Victoria’s hot seats week one as it happened: Bruce is anything but a typical Liberal-Labor contest

I’m sitting in Bikaner’s Curry Café on Foster Street in Dandenong, otherwise known as “Little India”, taking advantage of their Friday lunch special.

Over a mango lassi and chicken curry, it’s a good time to reflect on my first week in Bruce for The Age’s hot seats blog. It’s been a fascinating start.

Bruce is a traditionally safe Labor seat, currently held by Julian Hill, that the Liberals now think is firmly in their grasp, as concerns mount over cost-of-living pressures.

Liberal posters in Dandenong’s “Little India”.Credit: Charlotte Grieve

Afghan-born Liberal candidate Zahid Safi, who has run a string of National Disability Insurance Scheme providers and migrant training businesses, has spent much of his week resharing Peter Dutton content on social media while ignoring my interview requests. Multiple phone calls, emails and social media messages have received no response.

We brought you news earlier in the week of the Liberals campaign office launch for Bruce, marked with boxed pizza and ribbon cutting. The campaign’s official launch party for Safi will be held this Sunday, under a veil of secrecy.

Flyer for Zahid Safi’s campaign launch on Sunday.

The event is invite-only, with the location only being shared with approved guests four hours before the event kicks off at 4pm. We obtained a copy of the super-secret invite which stresses “bookings must be made prior to entry”.

The Liberals are trying to reflect the diversity of the seat in pre-selecting Safi, hoping to appeal to the electorate’s large Muslim and Afghan-born population.

But Safi’s background didn’t seem to win him any favours on Monday when he turned up to the Omar-Farooq Mosque in Doveton with La Trobe MP Jason Wood promising big money during Eid prayers.

Some worshippers, sick of having religious ceremonies taken over by politicians, booed and heckled Safi and Wood. The politicians exited in a hurry.

The following night, I drove to the Lynbrook community centre for the campaign launch of Bruce’s Greens candidate, Rhonda Garad, which saw a large turn-out from the local Hazara community.

There, the heckling was a topic of discussion – with one man showing me a screenshot of the mosque’s constitution that clearly states: “Protect the non-political nature of the mosque.”

“The Liberals are trying to show a diversified image of themselves but in reality that’s not the case,” Greens supporter Namatullah Karrie told me.

Dandenong community leader Aman Ullah Najimi (left) standing next to a sign for Julian Hill at the Ramadan night market.Credit: Charlotte Grieve

Muslim Votes Matters is expected to endorse the Greens in Bruce in coming days, deploying at least 100 volunteers, but spokesperson Ghaith Krayeem told me earlier in the week the Gaza war was not driving votes in this electorate as much as in some others.

The following night, I dropped into the closing ceremony of Dandenong’s new Ramadan night market, which was attended by more than 150,000 people over nine nights, for delicious food and a vibe check with locals.

Lunch in Dandenong’s “Little India”.Credit: Charlotte Grieve

Hill enjoys a lot of support in the area, and is certainly winning the poster battle there, but some of the people I spoke to said Labor’s record on immigration and Gaza were two areas of disappointment. Others said the weak jobs market was pushing them towards voting Liberal.

It was WA senator Fatima Payman who received a rock-star welcome at the markets. Payman defected from Labor last year, accusing the party of not caring about the suffering of Palestinians, and has since launched her own political party, Australia’s Voice. She was at the market to promote her Victorian Senate candidate Mohamed El-Masr.

Finally, I ended the week trying to speak to Safi by popping into his Berwick campaign office. No luck there either – but the blue-blood locals I spoke with are keen to do their part to vote Labor out.

Back in Little India, I’ve spotted a few Safi signs in the shopfronts, which is another reminder of why there is no substitute for being on the ground to learn about the wishes of voters.

In many ways Bruce is a typical Liberal-Labor contest, but with pressure from the Greens and the electorate’s unique demographics it’s really anything but typical.

I’m looking forward to the coming weeks on the streets to find out what matters most to this electorate this election. If you have a news tip or want to share your view, please feel free to contact me on [e-mail]. See you out there!

Only one week into the federal election campaign and it’s all been happening in Goldstein, where there is a rematch between the incumbent teal MP Zoe Daniel and former Liberal MP for the seat Tim Wilson.

Campaigning kicked off in earnest last Sunday with Daniel’s politics-at-the-pub session at the Black Rock Yacht Club to discuss fiscal drag and tax reform.

Goldstein MP Zoe Daniel at a Jewish community forum on Thursday night. Credit: Joe Armao

Wilson launched his campaign on the same day at Brighton Town Hall, which was packed to standing room only with more than 600 blue T-shirt clad Liberal supporters.

Arms aloft, Wilson declared Goldstein “ground zero” for the Liberal party at this election.

In the days since, I’ve tagged along with both candidates campaigning at train stations in the early hours of the morning and attended a passionate debate between the pair at the Brighton Hebrew Congregation.

Tim Wilson at his campaign launch at Brighton Town Hall.Credit: Wayne Taylor

The first cracks in the campaign have also emerged, with Wilson coming under scrutiny for declining an invitation to a climate debate the night before the event, and for posing with a member of his campaign team dressed as a tradie in a high vis vest and hard hat for a Facebook ad.

There are more events to come, with Daniel’s official campaign launch planned for this Sunday after she had to cancel her initial outdoor event due to some typically erratic Melbourne weather.

Thank you for all your tips and comments, keep sending them through, I’m looking forward to another week on the Goldstein campaign trail.

Break down how the booths voted in the seat of Wills at the last election and the ABC’s chief election analyst, Antony Green, points out a peculiarity to this seat and neighbouring Cooper, held by Labor’s Ged Kearney and which stretches from Clifton Hill to Reservoir.

“In the last four decades, there has been this intense gentrification at the southern end of these electorates, where living close to the city has become more desirable,” says Green.

“It’s a peculiarity of the way Melbourne’s northern suburbs grew – they were all working class, and the middle classes were all on the other side of the Yarra.”

This steady gentrification has created stark contrasts in voting in the north and south of Wills. The seat begins in Fawkner at the north and ends at North Fitzroy in the south.

In the last election, the Greens secured 63 per cent of the primary vote at Carlton North Primary School, the seat’s southernmost polling booth, Australian Electoral Commission figures show. (This part of the seat was in the electorate of Melbourne in 2022 but a redistribution has moved it into Wills.)

Antony Green notes media coverage often concentrates on areas like this, or along Sydney Road in Brunswick and Coburg, where the demographic shifts have been most pronounced.

“But that electorate goes a long way north, to all of those little houses on moderate-sized blocks in Oak Park and [Glenroy]. So there are a lot of [votes] north of, what do they call it, the quinoa curtain along Bell Street.”

At the northernmost polling booth in Wills, Moomba Park Primary School in Fawkner, the Greens’ vote in 2022 was just 14 per cent. Labor got 44 per cent.

Labor’s best-performing polling booth was Glenroy College, where incumbent MP Peter Khalil secured 50 per cent of the primary vote, compared to just 15 per cent for the Greens.

Labor’s Peter Khalil, Sydney Road, Brunswick, and the Greens’ Samantha Ratnam.Credit: Marija Ercegovac

The Liberal Party runs a minimal campaign in Wills – The Age has made repeated attempts to contact its candidate this time, Jeff Kidney, without success.

But the Liberals still pick up just under 20 per cent of votes. Its strongest booth in Wills at the last election was in Pascoe Vale, where the Liberal primary vote was 27 per cent.

The Labor primary at the last election across the seat fell by 5 per cent between 2019 and 2022.

This year, the impact of Greens candidate Samantha Ratnam is likely to be important – the former local mayor for the area and later leader of the state party is a strong campaigner. At council elections here in 2016, for instance, she won more than half the primary vote.

“The Greens have picked a high-profile candidate who has run before and who has some profile from state politics – she’s not Bob Brown so her profile isn’t that high, but she’s known,” says Green.

Monash University political scientist Zareh Ghazarian says Ratnam’s time leading the state party and in local government has indeed given her “a very high local profile” and that there is a sense this could finally be the moment the Greens take a seat once held by former Labor prime minister Bob Hawke.

International issues – particularly Gaza – will also play into the result this time around.

“This election, probably more so than others in recent years, international events are playing a role,” says Ghazarian. “We’ve got the economic debate around security arrangements, trade and tariffs with the USA. But the Israel-Palestine issue is really prominent.”

Advocacy group Muslim Votes Matters has endorsed the Greens in the seat because of Ratnam’s stance on Palestinian rights, and are running a campaign to oust Khalil.

Antony Green warns that even though Labor holds Wills by just 4.6 per cent from the Greens, it may be wise not to exaggerate the potential power of the Muslim vote in the seat.

The Muslim population, according to the 2021 Census, is about 10 per cent. Green points out this pales in comparison to two Sydney seats where Muslim voters could be influential. In the western Sydney seat of Blaxland, Muslim voters make up 32 per cent of the electorate, while in the neighbouring seat of Watson, they make up 25 per cent of the electorate.

When you drive into the main street of Berwick, you’re welcomed by a large billboard with Liberal candidate Zahid Safi’s smiling face.

It’s a blue-ribbon area that the Liberals are hoping will help them to victory, after the boundary redistribution has poured more potential Liberal voters into the Labor seat.

And after a few chats with people on the main strip, it’s clear the locals here will be doing their part to turn Bruce blue.

Liberal candidate Zahid Safi’s campaign poster on the main strip in Berwick.Credit: Charlotte Grieve

Retired finance worker Peter Brock is keen to vote Labor out, due to what he sees as “waste and over-spending” of taxpayer funds on “stupid things”.

“I just want them to get on with the job, get the finance in a better order,” he said. “Stop worrying about being politically correct about everything, putting solar panels in because they think it’s the right thing to say. Be real.”

Bruce voter Peter Brock.Credit: Charlotte Grieve

Brock doesn’t know much about Safi, other than the letters he’s received in the mail, but says it’s about the party, not the candidate.

Sue Jones lives on the border with the La Trobe electorate, and will be voting in Bruce for the first time, having lived in the area for more than 30 years. She has always voted Liberal and will do the same this election.

“Dutton has got a lot more presence than Albanese,” she said. “I don’t think [Albanese] is really taking his job seriously.”

Cost of living is the number one issue for Jones, but she also thinks the unpopularity of the Victorian Labor government will bleed through to the federal election. She thinks Premier Jacinta Allan is spending too much on infrastructure, and former premier Daniel Andrews’ handling of the pandemic caused lasting harm to the younger generation.

“You can see the kids who went through lockdown are just not coping,” she says.

Bruce voter Sue Jones.Credit: Charlotte Grieve

Lynette, who didn’t want her surname included, said she’s always voted Liberal but is now exploring other options out of desperation. Her adult son lives with schizophrenia and she regularly calls emergency authorities to deal with his dangerous psychotic episodes at home. She says mental health services in the area are abysmal.

“There are no facilities for people who have huge issues. There’s a four-month wait for a private psychiatrist - then you’re looking at $800 for a visit,” she says. “Who cares? Nobody.”

Berwick-born Bridgette Witte spotted me speaking with people on the main strip and invited me into her designer office space of construction company Turnkey.

“I don’t know anything about politics,” she laughed. “I’ve always voted Liberal.”

Brigette Witte and Jordan Wilson from local real estate company, Turnkey. Credit: Charlotte Grieve

What she does know is the property industry – and she says the government needs to do more to help first home buyers enter the market. She says prices have skyrocketed.

“First home buyers want to buy in Berwick. When we first started, that was achievable. Five years later, they’re looking at Officer,” she says. “There is a rental crisis too, even in Berwick.”

Her colleague and business director Jordan Wilson agrees. He said first home buyers are either moving further out or buying smaller properties.

He will be voting Liberal too, following his family’s tradition, and said the government needs to make it easier to build more houses by reducing red tape and offering incentives to get people into the market.

“To lower the price of housing, we need more housing,” he said. “From a government perspective, some kind of incentive would be good, a better-managed Homebuilder [subsidies for renovations launched during COVID].”

Wilson has watched the debate playing out about the impact of immigration on the housing market, and believes the focus needs to change.

“It’s not the immigration that is the problem, it’s the slow pace at which we’re producing the housing to keep up.

“Mak[ing] it easier to create more housing solves the issue, rather than stopping immigration.”

Teal independent MP Zoe Daniel and Liberal candidate Tim Wilson engaged in a fiery debate before members of the Jewish community at the Brighton Hebrew Congregation on Thursday night.

The two candidates for Goldstein at times had attendees booing or applauding loudly, and quite a few came wearing their teal or blue Liberal T-shirts.

Daniel said many people in the Jewish community had not felt safe since the October 7, 2023, terrorist attacks.

Goldstein’s independent MP Zoe Daniel (left) and Liberal candidate Tim Wilson (right) at the forum in Brighton on Thursday night.Credit: Joe Armao

“I will never use your pain for political gain,” she said. “I object to the conflict in Israel and Gaza being used as a vote-getter by the Coalition and, to some extent, the Greens.”

Wearing a yarmulke, Wilson said too many people in the Jewish community now felt marginalised and afraid.

“Frankly, it has been the silence of our leaders that has angered me,” he said to a round of applause.

Wilson said he was a founding patron of Liberal Friends of Israel and had also helped list Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organisations.

He said the Coalition wanted a judicial inquiry into antisemitism on Australian university campuses, and would make it clear that Australia was Israel’s ally.

Both candidates were asked whether they would describe themselves as a Zionist. Wilson said he would.

“Would I declare myself a Zionist? It’s not something I’ve ever thought that I needed to do,” Daniel said. “I believe in the state of Israel and the sanctity of that.”

Daniel said the fact that some children in the Jewish community were scared to go to school, and Jewish people had their businesses boycotted was “not only inappropriate, it’s abhorrent”.

Daniel faced some heckling that she did not attend the “Never Again Is Now” rally in May last year. “I have not attended any rallies on this subject, pro-Palestinian or pro-Israel. I have attended several vigils,” she said. “I don’t think it’s appropriate to attend rallies on this matter.”

Daniel said peaceful protest was fine, but hate speech and hateful behaviour was not and needed to be managed by police.

Wilson said he did not think the expression, “from the river to the sea”, could be banned.

He decried Daniel for accepting funding from Climate 200 but would not reveal where his funding came from. He described Climate 200 as “a private company designed to subvert Australian electoral law”, adding that it employed people who were engaged in advocating for racism and antisemitism.

At the end of the debate, both candidates were asked whether they would recognise a Palestinian state and in what circumstances.

Wilson said the only circumstance would be when a Palestinian authority recognised the right of Israel to exist and the right of Israelis to live in peace.

“By advocating for a Palestinian state in current circumstances, we are rewarding incredibly bad behaviour,” he said.

Daniel said she supported a Palestinian state under a negotiated two-state solution, but this was not possible at the moment.

Teal independent MP Zoe Daniel and Liberal candidate Tim Wilson will make their pitch to voters tonight at the Goldstein Jewish Community Election Forum.

It is the first time in this campaign that the two candidates will debate each other after Wilson declined to participate in the Bayside Climate Crisis Action Group’s candidate forum two weeks ago.

Tim Wilson and Zoe Daniel face voters in a community forum tonight.Credit: Cara Waters

The forum is being organised by the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council and the Jewish Community Council of Victoria and is being moderated by Rebecca Davis of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council and Zeddy Lawrence of Zionism Victoria.

Goldstein has a large Jewish population, with 7.1 per cent of residents in the most recent census identifying Judaism as their religious affiliation compared to 0.4 per cent across the broader Australian population.

Wilson has identified rising antisemitism as a key issue in Goldstein in this election campaign, and at his campaign launch he spoke of how many Jewish Australians felt marginalised.

“In the past two years, what was dormant has been completely invigorated and emboldened,” he said. “The best we have seen from our prime minister has been a belated disinterest and our local MP tweeting messages of Kumbaya. Peter Dutton is committed to confronting it head on and so am I.”

Daniel has said the dramatic spike in antisemitism since October 7 had a major impact on the Jewish community in Goldstein, and she had been working hard with and for the community on this.

“Standing up to racism and antisemitism requires all of us to play our part,” she said. “It is important to be able to have civil conversations and debate about these issues across society, including federal parliament, and I look forward to having this discussion in Goldstein tonight.”

Daniel has backed a two state solution in Gaza, with both Israelis and Palestinians living side by side.

The Liberals are throwing party royalty at the seat of Bruce, a Labor-held electorate now firmly in their sights.

Liberal candidate Zahid Safi was out door-knocking a few weeks ago with former prime minister John Howard. “I’m honoured to have him here,” Safi told Sky News at the time. “It means that the party and Mr Howard cares about Bruce.”

And on Thursday, the chairman of Bruce’s Liberal federal election committee, Rampal Muthyala, had lunch with Howard at The Australian Club on William Street.

Former Liberal prime minister John Howard lunched with Rampal Muthyala at The Australian Club on Thursday. Credit: Facebook

“It was an absolute honour to have lunch with the legendary Hon. John Howard, OM, AC, one of Australia’s greatest Prime Ministers!” Muthyala posted to his private Facebook page.

“A huge thank you to everyone who came out to support Zahid’s campaign to turn Bruce blue! Win Bruce and get Australia back on track.”

He was joined by Dinesh Gourisetty, a Liberal powerbroker in Bruce’s west, and Omar Saleem, an active Liberal member and local business owner.

In an interview, Muthyala said he’d been involved with the Liberal Party for more than a decade but had never seen Howard visit Bruce, let alone have lunch with him in the exclusive, male-only club.

Rampal Muthyala’s post on the lunch with John Howard. Credit: Facebook

“I’ve never seen it before, actually. I’ve seen him only for campaign launches, big events only. Within two weeks, this is the second time. He came to support the Bruce campaign, he’s helping with fundraising. It’s not a joke.”

Muthyala said Howard’s support was reflective of the confidence the party has in targeting Bruce, where it was deploying record levels of funding and volunteers to promote its candidate.

“I compare this moment to 2013, the landslide for Tony Abbott – that kind of movement we are getting now. People are fed up.”

Muthyala drove into the city for lunch from his home in Berwick. He said voters from his community wanted a candidate who reflected the multicultural make-up of the electorate. “I was born in India, Zahid was born in Afghanistan. The people are thinking we need multicultural communities to address these communities better,” he said.

The Liberals are hoping the boundary redistribution of the seat, which resulted in an additional 15,000 voters from La Trobe, will help secure more votes.

However, they’re still facing an uphill battle as Labor’s Julian Hill retains popularity in the area, and the Greens say Safi, who is Pashtun, is not popular among the electorate’s large Afghan community, the majority of which are Hazara.

Returning to the corflute wars of Kooyong, I can now confirm that the City of Boroondara has ruled on the Liberals’ two-for-one meme corflutes – and they’re allowed to stay.

Yesterday, new corflutes started appearing, zip-tied as addendums to Liberal candidate Amelia Hamer’s usual signs.

Liberal candidate for Kooyong Amelia Hamer has hit back after teal MP Monique Ryan’s husband removed one of her signs.

They read: “Monique, please DO NOT take this sign!” – a pointed reference to last week’s embarrassing incident where Ryan’s husband was caught removing a Hamer sign.

As I mentioned yesterday, regulations don’t permit two corflutes on the same property, and we were waiting on Boroondara Council’s decision on whether these zip-tied additions counted as one sign or two.

A council spokesman has informed me this afternoon that after conferring with lawyers, they’ve concluded the signs are technically one and can therefore stay.

That’s one political mystery put to bed.

However, others have been quick to point out that the two-sign rule appears to be breached elsewhere in the electorate. I’ve received photos of homes displaying both a placard for Ryan and a separate one for Victorian Socialists Senate candidate and tenants’ crusader Jordan van den Lamb (better known online as “purplepingers”).

I’ve checked in with Boroondara’s long-suffering communications adviser for a ruling on these – and yes, they are in breach.

Homes in Kooyong with more than one corflute which is in breach of local by-laws.

He says if the council receives complaints about these, a council office will attend and “take appropriate steps to ensure compliance”.

George Spyropoulos runs an unusual pharmacy on Bell Street, Pascoe Vale South – one that also serves coffee. He calls it a pharmacino.

“It’s a pharmacy first and people will grab a coffee as an aside,” he says.

On Thursday, though, it was primarily the backdrop to a prime ministerial press conference as Anthony Albanese, Health Minister Mark Butler, and the local MP for Wills, Peter Khalil, dropped in.

George Spyropoulos (left) chats with the PM and local MP Peter Khalil at his “pharmacino” on Thursday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Albanese and Butler were visiting the marginal seat that Khalil is defending from the Greens to spruik the government’s changes to Australia’s much-loved Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).

Albanese announced several drugs that would be added to the PBS, among them “medications that support children who are diagnosed with glioma”, which occurs in the brain and spinal cord and is “the most common cancer of the central nervous system in children”.

Spyropoulos welcomed the move more widely for his customers, who include many first- and second-generation migrants, as well as the newer residents who have moved into this section of Pascoe Vale South and Coburg (the Coburg border is a street away from the pharmacy).

“Many years ago, the co-payment was over $40, and now it’s coming down to $25. So that’s what they were here to talk about,” he said.

After the press conference, Spyropoulos made a Greek coffee especially for the PM. “It was well-received. He took it with sugar,” he said.

Spyropoulos, the Australian-born son of Greek parents, said the area still had many Greek and Italian residents. Pascoe Vale had not yet become as gentrified as Brunswick and Coburg, he said. “Brunswick happened first, then Coburg and Pascoe Vale was next in line.”

A lighter moment: Albanese takes a selfie with Bell Street Pharmacy staff and Wills MP Peter Khalil (second from right).Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Asked if he was a Labor member, Spyropoulos said he tried not to talk politics in the pharmacy. “If someone else wants to come in and talk politics, they’re more than welcome to.”

But asked who he thought would win the seat of Wills, he said: “We’re hoping Peter Khalil gets up. He’s given us a lot of support in the past, and he’s a nice person, and it’s good having a nice person in the position of your local politician.”

Before Albanese spoke, Khalil welcomed him and Butler to Pascoe Vale South, saying Labor was “making medicines cheaper”.

“For some of the people coming in here today, it makes a difference to their lives every day,” Khalil said.

The Greens’ candidate for Wills, former state party leader and an ex-mayor for the area, Samantha Ratnam, welcomed the PBS expansion but urged the PM to go further. “This is good news, but while he’s at it, why not expand Medicare to cover dental, too?”

Liberal candidate for Goldstein Tim Wilson is facing accusations of using a Liberal Party branch secretary and campaign volunteer as a tradie in a Facebook campaign ad.

In the ad, Wilson says he is focused on making housing more affordable. The video shows him speaking with a few constituents – including a man in a fluoro vest holding a hard hat who looks like a tradie or builder.

The man appears instead to be one of Wilson’s campaign volunteers, Frazer Hurst, who has no listed affiliation with the housing and building sector.

According to Hurst’s LinkedIn profile, he is a politics student at Monash University who works as a duty manager at Brighton Coles and is a branch secretary of the Liberal Party.

Wilson (second from right) posing with campaign staff.

Photographs posted online show Hurst campaigning with Wilson and posing with him on the campaign trail in a blue “Tim Wilson: Liberal for Goldstein” T-shirt.

When asked why Hurst was dressed in a fluoro vest with a hard hat in the Facebook post and whether he was posing as a builder or tradie, Wilson declined to answer.

“Mr Hurst is a volunteer on my campaign, and I’m proud to have him on my campaign,” Wilson said.

Hurst was contacted for comment.