Victorian election minus two days

Media reports suggest Labor will be pushed to the precipice of minority government, or perhaps over the edge, although a Morgan SMS poll suggests otherwise.

Relevant news coverage of the past few days:

• Today’s Herald Sun reports pollster Redbridge Group believes “Labor will be reduced to minority government with 43 seats out of 88”, though this is based on “extensive polling and hundreds of focus groups in key seats across the state over the past two years” rather than anything specific. A “best-case scenario” is nonetheless conceded in which Labor wins 48 seats. Labor is predicted to lose Bayswater, Bass, Nepean and Pakenham to the Liberals, with Ashwood, Box Hill and Ringwood “under serious threat” and Eltham, Monbulk, Cranbourne and Eureka “considered to be in play”. Richmond and Northcote are rated as Greens gains, possibly to be joined by Albert Park, Footscray and “even” Pascoe Vale, the latter being the view of “party insiders”. Melton, Point Cook and Werribee “could” be won by independents, Ian Birchall in Melton seemingly being the best chance. Labor is “not expected to retain” Hawthorn, which I take to imply uncertainty as to whether it will be lost to Liberal John Pesutto or independent Melissa Lowe.

• Similarly, The Australian reports strategists from both parties consider seven to eight losses an “optimistic Labor prediction”, although the contention there are “up to ten in the party’s doubtful column” still suggests a bare Labor majority. The Liberals are still hopeful of a “train wreck” scenario for Labor in which the undecided break their way, but concede it to be unlikely. It is “understood the Liberal Party’s poll track has the two-party preferred vote locked at 50 per cent” across 20 target seats, implying it is likely to win a good many of them.

Roy Morgan has an SMS poll showing Labor leading 55-45, in from 57-43 in a similar poll a fortnight ago, from primary votes of Labor 38% (down two), Coalition 32.5% (up three-and-a-half), Greens 12.5% (up one), “teal independents” 4.5% (steady), and 12.5% scattered among the remainder. There were also forced response questions for Daniel Andrews’ personal approval, breaking 57.5-42.5 his way, and preferred premier, breaking 65-35 in favour of Andrews over Matthew Guy.

• An audience of 100 ostensibly undecided voters recruited by Q&A Market Research for Tuesday night’s leaders debate in Box Hill came down 38 for Daniel Andrews, 34 for Matthew Guy and 28 undecided.

The Age had further results from the Resolve Strategic poll on Tuesday, including issue salience responses that closely tracked a similar recent question from RedBridge Group in having the cost of living well in front on 27%, followed by health and environment on 12% each. Respondents were also asked how they viewed twelve election policies announced during the campaign and found net positive responses for all of them, with little separating the Coalition’s promise of $2 public transport fares (65% for, 10% against) and Labor’s investment in renewable energy under the State Energy Commission (64% for, 14% against). The least popular policies were banning gas exploration (34% for, 24% against) and raising the age of criminal responsibility from twelve to fourteen (37% for, 28% against). I am advised that the voting intention results to one decimal place shown on Wikipedia are sourced from the company itself. For what such distinctions may be worth to you, the 53-47 headline was rounded from 52.7-47.3.

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.

224 comments on “Victorian election minus two days”

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  1. Weird times, usually if polling is 53-47, you are set to win.

    It seems everyone is chucking on 4 percent swing on the pendulum and calling it a line ball. Seems very little thought given to geographic differences.

  2. Labor primary vote remains in front or equal of lib/nats combined vote or if the lib/nats combined primary vote decreases from the 2018 35%, Labor remains in majority

  3. Grime @ #1 Thursday, November 24th, 2022 – 10:32 am

    The number of attempted calls received and auto blocked on my mobile this week as possible spam is quite extraordinary.

    I have a google Pixel 6 and it has a dedicated program with Voice AI that reads a script to unknown callers, basically asking the caller to state their business so I can read the Voice to Text and decide if I want to speak to them in person or not. The spam disconnects pretty quickly. 🙂

  4. “Today’s Herald Sun reports pollster Redbridge Group believes “Labor will be reduced to minority government with 43 seats out of 88””….

    Yeah, yeah… not long to wait now for H.M. Reality to make its glorious entry on stage…. 🙂

    Wait for the professional crappists to suddenly become unavailable for comment on election night…

  5. From the Age:
    “Pollster Kos Samaras, who used to work for the Labor Party, was on ABC Radio Melbourne earlier.

    Host Virginia Trioli wanted to know: Which independents is he putting his money on?

    “Jacqui Hawkins in Benambra,” he said. “We’ve done no research in South-West Coast, but I’m hearing anecdotal reports of Carol Altmann winning down there.

    “Obviously, the teal independents in Kew and Mornington are looking pretty good based on what we’re seeing. And we don’t know what’s going to happen in Hawthorn.”

    Reminder that Kos is Redbridge.

    Further reminder that Kos by his own admission does polling and public pronouncements to push an agenda not provide a public service.

    If you think the Herald Sun headline is taking liberties with what Redbridge’s polling is actually showing and is mostly an unholy alliance between Kos’ desire to give some momentum to his Teal clients (without having to disclose numbers that would undermine that) and the Hun’s desire for a Labor in trouble narrative, well….

    I would trust what Kos actually said – because he likes to keep his credibility – over the Hun’s airy speculation, we’ll put it that way.

  6. “C@tmomma says:
    Thursday, November 24, 2022 at 10:53 am
    Gorks @ #3 Thursday, November 24th, 2022 – 10:38 am

    Weird times, usually if polling is 53-47, you are set to win.

    It seems everyone is chucking on 4 percent swing on the pendulum and calling it a line ball. Seems very little thought given to geographic differences.

    I’d say it’s trying to factor in the Greens/Teals vote effect.”

    The Greens only have a chance in a small number of ALP-held seats, not enough to drag the result into “hung parliament” territory…. and the Teals will only threaten Liberal seats.

    So, the most reasonable prediction is a win for the ALP, perhaps with a small reduction of seats, and a serious blow for the Liberal party…. Let’s see the newspapers’ front-page on Sunday…. 🙂

  7. “Similarly, The Australian reports strategists from both parties consider seven to eight losses an “optimistic Labor prediction”, although the contention there are “up to ten in the party’s doubtful column” still suggests a bare Labor majority.”…

    Yes, exactly, 10 losses by the ALP it’s still a Labor majority, not a huge majority but a clear majority nonetheless.

  8. “I’m hearing anecdotal reports of Carol Altmann winning down there.”

    ‘Anecdotal reports’ from ‘party insiders’, eh, Kos?

  9. ” Roy Morgan has an SMS poll showing Labor leading 55-45, in from 57-43 in a similar poll a fortnight ago, from primary votes of Labor 38% (down two), Coalition 32.5% (up three-and-a-half), Greens 12.5% (up one), “teal independents” 4.5% (steady), and 12.5% scattered among the remainder. There were also forced response questions for Daniel Andrews’ personal approval, breaking 57.5-42.5 his way, and preferred premier, breaking 65-35 in favour of Andrews over Matthew Guy.”…

    Yep, and the sky darkens even more for the poor Lobster if we look at the Morgan results… Everything seems to be converging on a win for the ALP but with a reduced majority.

  10. C@tmomma @ #NaN Thursday, November 24th, 2022 – 10:52 am

    Grime @ #1 Thursday, November 24th, 2022 – 10:32 am

    The number of attempted calls received and auto blocked on my mobile this week as possible spam is quite extraordinary.

    I have a google Pixel 6 and it has a dedicated program with Voice AI that reads a script to unknown callers, basically asking the caller to state their business so I can read the Voice to Text and decide if I want to speak to them in person or not. The spam disconnects pretty quickly. 🙂

    Very cool;-)

  11. Luke

    Sorry if you were offended – my gripe is more with newspaper letter writers, commenters and radio callback callers who often start with “I’ve been a Labor/Coalition voter all my life but this time I am going to vote Coalition/Labor because of xxxx.”

    It’s usually a throwaway line which gets some attention but obviously totally unprovable.

    Like phone pollsters asking who you voted for last time – many people realise they may make a bigger impact saying they’ve changed their vote.

    Ps – thanks for not contributing to the Coalition vote. Really.

  12. somethinglikethat

    I figure either he’ll lose (hopefully) and if not he will be sitting there in Parliament looking across at Labor Government members for four years. Which I’m certain he’ll enjoy.

  13. Correct me if I am wrong but for Greens to win Albert Park, Pascoe Vale, Footscray etc. Liberal vote has to tank. If it is tanking there it is likely to be tanking in other inner and middle suburbs at the very least.

    There is little attention paid to incumbency and sophomore surges.

    Seems to me for minority government to happen several things have to happen.

    -Big hit to ALP vote in western suburbs and low Lib vote to make contests Indi vs Liberal.
    -Lib vote staying low in inner city or tanking but not enough that stil benefit Greens via preferences.
    -Lib vote recovering enough in the eastern suburbs and overtaking sophomore surge and incumbency of ALP MPs.
    -Libs holding all of the seats in the east they hold with %1-3 points.

    All can happen but a lot has to go right.

  14. “somethinglike that says:
    Thursday, November 24, 2022 at 11:11 am
    We really need to wipe the smug look off the face of this cretin.”

    Ha, ha, ha… James Newbury is truly panicking, I can only wonder why?…. Oh, I see he is holding his seat of Brighton with a margin of…. 0.5%….

    Bye bye, James… and good luck with those applications for a job: one in the morning, one in the afternoon, looking for a job will make you stronger…. 🙂

  15. Oliver Sutton (and bug1 if you are around)

    I have been down in South-West Victoria this week. I am not getting the same ‘vibe’ (very scientific) for the independent that I got down here before the Federal Election. People in May were telling me Dyson could win and I was very skeptical but he beat the Labor candidate into second place and ended up losing 46-54 to Liberal Dan Tehan, which was a change to Tehan’s 60-40 win in 2019.

    But the same people who were confident then seem less confident about Altmann. I would have thought the smaller state seat would be more likely to go independent but then again there isn’t the same anti-Liberal angst here that there was at the Federal election.

  16. So after a concerted media campaign against Labor and every cross bench option the liberal party look set to perform about as well as last election.

    I couldn’t really care less if it’s a majority Labor government or a minority with a stack of cross benchers. All I really want to see on Saturday is the disgrace that is the current liberal party be kicked to the curb again.

    If independents can take a bunch of inner city liberal seats and rural national seats then the power of the liberal party, and the utter cranks that now control it, will be broken.

  17. Spot-on comment Alpo. A realistic, logical appraisal of the likely outcome of the election.
    Blows out of the water this media- pushed attempt to create a ” minority government ” theme.
    How much rubbish has been printed about that theme?
    What a farce, based on manipulation, mathematical probability ( but in reality highly unlikely),dissembling, character slandering, pandering to vocal minorities under the pretence of supporting free speech and civil liberties- all classic Right- wing media strategies.
    No prediction here about the seat numbers here but minority government? Give us a break.

  18. The Age headline should be There are fewer Christians but they continue to haunt the Liberal Party (which has a small membership therefore easy to infiltrate)

    This is courtesy of the membership drive by Bastiaan and Sukkar and Kevin Andrews to take control of the Party

    Hence we see the Candidates they nominate, either from the IPA or these Churches which go by multiple names

    Look at what the outgoing MP for Kew offered (and swept away by media)

  19. Rocket Rocketsays:
    Thursday, November 24, 2022 at 11:26 am
    I have been down in South-West Victoria this week.
    _____________________
    What did you think of the roads down there ? Did you drive the Portland to Hamilton or the Portland to Nelson Roads ? Cobden to Port Campbell is also another dangerous Rd.

  20. Taylormade says:
    Thursday, November 24, 2022 at 11:44 am
    Rocket Rocketsays:
    Thursday, November 24, 2022 at 11:26 am
    I have been down in South-West Victoria this week.
    _____________________
    What did you think of the roads down there ? Did you drive the Portland to Hamilton or the Portland to Nelson Roads ? Cobden to Port Campbell is also another dangerous Rd.
    ——————————————
    LOL Taylormade

  21. @Gorks: “It seems everyone is chucking on 4 percent swing on the pendulum and calling it a line ball. Seems very little thought given to geographic differences.”

    I completely agree. So much of the commentary simultaneously talks about “big swings” against Labor in the outer suburbs, but then applies a uniform swing to predict losses & gains.

    If they’re expecting the outer north, west & southeast to swing by 10% (considerably above the statewide swing), then simple maths dictates that other regions have to be swinging by considerably less than the statewide swing – or possibly even in the opposite direction – for it to even out.

    I also agree completely with your comment around seats like Albert Park. The Greens would very likely win an ALP v GRN runoff there; but it won’t be an ALP v GRN runoff unless the Liberal vote completely tanks. Considering there was more than a -10% swing last time, I don’t think there’s much left to collapse. Maybe another -3% or so, probably mostly to the South Melbourne Market IND which will flow back to the LIBs via preferences anyway. It will be hard for the Greens to make the 2CP count there.

    Finally, if Kos Samaras himself is really only touting Benambra, Kew and Mornington as the most likely IND gains, I think that throws some cold water on what the Herald Sun are “predicting”. All are Liberal seats too – and Liberal seats Labor were never even competitive in – so make zero difference to the likelihood of a minority government.

    Here’s what I predict for the crossbench:

    Greens to hold Prahran, Melbourne & Brunswick, gain Northcote & Richmond, and best case scenario for them would be 6 seats if they also pick up Pascoe Vale on a good night.

    INDs to hold in Mildura & Shepparton, gain Benambra and Kew, and maybe Mornington, Melton and Hawthorn.

    If every seat in that list was to go Greens/IND (which is unlikely), the effect on Labor would be -5 seats… But more realistically I think it will more likely be 3 or 4.

    That still leaves the Liberals needing a net gain of at least 7-8 seats off Labor, when they’re at real risk of losing a couple to Labor themselves.

  22. Taylormade

    I usually turn off onto the Hamilton Highway on the Geelong Bypass because it’s a bit quicker and has less tourist traffic but the road was closed at Inverleigh (presumably due to the same rain damage that derailed that goods train last week).

    So it was the more traditional route via Colac – Camperdown – Warrnambool. I didn’t fancy detouring through Cobden as the weather was really bad and I preferred a wider road.

    The worst bit was a section past Colac around the Stony Rises where the water was up to the road on both sides and I think had clearly recently damaged the surface.

    The Geelong Bypass has probably made the biggest difference to this trip compared to years ago. As well as Freeway all the way from Geelong to Melbourne Ring Road / CBD / CityLink.

    Haven’t been over to Nelson recently. Went through Port Campbell a few months ago but via Simpson I think – Great Ocean Road was all ok except there had clearly been some rockfalls on the surf coast side around Lorne from memory. Lots of new work with metal mesh on rock faces presumably to try and limit damage from this.

    Drove Portland-Heywood in May and it was ok but didn’t go all the way to Hamilton.

    Ps Victoria was I right? 2004?

  23. Scott says:
    Thursday, November 24, 2022 at 11:47 am
    Taylormade says:
    Thursday, November 24, 2022 at 11:44 am
    Rocket Rocketsays:
    Thursday, November 24, 2022 at 11:26 am
    I have been down in South-West Victoria this week.
    _____________________
    What did you think of the roads down there ? Did you drive the Portland to Hamilton or the Portland to Nelson Roads ? Cobden to Port Campbell is also another dangerous Rd.
    ——————————————
    LOL Taylormade
    &&&&&&&&&&
    LOL Taylormade

  24. @Alpha Zero, “Where have the Black African Gangs gone this election?”

    The better question is, where did they suddenly disappear to after 24 November 2018? The city was apparently under siege until that day, then they completely disappeared!

  25. Someone down here just told me about Alex Dyson’s pothole photos in the lead up to the federal election. I didn’t see them at the time – apparently he did stunts like being in scuba gear or pretending to play golf or fish in them. Maybe his campaign made a difference – I saw (and felt) worse potholes on the Calder Highway recently than anything down here.

  26. Trent,

    There was that coordinated influencer scare campaign about not feeling safe in Brighton, followed by an announcement that the libs would rebuild the Brighton police station, then the crime stats came out showing a big drop in crime in the area…

  27. Herald sun fantasy. Labor will retain all the first tier seat and the projected guesses on in play seats are like my certainty of winning lotto are bullshit
    Alp 65 to 70 seats
    Gr 3 ind 5 to 7..libs tough
    5 nats similar..liberals to.retain at most 1 country seat.. alp 70 lobster ..

  28. I think the “Black African Gangs” crap offended a lot of Victorian, hence the swing to Labor. The current campaign is less offensive hence I would expect some swing back to the Liberals.

  29. frednk @ #47 Thursday, November 24th, 2022 – 12:48 pm

    I think the “Black African Gangs” crap offended a lot of Victorian, hence the swing to Labor. The current campaign is less offensive hence I would not expect some swing back to the Liberals.

    I’m hugely offended by the Lib freedom cookers having absolutely no regard for the health of vulnerable seniors and other susceptible people to the virus.


  30. Rex Douglas says:
    Thursday, November 24, 2022 at 12:56 pm

    frednk @ #47 Thursday, November 24th, 2022 – 12:48 pm
    ..
    I’m hugely offended by the Lib freedom cookers having absolutely no regard for the health of vulnerable seniors and other susceptible people to the virus.

    Yes, but I think the Liberal campaign has been more effective this time.

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