Werribee speaks, Labor shudders: The swing that can’t be ignored

The thumping swing against Victorian Labor in the byelection in the state seat of Werribee can only be read as a repudiation of Premier Jacinta Allan and her tired, 10-year-old government.

And it will give Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his federal colleagues more than a moment’s cause for concern, too.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan visit a Melbourne school in January.Credit: Wayne Taylor

Allan’s predecessor, Daniel Andrews, delivered three successive election victories for Labor in a state John Howard once dubbed “the Massachusetts of Australia” because of its centre-left leaning.

But since Andrews handed over to Allan, with state debt ballooning, infrastructure creaking and population growth booming, the gloss has finally come off the state government, notwithstanding the state Liberal Party’s unmatched ability to score own goal after own goal.

And while the byelection result could still go Labor’s way in Werribee – at the time of writing, the result remains too close to call – the size of the swing away from Labor, some 16 per cent, cannot be ignored (the swing to the Liberals was only about 4 per cent).

Werribee is a state Labor heartland seat. Federally, it is contained within the seat of Lalor, which is held by chief government whip Joanne Ryan, a low-profile MP who is highly regarded within the party for her hard work and straight talk.

The previous member was Julia Gillard, and Lalor is about as safe a Labor seat as Kooyong and Goldstein are safe Liberal seats.

Of course, at the last federal election, the unthinkable happened and the Liberals lost both Kooyong and Goldstein. And anyone who thinks seats like Lalor, or Werribee, will be forever Labor seats is kidding themselves.

While voters in Werribee were, no doubt, expressing their displeasure with the Allan government – and while it is true that voters distinguish between state and federal governments – the concern within federal Labor ranks is that that crankiness will extend into the federal election, which is due no later than May.

Peter Dutton made a point of saying in 2022 that when he became opposition leader, he planned to target the outer suburbs and the regions, and worry less about the inner seats (most of which his party had just lost to the teal independents).

He has stayed true to his word throughout this term of the federal parliament, and it’s seats like Lalor – not to mention other outer-suburban seats like McEwen and Hawke in Melbourne, and Parramatta and Werriwa in Sydney – that are firmly in his sights.

Albanese will go to the next election with 24 seats to defend in Victoria after just about sweeping the state capital in 2022, while the Liberals have only six in hand.

Of those six Liberal seats, only Menzies is genuinely suburban. Four others – Flinders, Casey, Deakin and La Trobe – are on Melbourne’s urban fringes.

Victorians loathed Scott Morrison, and the “prime minister for Sydney” moniker hurt him badly. Albanese has been much more careful to tend to Victoria’s requests for economic assistance.

But since that strong result in 2022, talk of Labor winning any more Victorian seats has since died down and the party is in a “what we have, we hold” defensive crouch.

Voters’ anger with the Allan government, frustration over the high cost of living, slow wages growth and the simple fact that after three years, the sheen has come off Albanese, mean that Victoria will be tougher for federal Labor than it had hoped for or planned.

If nothing else, the huge swing away from state Labor in Werribee is a pointed reminder not to take Victorian voters’ support for granted.

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