson picked up a few swings in the booths newly added to the electorate on the Bellarine Peninsula, but the Great Ocean Road swung to Labor, reflecting its affluent and educated sea-changer demographic. The Greens were down 3.0% on the primary vote, as voters situated in the state’s south-west failed to warm to a candidate called Simon Northeast.

Corio (Labor 10.3%; 2.1% swing to Labor): Labor’s Richard Marles picked up 4.2% on the primary vote and 2.1% on two-party preferred, the former assisted by a small field of four candidates. The Liberals picked up some swings in Geelong’s down-market north, but the city centre and its surrounds went solidly to Labor.

Flinders (Liberal 5.6%; 1.4% swing to Labor): One of many disappointments for Labor was their failure to seriously threaten Greg Hunt in an area that had swung forcefully their way at the state election. Hunt was also little troubled by Julia Banks, who managed 13.8% of the primary vote, well behind Labor on 24.7%. Banks’s presence cut into the vote share for Liberal, Labor and the Greens – Hunt was down 3.8% to 46.7%, and needed preferences to win the seat for the first time since he came to it in 2001.

Gippsland (Nationals 16.7%; 1.5% swing to Labor): For reasons not immediately apparent, Labor was up 3.0% on the primary vote and cut slightly into what remains a secure margin for Nationals member Darren Chester.

Indi (Independent 1.4% versus Liberal; 4.1% swing to Liberal): As a number of highly trumpeted independents failed to live up to the hype elsewhere, Helen Haines performed a remarkable feat in retaining the independent mantle of Cathy McGowan. Haines’ primary vote of 32.4% was only slightly short of McGowan’s 34.8% on her re-election in 2016, although the Liberals put up a stronger show after gouging half of the Nationals vote. An interesting feature of the result was the 7.7% swing to the Liberals on two-party-preferred versus Labor, suggesting Haines’ preferences favoured the Liberals more strongly than did McGowan’s.

La Trobe (Liberal 4.5%; 1.3% swing to Liberal): A swing to the Liberals in Melbourne marginals was not a feature of too many pre-election predictions, but such was the outcome in La Trobe. Both major parties were up slightly on the primary vote amid a smaller field of candidates than 2016.

Mallee (Nationals 16.2%; 3.6% swing to Labor): Vacated with the demise of Andrew Broad’s two-term career, this was retained by the Nationals against a challenge from the Liberals, as it was in 2013 when Broad succeeded John Forrest. Liberal candidate Serge Petrovich actually fell out of the preference candidate before Labor, despite outpolling them 18.8% to 15.7% on the primary vote, and his preferences duly delivered a large winning margin to Nationals candidate Anne Webster. Webster would likely have won the seat even if Petrovich had survived to the final count, given her 27.9% to 18.8% advantage on the primary vote.

McEwen (Labor 5.0%; 1.0% swing to Liberal): Despite being an area of dynamic growth, particularly around Mernda and Doreen at Melbourne’s northern edge, McEwen turned in a largely static result on this occasion. This was in contrast to its form at the five elections from 2004 to 2016, when two-party swings ranged from 4.1% to 9.0%. Both major parties were down slightly on the primary vote as One Nation took to the field, scoring 5.9%, and Labor member Rob Mitchell’s two-party margin was slightly clipped after a blowout win in 2016.

Monash (Liberal 7.4%; 0.2% swing to Labor): The solid margin built up by Russell Broadbent since 2004 in the seat formerly known as McMillan was little disturbed, although the 7.6% recorded by One Nation took a 3.6% bite out of his primary vote. A noteworthy feature of the result was a heavy swing to the Liberals in the Latrobe Valley towns of Moe and Newborough, a pattern reflected in coal and electricity producing areas across the country.

Nicholls (Nationals 20.0%; 2.5% swing to Labor): After a three-cornered contest in 2016, in which Damian Drum gained the seat for the Nationals on the retirement of Liberal member Sharman Stone, the Liberals vacated the field in Nicholls (formerly Murray), and Drum retained the seat with a majority of the primary vote. One Nation polled 11.3%, easily the best result of the five seats they contested in Victoria.

Wannon (Liberal 10.4%; 1.2% swing to Liberal): Liberal member Dan Tehan picked up slight favourable swings on both the primary and two-party vote. Former Triple J presenter Alex Dyson polled 10.4% as an independent.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

731 comments on “Call of the board: regional Victoria”

Comments Page 12 of 15
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  1. FredNK

    It seems to have escaped your notice. Obviously reading too many Newscorp papers. Labor succeeded in legislating a carbon price.

    That’s a fact you cannot run away from.

    That’s called success not failure

    Edit: even more remarkable a success given minority status.

  2. Greensborough Growler @ #536 Saturday, August 31st, 2019 – 1:46 pm

    C@tmomma @ #465 Saturday, August 31st, 2019 – 1:39 pm

    Thanks, lizzie, for bringing the Laura Tingle article on the Religious Freedom Bill back into focus.

    I can see a problem with this part (which Tingle thinks will allow Folau to say what he wants in his own time):

    Folau would have a case
    It says you can’t be seen to discriminate against someone merely for expressing a genuinely held belief.

    In the ubiquitous case of Israel Folau (who was sacked by the Australian Rugby Union for saying on social media that drunks, homosexuals, fornicators and others would go to hell), according to Mr Porter, the bill would “give someone in Israel Folau’s circumstance an avenue for complaint” he told 7.30 on Thursday.

    “That complaint would look like this: My employer puts a condition upon me which has the effect of restricting my ability to express my religious beliefs in my spare time.

    “And what this bill says is that if a large employer with a turnover of over $50 million did that, not merely would they have to show that broad condition on the employee is reasonable, but they would have to show that unless that condition were complied with, that they, the business, would suffer undue financial hardship.”

    Mr Porter argues part of the rationale for this provision on larger businesses is that it is a brake on businesses trying to dictate what their employees say outside work hours, which he argues is a restriction on free speech.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-31/religious-freedom-draft-bill-may-prove-morrisons-toughest-test/11466242

    Well I think that a case could very easily be made by Rugby Australia that Folau, an employee of theirs, Tweeting about Homosexuals et al going to Hell, would have an easily demonstrable material effect on their income.

    Simply put, all that they would have to show was that the people whom Folau vilified, had decided they wouldn’t come to Rugby matches any more. So, Rugby Australia would lose revenue as a result of Folau’s actions. And this would lead to ‘undue financial hardship’ for Rugby Australia.

    An employer asserting something and then acting unilaterally is not the same as having to prove the assertion to be true in some sort of court or tribunal. The balance of power shifts significantly imho.

    Which is exactly why I thought it wouldn’t be too hard for RA to source some gays who had stopped going to the Rugby because of Folau.

  4. lizzie @ #543 Saturday, August 31st, 2019 – 1:59 pm

    Craig Emerson @DrCraigEmerson
    ·
    30m
    Looks like the public has no right to know about the ongoing suffering of sheep on export vessels, including “death by smothering.”

    Department of Agriculture refuses to release live export footage https://smh.com.au/politics/federal/department-of-agriculture-refuses-to-release-live-export-footage-20190829-p52lt4.html via @smh

    Duh! lizzie, it’s on ‘On Water Matter’! So, no probs for ScottMo.


  5. guytaur says:
    Saturday, August 31, 2019 at 2:20 pm

    FredNK

    Your post proves why Labor keeps losing. It’s not only Turnbull that’s deluded.

    Labor has to accept sanity left the Liberal party some time ago.

    As the Greens are running around trying to move supply to other countries instead of focusing on demand the same can be said of the Greens. Getting the Greens to behave sanely will change little because they are bit players.

    Getting the Liberals to act sanely will make a big difference.

    It must be made obvious to all that Adani did not go ahead because it is not economical. Palaszczuk has set this up to happen as best she can with the Green behaving as insanely as they are.

    There a re good solid economic reasons to put a stop to Adani but it can’t happen because of the Greens.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/29/adani-mine-would-be-unviable-without-44bn-in-subsidies-report-finds

  6. frednk @ #549 Saturday, August 31st, 2019 – 2:20 pm

    Labor has just spent two decades trying to get a price on carbon and failing. The Greens and people like you are a large part of the why.

    The contradiction of putting a price on carbon while at the same time subsidizing fossil fuels is completely lost on you, isn’t it? 🙁

    As, no doubt, is the contradiction in claiming to be the “party of the worker” but then prioritizing the interests of a tiny minority of workers over the interests of the vast majority of the workforce 🙁

  7. FredNK

    You are in denial of the science. It’s not sane to Green light a carbon bomb. It’s also not sane to deny Labor success so you can hope to bring the Liberals back to sanity.

  8. Tantalising secrets of Australia’s intelligence world revealed

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/tantalising-secrets-of-australia-s-intelligence-world-revealed-20190826-p52ku9.html

    These are some of the more tantalising secrets, told for the first time, or re-told in unprecedented detail, in Australian journalist Brian Toohey’s forthcoming book Secret, which serves as a sharp rejoinder to the current trend of government crackdowns on the media and whistle-blowers.
    :::
    He was taken to the High Court and the Federal Court by the Hawke government over leaked top-secret papers. On at least two occasions (most likely more), ASIO bugged his home. Malcolm Fraser wanted to bug his office phone in Parliament House but was talked out of it by senior officials who (in those days) considered the parliamentary precinct sacrosanct. At one stage the then head of the Defence department, Sir Arthur Tange, who had a particular obsession with Toohey, amassed 350 files pursuing leaks to the man he considered his journalistic bete noire.

    Toohey has been a thorn in the side of Australian governments and security agencies since he first came to prominence as a Canberra correspondent for The Australian Financial Review in the early 1970s.

    As well as canvassing what successive federal governments and their agencies have been keen to hide over the years, Toohey mounts a withering examination of Australia’s involvement in US-led combat missions in Vietnam, Korea and Iraq.
    :::
    “The upshot is that Australia has surrendered much of its sovereignty to the US,” he claims. “The national security juggernaut has reached the point where Australia is now chained to the chariot wheels of the Pentagon.”

    Many will think this pushes the argument too far. Toohey responds that he is not opposed to ANZUS but does not want Australia getting into “wars of aggression”. The book, he writes, is intended as a “modest counter-narrative to the official accounts of Australia at war and the role of the intelligence services and the foreign-run bases”.
    :::
    Toohey’s manuscript was completed before the recent much-publicised police raids on the ABC and News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst. Those raids give even more power to his claim that “step by step, a succession of new laws and politics have provided the building blocks for Australia to become a country in which secretive officials and ministers wield unprecedented levels of peacetime power”.


  9. guytaur says:
    Saturday, August 31, 2019 at 2:23 pm

    FredNK

    It seems to have escaped your notice. Obviously reading too many Newscorp papers. Labor succeeded in legislating a carbon price.

    That’s a fact you cannot run away from.

    That’s called success not failure

    Edit: even more remarkable a success given minority status.

    Ye and the Greens contribution, to make it harder to defend the price when Labor lost power.
    The fact that the Liberals could kill it underlines just how irrelevant the Greens are.

    The path was complex, but Labor lost, we have no price on carbon.

  12. guytaur says:
    Saturday, August 31, 2019 at 2:33 pm

    FredNK

    You are in denial of the science. It’s not sane to Green light a carbon bomb. It’s also not sane to deny Labor success so you can hope to bring the Liberals back to sanity.

    The issue is how to get a solution, not if a solution is needed. The Greens contribution has been and continues to be one of making the development of a solution more difficult. Science can only tell us we have a problem, not how to get the depth of support needed to fix it.

  13. FredNK

    Victoria has carbon targets. It has a trading scheme. Does Queensland and Western Australia? Labor is in power and can act. Stop denying Labor responsibility.

    Labor should be playing the Weatherill Frydenberg press conference on high rotation in Northern Queensland to exhibit why you can’t trust the Liberals.

  14. nath

    I see z has now shifted her lase-liker focus onto you and you are getting the ‘treatment’ she dished out to me for many years. She always needs an object of derision upon which she can demonstrate her supposed superior intellect and debating skills.

    Your creative wit in pushing back is a source of amusement and I applaud you for your staying power.

  15. Just what is the point? What does this prove?

    bronwen algate
    ·
    5m
    Priya is cut and bruised and been held in solitary confinement away from her children.

  16. It all went downhill for zoomster after the selfie. Amazing how one single event can change a person’s life.

    I may choose to make a film about this sad event!

  17. guytaur says:
    Saturday, August 31, 2019 at 2:41 pm
    FredNK

    Victoria has carbon targets. It has a trading scheme. Does Queensland and Western Australia? Labor is in power and can act. Stop denying Labor responsibility.

    Labor should be playing the Weatherill Frydenberg press conference on high rotation in Northern Queensland to exhibit why you can’t trust the Liberals.
    ________________________________
    Better still send bushfire bill on an all expenses paid lecture tour of FNQ to ponderously explain the issue to the locals.

  18. Guytaur
    Most efforts to limit fossil fuel demand by increasing renewable supply have been by state governments.

    Included in the list is the NSW Liberal Government.

    https://reneweconomy.com.au/nsw-puts-interstate-transmission-link-project-on-the-fast-track-10531/

    The Greens have contributed nothing, as they are now complaining about transmission lines and wind farms perhaps they don’t want to.

    More likely they have not been contributing, and are not likely to, because they are not in any position to make a contribution. The Greens effort seems to be limited to complaining about Labors successes and failures.

    Labor has successes and failures to complain about, is the point.

  19. @rwillingham
    ·
    2h
    Interesting from @billshortenmp
    “What have you got to send a message to some people in this government? The election is over stop using these people as political pawns, if the community want them let them stay”
    #Biloela @abcnews

  20. Cheers Pegasus. zoomster is still smarting from the success of Helen Haines and the rise of Albo to the leadership. It’s been a tough few months.

  21. Lars I like your idea about the film about the infamous selfie. It could be another award winner. Working title: An Essay in Pettiness. ??

  22. I don’t think RA would be able to show Folaus comments significantly reduced crowd attendance. It would be the sponsors who would say they don’t want to be associated with the tainted brand.

  23. Lars

    What selfie?

    At least try and get your facts right. Insulting someone for something that never happened is a bit pointless.

  24. Pegasus @ #553 Saturday, August 31st, 2019 – 2:26 pm

    ‘We’ll be bathing in salt water’: At the epicentre of Australia’s big drought

    https://www.smh.com.au/environment/sustainability/we-ll-be-bathing-in-salt-water-at-the-epicentre-of-australia-s-big-drought-20190828-p52lsx.html

    The graph in that aticle is astonishing. I will try to reproduce it here:

    Anybody who thinks we are still within the realms of “normal” climate variation needs to read that article. Alarm bells should be ringing loud and clear. But instead all we hear is …. **crickets**

    Some towns are so low on water the fire brigade will not use water to put out a house fire unless lives are directly at risk.

    Some towns are so low on water that not only has farming ceased, but soon even mining will have to cease.

  26. zoomster Albo knocked you back for a selfie and you declare undying enmity. Let’s not quibble over the exact details. The incident has entered PB lore and that’s all there is to it.

    You claim it was not you that was denied the selfie and that Albo was just rude to you. We think it was you and that you are deflecting. Either way, let’s get the film done and worry about the details whenever.

  28. nath

    I repeat, as I have so often before: Albo never knocked me back for a selfie.

    As for being PB lore, you don’t get to decide that.

  29. Anyway, that’s a win to me.

    You either have arguments or you have insults. If all you have is insults, you’ve lost.

    Neither nath or Lars have anything constructive to offer. They have no path forward to resolve the problems they say they care about.

    When you think about it, that makes their whole existence pretty pointless.

  30. I have the opening scene Lars:

    EXTERIOR. A COLD CANBERRA MORNING. PARLIAMENT HOUSE.

    A car drives towards the building.

    INTERIOR. A MINISTERS SUITE.

    BARGING THROUGH THE DOOR IS THE INDOMITABLE ALP CANDIDATE FOR INDI

    ‘I expected petal throwers would be provided upon my arrival at the airport’ she barked at the ministerial staff.

  33. INTERIOR: A darkened room. The only light is provided by a computer screen, which illuminates the pasty acned face of a young man.

    MOTHER (voice from outside room): Nath, dinner’s ready.

    NATH: I’m snarking at someone on the internet, mother.

    MOTHER: Don’t you ever do anything constructive?

  34. The exact details are inconsequential. A case can be made that it was you that was denied the selfie and that is how we at PB consider it. Ask William if you need to. I’m sure he will agree with that.

  35. pasty acned face of a young man.
    ________________________
    That’s awful zoomster. No wonder the NSW Education department were reluctant to bring you on. Those sorts of put downs could contribute to teen depression and even worse. Shame on you.

  37. You seem very defensive about the selfie incident. If it wasn’t you then you would not be bothered about it. We think the selfie incident did involve you and that it is now PB lore. I’m sorry, but myself and Lars have concurred on this.

  38. It’s funny how you and Lars can concur on something when Lars hasn’t posted.

    And the way that, when I make a comment in response to Lars, it’s you that answers.

    Anyway, thanks again. You just give me win after win after win.

  40. The Queensland government has extinguished native title over 1,385 hectares of Wangan and Jagalingou country for the proposed Adani coalmine in Queensland’s Galilee Basin – without any public announcement of the decision.

    The decision could see Wangan and Jagalingou protesters forcibly removed by police from their traditional lands, including lands used for ceremonies.

    If this is true (always take MSM reports with a handful of salt), Qld Labor has gone rogue. Extremely disappointing. Will Federal Labor support them?

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/aug/31/queensland-extinguishes-native-title-over-indigenous-land-to-make-way-for-adani-coalmine?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

  42. Verily I have concurred!

    I am already thinking about casting. I am thinking Vince Colosimo as Albo!

    I am not sure yet for the zoomster role. I am thinking a female about the age of 60, who can do a sour outlook on life.

  44. lizzie

    Reading the article, it appears that it’s contentious who holds native title over that land. The majority of native title holders have come to an agreement with Adani.

  45. Red hot angry’: the fallout from yet another NSW Labor scandal at Icac

    Its general secretary is gone but the question remains: how do you fix a party branch synonymous with sleaze and scandal?

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/aug/31/red-hot-angry-the-fallout-from-yet-another-nsw-labor-scandal-at-icac

    Suggestions on how NSW Labor can fix its many problems are hardly in short supply.

    The former Labor senator John Faulkner pushed for donation reform unsuccessfully for years at a federal level, and in 2014 gave a speech in which he pleaded with the party to change by loosening factional and trade union control.
    ::::
    As premier, Rees helped overhaul election funding in the state by introducing a ban on developer donations. But, he said, the idea of publicly funded elections had “hit the sand”.

    “Neither party has an interest in doing it because we’re locked in a funding arms race, and vested interests like the commercial media don’t want to see public funding because it means less ads on television and in newspapers,” he said.
    :::
    In other words, Murnain is less a cause than a symptom of a wider problem. Removing her won’t fix the root cause of NSW Labor’s malaise.

    “If all the previous structures and conditions remain the same, the culture will not change,” Rees said.

    The problem is in the culture. It’s the process of entry into the machine through young Labor and up the totem pole. If you want to change culture, you have to change the pattern of ascension and it has been abundantly clear for some time that the culture has been less than ideal.”
    :::
    The Icac has already claimed the scalp of one major Labor powerbroker. It still has five weeks left to run.

  47. zoomster @ #594 Saturday, August 31st, 2019 – 4:10 pm

    Reading the article, it appears that it’s contentious who holds native title over that land. The majority of native title holders have come to an agreement with Adani.

    So instead of trying to determine who has title, they just to hand the lot over to Adani with freehold title, thereby extingushing all native title?

    Sounds like a government in a hurry for some reason. Now, I wonder why that would be? 🙁

  48. @ScottHech
    · 5h
    Maria was 7 when she came U.S. Invited by doctors for clinical trial to treat her rare disease. Her trial led to lifesaving treatment for all. Since then, won awards for public health advocacy. Now 24. Trump just ordered her to leave w/n 33 days. Her doctor: “A death sentence.”

  49. Pegasus says:
    Saturday, August 31, 2019 at 4:10 pm
    ______________________
    Thanks for the link Pegasus.

    I think the calls about the rottenness of the ALP by some here on PB have been borne out by recent events. There is no prospect of “ALP reform” – its not unlike having expected the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to reform.

    Its interesting how the balance of thought leadership has changed on PB over the years, the ALP activists and useful idiots are now clearly in the minority. Once the ALP is dissolved (which should occur within the next 5 years in my estimation) we can plan for a great democratic re-alignment in this country.

  50. Colosimo is an inspired choice. Jackie weaver is an accomplished actress and very hot right now in Hollywood. Plus she played the evil matriarch in animal kingdom so there is precedent for her doing a role like this.

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