Tudge’s sudden departure leaves a Liberal stronghold ripe for the picking

At the last federal election, Rowville resident Kevin Harrison voted for Alan Tudge.

Now – less than a year later – a byelection looms in the outer-eastern Melbourne seat of Aston after the former Liberal cabinet minister quit politics on Thursday.

Aston voter Kevin Harrison said an independent candidate could swing residents in the coming byelection.Credit: Justin McManus

Harrison, 63, said he was “95 per cent likely” to vote for whoever the Liberal candidate is, but admits he could be swayed.

“I’ve been voting one particular way for as long as I’ve voted, but when I went to the polling booth [last year], I was a little bit torn,” he said.

Harrison, who runs a design and renovation business, said an independent candidate who understands and prioritises local issues could swing residents.

“They seem to listen, and I think that’s one of the biggest problems with politicians. They don’t listen,” he said.

“People are just generally unhappy with the empty promises and the like. It goes federally and in state.”

Tudge has endured several recent political scandals, including his affair with his former staffer Rachelle Miller, the allocation of funding for commuter car parks and the robo-debt scheme, which is the subject of a royal commission where he faced difficult questioning last week.

Tudge stood aside from the ministry in late 2021 and, during his troubled 2022 campaign, he was dubbed the invisible minister as his party kept him away from the campaign trail.

His two-party preferred margin was slashed from 10.1 per cent to 2.8 per cent. On primary votes, the swing against him was almost 12 per cent.

Tudge ’s resignation – effective from next week – presents the first major test of Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s political leadership.

The Liberals will be desperate to hold on to Aston, but the party performed poorly in Victorian seats at the federal election and at the state election in November 2022.

Monash University politics lecturer said Zareh Ghazarian the byelection would be tough. He now considers Aston to be a marginal seat.

“It had a pretty disastrous result in Victoria, especially at the last federal election. It used to be fairly safe seat,” Ghazarian said.

“It will be the key to Labor strengthening its hold in Victoria, or demonstrating whether the opposition is making inroads in trying to attract voters it lost at last election.

“This is going to be a real challenge ... whether Peter Dutton has the capacity to bring back Liberal voters back to the party: These are going to be the critical questions.”

Aston takes in suburbs including Rowville, Lysterfield, Scoresby, Wantirna, Wantirna South, Boronia, Ferntree Gully, Knoxfield and The Basin.

Formed in the 1980s, it was a key mortgage belt seat comprising young families, making it a competitive area for the Labor Party. But since 1990, Aston has been firmly Liberal.

The electorate is famous for its role in helping the Howard Government – on the nose nationally over the GST – to declare itself back from the dead. In July 2001, against expectation and despite a swing against, the Liberals held Aston in a byelection, spelling the end of Labor’s surge.

“It’s a very settled area. Very solid Liberal voting country,” said Antony Green, chief election analyst for the ABC. “It’s not the sort of area where the Labor Party really had much luck.”

Comprising some 160,000 residents, Aston is mostly middle-class with a median weekly household income of $1,884, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics – the 17th highest out of 39 electorates.

Demographically, it also sits comfortably in the middle. It’s one of seven Victorian federal electorates with a median age of 40, compared with just 31 in Melbourne and 48 in Flinders. It has a strong cohort of Chinese-Australian voters, making up 14.1 per cent of the population.

Green believes the coming byelection will see a correction of the swing against the Liberal Party – despite Labor’s improved polling results following Albanese’s election win – which he said was a result of a larger trend among Victorian voters.

“Tudge was non-existent. He was kept away from the campaign,” Green said.

“The big swing was partly caused by the Liberal Party diverting all its resources to the swing states it needed to hold, and Aston wouldn’t have been in that category, so it caught a bigger swing than you would’ve expected.”

Gordon Veerasawmy, a retired primary school teacher from Rowville, said his interactions with Tudge had been positive.

He said his local MP had been supportive in his work as a volunteer for St Vincent De Paul Society Ferntree Gully.

“I have met Alan on several occasions locally. He has been extremely personable and cooperative. I obviously know what’s gone on, I know what the negative factors are,” he said.

But Veerasawmy said he would base his decision pm where to cast his vote based on policy, not party.

After years of voting Labor, Ferntree Gully resident Forrest Deane said he too could be swayed to vote for an independent candidate.

Labor voter Forrest Deane could also be swayed to vote for an independent.Credit: Justin McManus

Deane, 63, who has lived in the area since 1964, said he wasn’t a big fan of Tudge. When it comes time to vote, he’ll be voting for a candidate who comes from the local area and cares about local issues.

“I’d consider voting independent if they were local and campaigning for the right things. I don’t mind the independents, I like them. But they don’t normally have the strength to get things done,” he said.

Simon Holmes a Court – the founder of Climate 200, which helped bankroll teal independent candidates who ousted several Liberal members at the last election – said he was open to helping an independent contest the byelection. Tudge did not have a teal challenger last year.

“If there’s a community group in Aston planning to run a pro-climate independent campaign, we’d love to hear from them,” he said.

No decision has been taken on whether Labor will run 2022 candidate Mary Doyle again. A high-profile or union-backed candidate to ensure strong resources on the ground are also possibilities.

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