Shannon Deery: Liberals can’t just rely on voters abandoning Labor

While some Liberals are revelling in the collapse of Labor’s vote in its heartland, the voter phenomenon known as “double haters” is a sobering reminder of the enormous challenge they still face.

For Victorian Liberals, Saturday’s Werribee by-election was a sobering reminder of the enormous electoral challenge they face.

Some are still doing victory laps after claiming Prahran from the Greens – breaking a 15-year drought to finally increase their number in parliament by one.

Others are celebrating the knife’s edge race for Werribee, because win or lose, Labor has taken a battering in a heartland seat.

Even if Labor holds on, to describe the result as anything but an unmitigated disaster undersells the significance of a 17 per cent drop in primary support.

But against that, the Liberals have so far increased their primary vote by just 3.7 per cent.

Herein lies the real problem for the Liberal Party.

It’s exactly what we saw at the 2022 election, because even though the vibe was against Labor post Covid, the party increased its majority.

In the west especially, despite big swings against the government, the Liberals just couldn’t bridge the entrenched margins in Labor’s heartland.

Some Liberals are jubilant after Rachel Westaway (above) won the Prahran by-election, but the party needs 16 more seats to win back government. Picture: Valeriu Campan

The built-in buffers, combined with a general unwillingness for voters to get behind the Liberal Party, meant seats simply did not change hands.

In Mill Park, Labor’s primary vote dropped by 12.8 per cent, while the Liberals increased by just 4.6 per cent.

In Kororoit, 20.2 per cent was shaved off Labor’s primary vote, but just 3.5 per cent was added to the Liberal Party’s.

It was worse in Preston – Labor had a 14.9 per cent drop in support, but the Liberals picked up just 0.7 per cent.

In the southeast – the area the party saw as its path road to recovery – it gained no ground.

In Carrum, Labor lost 3.1 per cent from its primary, while at the same time the Liberals lost 2.4 per cent.

It was a similar situation in Dandenong where voters turned away from both major parties.

And in Clarinda, there was an 8.4 per cent drop in support for Labor but the Libs increased their primary vote by just 0.4 per cent.

In total, Labor copped negative swings in 44 seats and retained all but two of them – Hawthorn and Nepean.

Of more concern for the Liberals would be the fact that in 26 of those seats their primary was bigger than they’ve managed in Werribee so far.

Repeat this at the 2026 election and Labor marches on to a historic fourth term in government, even if the Liberals do close the gap considerably.

Premier Jacinta Allen must ensure the Werribee debacle was Labor’s vote bottoming out. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Now, there are some clear differences with Werribee.

The challenge for Jacinta Allan will be ensure that Labor’s vote has now bottomed out. Even then it will be harder to sustain margins across a large number of seats with such a low primary.

But it can be done, and Labor is expert at working on preference strategies and relationships with minor parties. If it is now a preference game in many seats, Labor retains the upper hand.

Werribee also gave disaffected voters a chance to punish the government without consequence.

That is to say, many voters were happy to park their votes elsewhere knowing this would have no impact on who was governing. At a general election, a different mentality comes into play.

Which is why senior Liberals say they must work through a two-step process of changing perceptions ahead of 2026.

The first is to move people off a decade of supporting Labor. In Werribee, we saw that is not only possible, but is already happening.

The second, much harder, is to convince the electorate the Liberal Party is a competent alternative.

A lot that has to do with telling the story about what the party stands for.

The huge non-major party primary vote in Werribee points to a growing segment of what pollster Tony Barry calls “double hater” voters.

“The really low voter turnout makes it hard to know what it means for the next election,” he said.

“But what the primary vote numbers tell us is that both majors have a lot of work to do in the next 21 months. The Liberal Party still isn’t campaign fit, and they can’t just rely on an electoral mood for change to win the next election.”

Werribee showed an appetite for change, but the Liberals will need a campaign strategy and infrastructure to support a wholesale shift. The infrastructure simply is not in place yet for the Liberals to feel confident going into a general election.

When the time comes, the party is unlikely to have the resources it did in Werribee to throw at dozens of seats.

For Labor’s part, the Werribee wake-up call will add fresh impetus for the need to get back to basics.

It may also bank on the Suburban Rail Loop shoring up votes in at least five key electorates it will directly affect.

If it does not heed the lessons of Werribee then things can get much worse, fast, for the government.

Brad Battin might have chalked up one seat in his bid to get the 17 needed to win government.

But right now, the other 16 look a long, long way away.