The Age today leads with a startling Victorian state poll from Resolve Strategic, though it requires a note of caution in that the sample is 559, giving it a larger than normal error margin upwards of 4%. (UPDATE: It turns out that 559 refers only refers to the preferred premier question, and that the voting intention results, as usual, combine two monthly polling surveys with an overall sample size of 1124 and a typical error margin of around 3%). The usual practice of Nine Newspapers is to produce state results for New South Wales and Victoria in alternating months using the samples from those states in the monthly national polls, but on this occasion it was evidently decided to dispense with the earlier polling period as it was conducted before Brad Battin replaced John Pesutto as Liberal leader.
The poll finds Labor plunging six points from an already weak position to 22%, with the Coalition up four to 42% and the Greens steady on 13% (the same sample of respondents in the federal poll published earlier this week had Labor at 25%, the Coalition at 38% and the Greens at 13%) (UPDATE: Make that half the same sample). Brad Battin debuts with a 37-27 lead over Jacinta Allan as preferred premier, compared with a 30-29 lead for John Pesutto in the November result. Twenty-eight per cent rated themselves more likely to vote Liberal after the leadership change compared with 11% for less likely, while 11% rated themselves more likely and 18% less likely to vote Labor on account of the rather less newsworthy fact of former Treasurer Tim Pallas’s retirement.
On that subject, I have guides up for the February 8 by-elections in Prahran and Pallas’s seat of Werribee. The ballot paper draw in Prahran was conducted last week, while Werribee’s will be held later today. Regarding Prahran, Antony Green points to the fact that Tony Lupton, who held the seat for Labor from 2002 to 2010 and is now running as an independent, has a how-to-vote card recommending the Liberals be put ahead of the Greens.
Greens to hold Prahran.
Labor to hold Werribee.
lupton is a zombie green hating lib financed by Advance.
The Werribee Lib is a knight of the Southern Cross!!!!!!!!!! Menzies wept!
Things are getting quite complicated in Prahran
Link: https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/ex-labor-mp-targets-greens-in-prahran-boosting-liberal-hopeful-s-bid-20250128-p5l7og.html
The Ex Labor member (Lupton) , is using Labor branch members to assist with his campaign. He now has the backing of the ex Premier Steve Bracks, as well as the right wing outfit “Advance Australia”, Lupton is placing the Libs at No.2 on his HTV card. Bracks quoted as saying, “I am not aware of Lupton’s preferences”. They were published on 22-Jan.
Animosity between the Greens and Labor has now reached Prahran.
It appears to be a “Get the Greens” campaign.
Will be a fascinating by-election.
For the record, I’m tipping a Lib pick up for this seat.
Bracks’ endorsement of Lupton actually came before his HTVC, he’s been using that quote for a while and he printed it on the HTVC itself. So it’s plausible that Bracks didn’t realise he was working in alliance with Advance Australia to funnel preferences to the Liberals when he gave that endorsement.
I’m not convinced Lupton will gain much traction. The response to his campaign seems overwhelmingly negative. Liberal voters are accusing him of being a Labor stooge; progressive & Labor voters are criticising his preference decision and calling him a Liberal stooge. He has a core of support that I think would mostly have drawn from anti-Greens Labor supporters who would likely have put the Liberals ahead of the Greens anyway.
I’m still tipping his primary vote to be in the 8-10% range and preferences to spray all over the place, remember only 30% of Labor voters even followed the HTVC in 2022, I can’t imagine the HTV adherence would be any higher a) For an independent with less volunteers than Labor; and b) For a card that recommends Labor voters preference the Liberals.
The article mentioning his alliance with Advance Australia has attracted a pretty negative response since last night too. I’m sure the Greens will capitalise on that this week.
Overall, what I’m seeing here is two things:
– A big anti-Greens push but one that I don’t really see making much of a dent in the actual Greens’ support, and that will mostly just be an echo chamber among those who already don’t support them;
– The media jumping on a juicy narrative of an ex-Labor MP helping the Liberals and probably overstating the actual impact it will have (exposing it will possibly even reduce the impact as Lupton’s alliance with a far-right activist group becomes more well known and turns Labor voters off)
Independents and micro parties often talk themselves up as kingmakers by directing preferences, and it never works. I think Trent’s assessment of Lupton getting eight to ten percent is generous. I’ll be surprised if he gets his deposit back.
My advice to the Greens would be to ignore him and concentrate scarce resources against the Liberals.
I hope you’re right Ante. Originally I was predicting 6-7% as his maximum but increased it to 8-10% due to some of the media attention he was getting.
However, given some of the stuff that’s come out in the last few days including the media attention being on his preference recommendation to the Liberals and support from Advance Australia (who get funding from a Liberal fundraising body), and criticism he has been getting for that, I think the media attention will probably backfire and turn Labor voters off anyway.
I would say the smaller the IND/Micro vote is (especially Lupton’s), the better it is for the Greens’ chances to retain with a more comfortable 2CP, simply because given a choice between Greens & Liberals, most Labor voters will pick the Greens, and where the Labor vote goes will be critical.
Ignoring Lupton certainly seems to be their strategy too, much to his annoyance. He has begrudgingly said in interviews that the Greens are “pretending I don’t exist”, and all their materials say “This is a contest between the Liberals and Greens – Labor are not running”.
I certainly wouldn’t be brave enough to predict this, and I don’t think it will happen due to a lot of factors that will be less favourable to the Greens compared to 2022, but…
Just say the Greens retain their 2022 support (and the absence of a Labor candidate competing for left/progressive voters helps that), if half of Labor’s 2022 voters put them first they’d have roughly a 50% primary vote.
It’s unlikely, but it’s actually not far-fetched considering 75% of Labor voters who didn’t follow their HTVC preferenced the Greens in 2022, there is no other notable left/progressive competition for the Greens to lose their own 2022 voters to, and with a large ballot of independents, most voters won’t really know who’s who and might just ignore all the noise and make a Greens v Liberals choice.
For all the doom & gloom about the Greens’ chances due to fears or lower turnout and Lupton sending Labor votes to the Liberals, that is also a possible (albeit unlikely) scenario on the other end of the spectrum.