With low-level leadership rumblings being heard after the resignation of Liberal leader Matthew Guy’s chief-of-staff, taking with him much of the edge off opposition attacks on the government over corruption issues, Kos Samaras of Redbridge Group “believes the prospect of a minority government is growing increasingly possible”. Polling by Redbridge reported in The Age on Saturday had hypothetical teal independents beating Liberals by 51-49 in Brighton, 54-46 in Sandringham, 56-44 in Caulfield, 55-45 in Hawthorn and 55-45 in Kew, albeit that the wording perhaps helpfully specified that the candidates would be “like Zoe Daniel” or “like Monique Ryan”. While no teal independent candidates are in place, John Ferguson of The Australian reports Brent Hodgson, former marketing and data strategist to Monique Ryan, has set up an office in Hawthorn, and a “Kew Independents” group is being run by Ryan’s former social media manager, Hayden O’Connor.
Sumeyya Ilanbey of The Age reported that 20 seats identified by Labor as key contests are dominated by outer suburban and regional seats where it fears blue-collar alienation with the government’s COVID-19 management. Annika Smethurst of The Age offers that the Liberals are “unlikely to win the election”, but that “the Liberal Party is increasingly confident it can snare the seats of Bayswater, Bass, Box Hill, Cranbourne and Nepean from Labor.”
The Liberals have been determining preselections for their Legislative Council tickets, opening a few cans of worms in the process:
• The Liberals’ choice of Melton City Councillor Moira Deeming to head the ticket in Western Metropolitan has prompted suggestions both within the party and without that the party has failed to make a sufficient break from her predecessor Bernie Finn, who was expelled from the party in May after extensive promotion of hard right views, the last straw being a call for a no-exceptions ban on abortion. Deeming has herself expressed opposition to abortion along with drag queen storytimes and the Safe Schools program, and her opposition to COVID-19 vaccine mandates caused the party’s administrative committee to block her preselection for the western Melbourne seat of Gorton at the May federal election. Paul Sakkal of The Age reports that Deeming won more than twice as many votes as her nearest rival in the preselection, and that Finn has said it would be “fair” to describe her as his protege. The result caused Andrew Elsbury, who held a Western Metropolitan seat from 2010 to 2014, to resign from the party, saying Deeming was “basically going to spout the same stuff as Bernie Finn used to”.
• In Northern Metropolitan region, where the party holds only one seat, Craig Ondarchie was as long foreseen dumped in favour of Evan Mulholland, director of communications at the Institute of Public Affairs and a vociferous critics of federal Labor’s carbon emissions targets. Second position goes to Owen Guest, the state party’s treasurer. Paul Sakkal of The Age reports the first round results were 26 for Mulholland, 14 for Catriona Rafael, former staffer to former party leader Michael O’Brien, 11 for Owen Guest and ten for last-placed Ondarchie. With the latter eliminated, Josh Gordon of The Age reports the second round result was Mulholland 32, Guest 15 and Rafael 14.
• Gippsland chiropractor Renee Heath has deposed incumbent Cathrine Burnett-Wake, who filled the casual vacancy created by Edward O’Donohue’s retirement in December, to take top position in Eastern Victoria by what Sumeyya Ilanbey of The Age reported as a margin of 55 to 53. The Age further reports that “several Liberal officials raised concerns about Heath’s family connection to the City Builders Church, which has been accused of encouraging members to take part in the Living Waters Program, an externally run gay conversion therapy that has since closed”, albeit that the connection involves her father rather than herself. The second position on the ticket is reserved for Nationals incumbent Melina Bath.
• Nick McGowan, a former staffer to Ted Baillieu and reported close friend of Liberal leader Matthew Guy, has secured the second position in North Eastern Metropolitan, with Kirsten Langford in the unpromising third position. Gladys Liu, the recently defeated federal member for Chisholm, was unsuccessful, as was Ranjana Srivasta, an oncologist and Fulbright scholar who had previously sought preselection for the Senate and the federal seat of Casey.
Further:
• Rachel Eddie of The Age reports the anti-lockdown Freedom Party has organised a bloc of like-minded parties who will exchange all-important preferences for the Legislative Council, also to include Family First and the Federation Party. Among the party’s number is Aidan McLindon, who in his term in Queensland parliament as the member for Beaudesert from 2009 to 2012 successively represented the Liberal National Party, Katter’s Australian Party and the Queensland Party, and will now run against Daniel Andrews in Mulgrave. McLindon says he and his bloc are uninterested in doing deals with Glenn Druery, noted arranger of preference networks that take advantage of the group voting ticket system, which now survives only in Victoria. The Age report also says the United Australia Party, whose sole success at the federal election was a Senate seat in Victoria, plans to “team up with like-minded parties”.
• Following Steph Ryan’s resignation as deputy Nationals leader and announcement she would not contest the election last month, the Shepparton News reports Strathbogie Shire councillor and local caravan park owner Kristy Hourigan will run for Nationals preselection in her seat of Euroa.
• Russell Northe, who held Morwell for the Nationals from 2006 to 2017 and as an independent thereafter, including after his re-election in 2018, has announced he will retire at the election.
Can we please keep this thread for discussion of Victorian politics. The general discussion thread is here.
“Bernie Finn, who was expelled from the party in May after extensive promotion of hard right views”
So not wanting to kill babies and thinking that full term abortions is murder makes you a ‘Hard Righter’.
Hypothetical independent. Give us a break.
Redbridge?
Well we definitely have a spread, or Guy falling and burning has been an advantage for the Liberals.
https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/8998-roy-morgan-survey-on-voting-intention-and-approvals-in-victoria-july-2022-202207031006
I think the Age tries a little to hard.
Massachusetts will never vote Republican, nor will Victoria.
Guy is a polarising figure. Lobsters with mobsters, African gangs and now unsigned agreements.
Victorians know that lockdowns were awful, but what choice was there. That issue has bolted.
60/40 might be unrealistic, but it might not be.
Frednk
Kos Samaras of Redbridge was very switched on as to what would happen with federal election and the teals.
Middle aged balding white man
There is a visceral dislike by normally labor voting people i personally know of with respect to dan Andrews. All because of lockdowns.
In fact, ive had falling outs with these people because i could not abide their irrational attitude in this space.
I kept reminding them that Andrews did not cause the pandemic. His job was to keep the state functioning as best as possible.
Despite the pandemic and the pressure on the hospital system, which is a problem throughout the nation, victoria is doing very well.
I would also not at all be surprised if Kos Samaras is correct. The opposition is clearly hopeless (with no John Pesutto to make them credible). But my sense is that there is quite a lot of disquiet about the Andrews government, as Victoria says. Some of it has to do with the lockdowns. I agree these were necessary until vaccines were available. Nonetheless, Andrews did tend to inflame things by being very dismissive of human rights concerns during those lockdown press conferences. A good response would have been “human rights are really important but in this crisis we need to temporarily suspend some to prevent widespread deaths”. But that wasn’t how it was put. And there are many other issues where the government has a kind of “COE” crash-through approach, which is increasingly on the nose. So, there may be quite a few independents/Greens/Reason/Teals elected. A re-elected minority Labor government forced to explain itself and negotiate more would be a good outcome in my view.
Victoria says:
Friday, August 5, 2022 at 9:52 am
Frednk
Kos Samaras of Redbridge was very switched on as to what would happen with federal election and the teals.
Are there any teals running?
I don’t think the Covid thing all falls against Andrews, but I agree opinions run strong.
Just based on the last state election it is unlikely given the size of Labor ‘s win. There are so many seats which are ultra marginal plus or minus 2% either way.. the results are unknown.. some will have sitting mps who may get a boost. First time re election some will gain through population changes. Also no one knows what will happen with the teals.. will they run? Can they win? Most independents unless with strong profiles cannot win. I suspect all greens will be reelected with a chance of a couple of transfers between alp and greens either way. The liberals are also seen as not up to the job.. look at the stuff with Guy’s ex chief of staff .he is a self entitled idiot. I pick a absolute majority alp win
Great work William, minor misspelling – Catherine Burnett-Wake should be Cathrine Burnett-Wake.
“Kos Samaras of Redbridge Group “believes the prospect of a minority government is growing increasingly possible”.”…
Others also produced the same “minority government” prediction for the recent federal election. In the end, however, there was an ALP majority government…. Methink that the same will happen in Victoria….
“Polling by Redbridge reported in The Age on Saturday had hypothetical teal independents beating Liberals “…
Yes, all that may be hypothetical, but the Teals can be a real threat for the Liberals also at the coming Vic state election…. I can’t wait to see the Vic Teals in action… 🙂
Alpo, not to mention the last Victorian election. It was supposed to be a nail-biter, ended up being a landslide.
Lockdowns a problem in Vic?…. Really?
Number of positives in the combined Delta and Omicron Covid wave starting on 14 June 2021 and updated until 5 August 2022.
VIC (ALP state government), a state with relatively serious lockdowns: 2,517,023 positives
NSW (Coalition state government), a state with relatively low lockdowns (let-it-rip policy): 3,044,691 positives.
During the current wave there have been 527,668 MORE Covid positives in the let-it-rip NSW than in the lock-down VIC…. Andrews should be congratulated, whereas Berejiklian-Perrottet should be politically bashed!
Kos spins his narrative about what happened in the areas won by the Teal but has only been partly right because he goes on about renters as if they are new to these areas but they were there when the Liberals were easily winning these seats.
Rental issues were not a major part of the federal election and were not campaigned on by the Teals and if there were as many new renters as Kos thinks there are then that goes against both the AEC and VEC having to enlarge some of these seats to keep up with quotas.
The only inner city Liberal area where Kos is right about the changing demographics is South Yarra in Higgins but South Yarra has been a favorite with renters for years.
“Big A Adrian says:
Friday, August 5, 2022 at 1:01 pm”…
Yep, which also reminds me of the prediction in 2015 that the Qld Newman LNP government would be returned, just with a slightly diminished majority…. Instead, the LNP 78 vs 7 seats advantage over the ALP was obliterated (in just one term) and the ALP led by Anna Palaszczuk won with a 51.1% 2PP .
The problem with those Redbridge polls about the teals, were that in most of those 5 seats, Labor finished higher than the independent which would make them Liberal v Labor contests, not Liberal v Independent contests, so therefore those hypothetical LIB v IND 2PPs would actually have not occurred as a result of the polling.
That could be explained by the polling giving most Greens preferences to the Independents – at the federal election the Greens did put the teals above Labor based on their higher climate target – but that wouldn’t be the case in the state election.
Greens voters at state level – and the Greens as a party at state level – wouldn’t direct preferences to a centrist independent over the country’s most left wing Labor government.
Here were the results:
Brighton:
39% Liberal, 23% Labor, 23% Independent, 7% Greens
Sandringham:
31% Liberal, 27% Labor, 25% Independent, 7% Greens.
Caulfield:
37% Liberal, 23% Labor, 19% Independent, 14% Greens.
Hawthorn:
37% Liberal, 22% Labor, 22% Independent, 12% Greens.
Kew:
37% Liberal, 24% Independent, 23% Labor, 7% Greens.
Only in Kew does the Independent even poll higher than Labor, but after Greens preferences Labor would likely finish higher than the Independent in all 5 contests.
Remember in the federal election Labor didn’t even come close to the independent in any of the seats the teal independents won. So I think the premise of Redbridge’s assumption that the Independent would win from third place in all these seats is way off.
@Victoria regarding Redbridge being on the money with the teals in the federal election: for the federal election, the polling in the teal seats all had the independent way out in front of Labor the whole time so it was clear that they would be LIB v IND contests.
That’s not the case here in the state election. The worst Labor did in any of those 5 polls was trail the independent by 1%, and that’s before factoring in Greens preferences which are overwhelming likely to flow to Labor over an an independent.
Teals are essentially moderate Liberals. In the federal election, the Greens directed preferences to them above Labor for two reasons:
1. Strategic decision to unseat Libs in seats that Labor couldn’t win;
2. Based purely on a 60% vs 43% national climate target
In this case, 4 of the 5 seats are very winnable for Labor (1 they already hold and 3 they are within 1% of winning), state Labor is far more progressive than federal Labor, and the national climate targets aren’t an issue.
The Greens preferencing an independent who is essentially a moderate Liberal over a progressive Labor government, in seats that Labor can win, is extremely unlikely I think. So the polls for all 5 of those seats show that Labor would actually finish higher than the Independent, which wasn’t the case federally.
One thing I will add is that my prediction would be that the presence of a teal independent in seats like Hawthorn, Caulfield, Sandringham and Brighton would actually help the Liberals.
Here’s why:
– In none of those seats do I think the independent would finish higher than Labor, meaning they would all be Liberal v Labor contests
– For moderate voters making a protest vote against the direction of the Liberal Party, they now have another option to send that message without voting Labor, but then still preference the Liberals
– Therefore the end result is just that a teal would likely reduce Labor’s 2PP compared to there being no teal
Whereas the absence of a teal makes it more likely that Labor would directly get their protest vote against the Libs, as they did in 2018 across all these seats.
I think that’s a big part of why the ‘Voices of Goldstein’ group have already ruled out endorsing any independents in Caulfield, Sandringham and Brighton. Labor are so close in all 3 – the largest margin being 0.6% in Sandringham – that the only thing a teal would probably achieve is helping the Liberals retain the seat.
For a teal to be successful I think it has to be relatively unlikely that Labor or the Greens could win the seat, because that’s the only way they can collect enough strategic votes from Labor & Greens supporters to finish second. Therefore I think the 3 best seats for a “teal” to target would be:
– Malvern
– Kew
– Bulleen
They’d be better off making the Liberals need to dedicate resources to defending a threat in those 3 seats, while letting Labor do the same without interference in Caulfield, Sandringham, Brighton & Hawthorn.
I was mostly referring to the Trump-was-robbed and January 6-was-a-false-flag stuff.
@sfw – That’s a very selective assessment of Bernie Finn’s views.
As William’s article clearly states, he didn’t just oppose “full term abortions”, which even as it stands are only permitted to save the life of the mother; he calls for a “no exceptions” ban on abortions. This would even include where proceeding with a birth that would kill both the baby and the mother, if not aborted to save the mother.
That is absolutely one of his many hard-right views.
Trent
Appreciate your observations. Thanks
My predictions for the state election are as follows:
The ALP is likely to loose a smaller seat share in the Legislative Assembly than its likely decline in vote share because the vote decline looks to mostly be in safe seats.
Footscray, Pascoe Vale and Preston have a decent chance of getting ALP versus Green 2CPs (won by the ALP) for the first time.
With the closer ALP versus Liberal margins (and in the case of Hawthorn, a sitting ALP MP), shortage (as far as I can tell) of already commenced teal campaigns, the Victorian Nationals not being anywhere near as visibly politically toxic to moderate voters as those from further north on the East Coast and the Liberals not being in government, I doubt that there will be anywhere near as much Teal momentum as there was in the Commonwealth election. Kew and, if Guy is still the candidate and they get their skates on, maybe Bulleen are probably the only Teal chances.
Garra might win Werribee if he runs again there, if he runs in Point Cook (I believe he is located in Werribee South which has been redivided into Point Cook) he is probably less of a chance (The Liberals have made noises about running more seriously there as there are more favourable demographics for them and Werribee South is the only bit of the outgoing district of Werribee to be in the new Point Cook, making Garra probably a less well known figure there).
The Legislative Council is likely to be a hard to work with pig`s breakfast because of the combination of GTV and the pandemic restriction backlash.
The reelection of Bernie Finn, this time for the DLP he now leads, cannot be ruled out (at least prior to the lodging of preference tickets).
@Tom I think that’s a great assessment and I pretty much agree with all of it.
My predictions are similar:
– Significant reduction in the ALP’s statewide 2PP but mostly in safe seats that they will retain
– ALP to lose maybe around 7-8 seats to the Libs in seats like Pakenham, Nepean, Bass, etc but offset that by winning 2-3 inner seats off the Liberals (Caulfield and probably at least 1 of Sandringham or Brighton) for a net loss of around 5 seats vs the Libs
– Greens to hold Melbourne & Brunswick, gain Northcote and possibly Richmond, and make inroads in Albert Park but present no real threat. Prahran will be under threat from Labor if the Liberals fall to third place and it becomes a GRN v ALP contest.
– Teals won’t really make any impact but could possibly make Kew & Bulleen interesting contests at least. If a high profile teal were to run in Malvern, that could be a dark horse.
Overall that would mean:
– ALP 48-50 seats (net loss of 5-7, probably depending on the Greens’ fortunes)
– Greens 4-5 seats (net gain of 1-2)
– Coalition around 31 seats (net gain of around 5)
– No teals, regional independents hold
Upper house to be a real mess. GTV needs to go. I won’t even try to predict what will happen there.
It’s pretty depressing watching the member for Bayswater, Jackson Taylor, wandering the streets of the electorate like a sad puppy, handing out election material at train stations and shopping strips completely on his own, abandoned even by his fractionally allocated office staff.
It must suck to have been left high and dry on the wrong side of Labor’s “target seat strategy” lottery.
Next time I run into you Victoria, I am going to wink three times with my left eye! I suspect we know each other semi-professionally. We’ve had that conversation in person….. I’ve lost your number though. New phone.
Alp will lose seats, but so will the libs.
The teal question will be very interesting.
Andrews will still have a solid working majority.
Mainly because the state opposition is a complete clusterf$&#k. The Alp are secretly paying his membership of the liberal party.
With luck Labor could lose and win seats for a net even positive gain. The liberals will by default at best break even with their current holdings or drop a couple depending on how the teals fate.
“… the Liberal Party is increasingly confident it can snare the seats of Bayswater, Bass, Box Hill, Cranbourne and Nepean from Labor.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah: we heard a similar narrative through the lead-up to the Federal election (in that case, “the Liberal Party is confident of gaining seats in NSW to offset losses in other states”).
A message propagated by complicit media. Samantha Maiden is still scraping the egg off her face.
Because there is no polling everyone is just going with vibe. Pretty sure if ALP was behind we would be getting more polling to hammer it in.
The polling we do have has been just under 60:40 in favour of the ALP. It doesn’t suit mainstream media’s close election narrative though so we end up with wild speculation.
Annika Smethursts ” increasingly confident ” Victorian Liberals must be ” increasingly despondent” after last week’s CoS debacle. No matter what the sycophantic media print, there must have been absolutely downcast faces in the Party room.
After the passing of legislation in Federal Parliament last week, the stocks of the Liberal Party nationwide must be the lowest in the Liberals’ living memory.
Time to pull out the Lying Rodent again.
His regular “resuscitation ” by the Party always reminds me of the movie ” Weekend at Bernie’s”.
( or is it the leading of the Spanish forces against the Moors by the deceased El Cid ?)
I think the ALP has some real concerns… mainly around transport infrastructure.
Whilst level crossing removal works have broadly been welcomed there has been no real improvements to rail services in key corridors. The Cranbourne line is still a ‘bucolic’ branch with at best peak services every 12 minutes at best despite promises that services would double. They haven’t and can’t due to the bottleneck at Dandenong.
Commuters on the Pakenham, Latrobe Valley and Bairnsdale services have had enough of bus substitutions. They want their trains back and have seen no real improvement in their services. The anger in the community is palpable. Downgrading of Bairnsdale locomotive hauled trains to Vlocity railcars is an embarrassment.
The main north east line to Albury is a basket case. Labor should lose every seat rightly so in this area for their incompetent handling of this very important and strategic link to NSW.
Although I’m a rusted on ALP supporter their work around rail infrastructure has been amateur at best. Let’s be frank, LX removal projects primarily suit the motorist not the passenger in the train. There will be no significant improvements to frequencies and services across the board as the fundamentals such as signalling, track duplication / triplication and reliability of rollingstock has not been addressed.
Meanwhile Yarra Trams are crying out for much needed route extensions and other upgrades. Sadly they are being ignored.
Oliver Sutton says:
Saturday, August 6, 2022 at 4:11 am
“… the Liberal Party is increasingly confident it can snare the seats of Bayswater, Bass, Box Hill, Cranbourne and Nepean from Labor.”
——————————————-
The Liberals would be favourite in Bass and Nepean and maybe Bayswater but that’s the sort of seat that goes to the ALP when they are in government. Box Hill and Cranbourne could be the different between the ALP finishing above or below 50 seats.
Grant_ExLibris
What tram extensions are Yarra Trams doing and train services can’t be improved until the train crossings are removed.
If you think the LNP and their cronies will put that thing in to public transport you are sadly mistaken.
They have no interest in public transport. The like roads, petrol and cars.
Really think that, for all the talk, there won’t be much net change.
Post-redivision, Antony gives Labor 57, the Coalition 26 and the cross-bench 5.
That 57 includes Morwell, which I think is in the bag for Labor given it now includes Moe and Russell Northe (ex-National independent) has just announced he isn’t re-contesting.
Labor and the Coalition each have 2 currently-held seats notionally on the wrong side of the pendulum. I doubt Labor will actually win Hastings (despite running Paul Mercurio) or Ripon (much though I’d like to see Louise Staley go down). But I think their sitting members will hold Bayswater (Jackson Taylor) and Bass (Jordan Crugnale). So no net change there.
Can see Labor losing another 2 or 3 to the Coalition: Nepean plus Hawthorn and/or Pakenham. And they’ll finally lose Richmond to The Greens now that Dick Wynne’s retiring and the latter aren’t running Kathleen Maltzahn.
Can see the Liberals losing 1 of Caulfield, Croydon or Glen Waverley to Labor. Also, Polwarth is worth keeping an eye on now that it includes Torquay and is therefore no longer a purely country seat.
Melton will be a bit of a dog’s breakfast again but I can’t see Steve McGhie being a oncer – and they made him Cabinet Secretary, so they must think he’ll be OK (especially after they promised to build the new hospital at Cobblebank). There’ll be a lot of interesting vote shifts in the northern and western suburbs but nothing that actually moves any seats. (For all their talk, these are places most Liberals can barely bring themselves to visit, let alone campaign in.)
I just don’t see the Teals having a similar impact. And they’ll be hamstrung by the much tighter political donations laws.
Finally, all this speculation about a hung parliament will just drive waverers into Labor’s arms – as it did last time.
My guess, Labor 54 (-3), Coalition 28 (+2), cross-bench 6 (+1).
(FWIW, I live in Melbourne and I’ve been right about every Victorian election since 2010 (inclusive).)
There’s a fair bit of optimism built in there Toby, given that some of those seats Labor are effectively running dead in.
Now you might be right, personally I think the benefits of local campaigning are vastly overstated by political tragics, but it can’t help Labor’s chances either.
In the seat of Mordialloc the sky rail at Parkdale station gets way more airplay than Covid lockdowns. The hatred of Dan Andrews is aimed at that.
Guess it’s a question of how good your life is going I guess.
Middle class millionaires that bought on a railway line in the early 90’s that have been handed a large gift from the Federal government now bitching about the style of railway improvement.
Makes me sick and a lot are so called “mates”.
https://www.pollbludger.net/2022/08/05/victorian-election-minus-sixteen-weeks/comment-page-1/#comment-3962106
Train frequencies have to be very high for them to be limited by level crossings, in Melbourne only a peak service issue. It was an issue on the Dandenong line, which is why they took a whole of corridor approach to Caulfield-Dandenong (excluding 3 pedestrian only level crossings). There are few other level crossings where peak train service comes anywhere near enough to be limited by level crossings.
I seem to recall that alleged local anger over Skyrail was going to drive voters to the Liberals in droves last time, too.
And I wouldn’t assume that an MP campaigning on their own is an indication of running dead (and it’s a breach of rules for their office staff to campaign, for those who have forgotten what the “red shirts” affair was about). In most places you’d expect a local branch member or two to join a station handout but in the outer east local branch members are pretty thin on the ground.
It’s not at all a breach of rules for office staff to campaign. In fact, it would be unusual if they didn’t. What’s a breach of the rules is doing it on work time.
Although frankly, head office still doesn’t have a clear idea what Red Shirts was about, other than that they need to do a better job of not getting caught next time.
And local branch members are pretty thin on the ground in the outer east because they’ve been driven away aggressively by 30 years of imposed candidates and officials and organisers who would prefer to work with their own people instead of more independently minded locals.
And it’s no mystery that Bayswater has been abandoned, it’s explicit party policy to sandbag the more winnable seats. Sumeyya Ilanbey’s article linked in William’s lead describes the approach pretty clearly.
Bayswater wasn’t expected to be won at the last election, and only fell over the line by less than 300 votes. The boundaries have changed a bit since then, but Labor’s prospects haven’t. Alan Tudge held the area at this year’s federal election and there’s no reason to imagine that Taylor will change that outcome at the state level. It’s therefore entirely explicable that Labor might write the seat off as a nice to have rather than a must have.
Also, Taylor was a second choice candidate first time around after Peter Lockwood bombed out a few weeks before nominations. Taylor’s a nice guy and a very visible local member, but he has no significant connections in the party, no meaningful union affilitations, and no favours he can draw on to eke out a few more pennies from party or union coffers.
Jackson Taylor is straight back onto council and the police force after finishing his stint of long service leave in state parliament.
Yes, I’m probably being optimistic (for Labor) but I just can’t help but think that the Liberals won’t be able to help themselves:
1. Banging on about lockdown. Sane people just want to forget it. (By the way, one of their ‘Remember this November’ billboards is up on the Western Ring Road. Deep red and the only thing in the list is “World record lockdowns”. But, of course, no mention of the Liberals at all.)
2. Talking up the chances of minority government.
Both of those will drive waverers straight into Labor’s arms.
At this point every comment by any commentator about Victorian politics is about as predictive as Tarot cards. We heard it all before the federal election and the 2018 state election and it pointed us in the wrong direction then. And even though Morgan did well at the federal election, they don’t have a trustworthy record. Maybe Labor is on the nose this time. Maybe they’ve got it in the bag. Maybe, somehow, both are true.
If I was to take everything seriously – the polls and the commentator’s reports – my conclusion would have to be that however disappointed people are about Labor, they also have no confidence in the Liberal party. In this reading, the idea that Teals are less necessary in state politics than they are in federal politics is almost certainly wrong; in any case, Teals were not single-issue campaigners but a reaction to the reduced degree of party-identification in the community, and a desire to regenerate representative politics in a less partisan era. So it could easily be that teal independents – and who knows, other independents too – are able to win even with only little preparation. Teals should probably be taken slightly more like a party now – they might not need to build a reputation as slowly and personally as traditional independents, but instead they might be able to receive support on the basis of goodwill generated by other similar independents (regenerating community party identification as it goes).
But like I said, I have no trust whatsoever in any report about anyone’s opinions. This is the reconciliation of untrusted reports, based on an assumption that the untrusted reports are and were true at the time they were made despite the evidence that their interpretation was wrong.
Interestingly, a substantial crossbench with balance of power will be more difficult to reconcile in the state parliament than in the federal parliament, because the Legislative Assembly’s standing order provides that the party whip, not the individual member, casts the members’ votes, with the consequence that a party MLA can abstain, but they can’t cross the floor. This will create new and different tensions between backbenchers and leaders/whips; it will probably generate a degree of the backpressure that is present in the federal parties (even though a lot of people refuse to notice it, because they would like the backpressure to be public in parliament rather than private in caucus/party rooms).
Re Ripon.. margin post boundary change is 2.8% Alps way. This almost 3% boundary assisted margin.. takes away conservative areas. The last 2 elections had low swings just under 1% each to Labor. All things being equal I would expect the 3% ish margin seats including this one to stay labor
Middle aged white balding man
You must be confusing me with someone.
I have been part of a family business and have always worked from home.
Lol!
This from Kos Samaras
At this stage. The Greens May surge should be expected to be replicated in November.
Super charged by a generation who discovered during the pandemic that even well meaning governments cannot protect all of society from existential threats. 1/
https://t.co/xDNjO5XEsw
How do you vote if you think, “I’ve had enough of Dan Andrews, another four years, no way… but ..the Libs are hopeless.”
Jackson Taylor, the Labor MP for Bayswater is everywhere and I mean that literally. He attends functions in the electorate seven days a week, he also has a massive social media presence. Taylor has delivered massive spending on local schools and just recently announced the ‘daylighting’ of Blind Creek. I reckon he is the best and most effect local MP of my lifetime. No way will he get beaten. As for the freedumbers, were they ever Labor voters anyway?
If being visible and active were the main criteria for election the political landscape would be a much different place. Personal vote is worth maybe 2-3%, at best. I’ve lost track of the number of elections I’ve heard voters say that the local member is a nice guy but they can’t vote for them because of state/federal issues/the party.
I’d question the value of local funding/pork barrelling. The idea that people might change their vote because a couple of local schools might get a new hall, a train station might get a car park or a tennis club might get new lights is an indulgence of party officials and political tragics. Most people don’t send their kids to those schools, drive to the train or play tennis. Voters are influenced overwhelmingly by state and federal-level issues, they barely register what’s happening locally except for the very short period where they need to find a different route to drive to work. And for every school getting a new hall there’s another dozen asking why them and not us.
People are pretty cynical about funding announcements anyhow. The Bayswater Secondary College rebuild was announced two years ago and not one sod has yet been turned. By the time it’s actually done half the kids who were studying there will have graduated and years worth of grade six families will have found somewhere else to send their kids. (Which is not to suggest that this spending isn’t good public policy, just that there’s not a lot of votes in good public policy which is why it happens too rarely.)
The odds that people disengaged enough to be swinging voters might even remember the name of the politician fellow who attended their kid’s award ceremony are pretty low, as are the odds of them reading about all the intangible funding announcements that keep getting stuffed in their junk mail. They’re certainly not following their local MP on Facebook. Hell, even I’m not following them on Facebook and I’m a political tragic.
If Jackson has any chance at all, it’s that Nick Wakeling, the presumptive Liberal candidate, is so cynical about the entire exercise that his two big campaign issues are a promise to pay for one more feasibility study to extend the tram to Knox City and saving an old contaminated agricultural dam behind a cyclone wire fence in the back of nowhere.