Feds have a lot riding on Victorian election result
Premier Daniel Andrews might be favoured to win this weekend’s Victorian election, but his true chances could boil down to one particular bellwether seat.
DRIVING along the M1 and M3 freeways you can get from Melbourne’s CBD to Frankston, the outer suburb known as the gateway to the Mornington Peninsula, in just under an hour if traffic conditions are kind.
Frankston carries the problems seen in outer suburban districts around Australia. Travel times and congestion are a constant and the local economy is patchy with a large proportion of locals living in the bottom two quintiles of income and prosperity.
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The unemployment rate is 6.65 per cent, well above the Melbourne, Victorian and national figures. There have also been racial tensions on the streets of Frankston and on public transport, especially the metropolitan train service.
This weekend Frankston will be watched closely because today is election day and Victorians will decide whether to give the Labor Government of Daniel Andrews a second four-year term. Since 1999 the seat of Frankston has flipped four times, making it something of a bellwether seat.
At the moment Labor’s Paul Edbrooke holds the seat by just 0.5 of a per cent – it’s the most marginal in the state.
The Herald Sun published a YouGov Galaxy poll earlier this month which showed the vote hadn’t changed – giving Labor 51 per cent support and the Liberals 49 per cent.
First-preference votes also put Labor and Liberal in a statistical dead heat in Frankston – 42 per cent for the former and 43 per cent for the Opposition candidate. The Greens were on just 6 per cent and others polled 9 per cent.
If Frankston changes hands and Edbrooke loses, the chances of a new Liberal-National government in Melbourne’s Parliament begin to improve.
However, as with most bellwether seats, things are not as simple as they appear on paper.
Edbrooke is one of Labor’s better candidates and the Liberal Party’s Michael Lamb is very unimpressive – a trainwreck interview with Sky News’ David Speers this week will not have helped.
Frankston aside, Matthew Guy’s Coalition need to pick up a net seven seats – which could be achieved with a uniform swing of 3 per cent – to have a majority of one seat in the House of Assembly.
At the 2014 poll the Liberals lost Prahran to the Greens and have it high on their list of probable pick ups. This reduces the swing needed to about 2.7 per cent, still a bit of an ask.
On the other side of the equation Labor can lose its majority if the Liberals or the Greens pick up two of the Government’s seats, an electoral shift that could happen with a swing to the Coalition of just 0.7 per cent or 2.2 per cent to the Greens. However, this election has many cross currents and both the Government and Opposition are playing offensive and defensive games at the same time.
For instance, Labor is looking at picking up one of three Greens seats and has the Liberal electorates of Ripon and Morwell high on the Party’s target list.
The election is being fought against what has been a steady but emphatic shift in the political complexion of Victoria, once regarded as the jewel in the Liberal crown.
The Liberals held power from the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s, unchallenged by what was a factionally riven Labor Party. These days it’s a very different story with the ALP in the ascendancy.
Labor has formed government after seven of the past 10 elections and all predictions – and the betting markets – do point to that winning streak being extended after this weekend.
The Andrews’ Government has had its share of scandals and a major broken promise, which in normal circumstances would count heavily against the Labor Party.
The red shirts affair tops the list. At the last election Labor MPs and staffers defrauded the taxpayers by doing work that should have been commissioned and paid for by the party. An ombudsman’s report listed 21 MPs – including six ministers – who had some of these red shirt workers on their payroll.
After these claims were made in August Andrews ordered the party to repay $388,000 to the taxpayers. A police investigation has followed but it remains unresolved, giving those involved some cover until after this weekend’s poll.
The broken promise relates to a pledge from Andrews that scrapping the Liberal plan for an East West Link road project would not cost the taxpayers any money at all. So far it has cost somewhere between $1.1 and $1.3 billion.
At a Herald Sun/Sky News peoples’ forum this week, this issue – and the fact this money could have been used on any number of desperately needed services – provided the most heat with Premier Andrews looking shifty and defensive.
To add to the possible speed bumps on the Government’s road to re-election, a terrorist attack midway through the campaign has again highlighted the issue of crime involving African youth.
Regardless of these normally insurmountable obstacles, Labor is poised to not just retain power but pick up between one and three seats from the Coalition and the Greens.
Labor actually faces a bigger threat from regional independents who continue to attract support outside the metropolitan area.
The likelihood of a Liberal-Nationals loss has already prompted some Coalition figures to start pointing the finger at events and politicians in Canberra.
The late August leadership meltdown and the unsettled performance since then of new Prime Minister Scott Morrison is being blamed for what’s seen as a probable loss this weekend.
Liberals point out former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull was more popular in Melbourne and Victoria and his political assassination has sent support in the state backwards. Claims of bullying and sexism towards female MPs have added to these woes.
A Liberal loss in Victoria will make the already difficult task of winning the next federal poll – due by mid-May next year – so much harder.
Dennis Atkins is The Courier-Mail’s national affairs editor
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