Coalition facing uphill battle for power in Victoria

Matthew Guy’s Coalition opposition will have to pull off a miracle if it is to stage an unlikely victory when Victorians go to the polls next year.

Victorian Opposition Leader Matthew Guy faces an uphill battle, according to the latest Newspoll. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

Matthew Guy’s Coalition opposition will have to pull off a political and mathematical miracle if it is to stage an unlikely victory when Victorians go to the polls on ­November 26 next year.

Not only does the Coalition need to gain 19 seats to win maj­ority government, but it faces an uphill battle to retain many of the 27 seats it currently holds.

Were the 58 to 42 two-party-preferred outcome from the latest Newspoll to be replicated at the 2022 election, the Coalition would stand to lose seven seats, with its numbers in the Legislative ­Assembly falling to just 20, or less than a quarter of MPs.

A redistribution has not helped matters, with veteran election analyst Antony Green deeming the new boundaries a net gain of one seat for Labor.

According to Mr Green’s analysis, based on the 2018 ­election outcome and demographic data, nine Liberal seats – or a third of the Coalition’s total — are now held by a margin of 1 per cent or less, including the ­Mornington Peninsula/Westernport seat of Hastings where Labor now has a notional 0.4 per cent margin, and frontbencher Louise Staley’s seat of Ripon, west of ­Ballarat, where Labor has a notional 2.8 per cent margin.

Conversely, Labor has four seats where its margin against the Coalition is less than 1 per cent.

Almost all of these seats on both sides are in Melbourne’s leafy eastern suburbs, outer southeast and Mornington Peninsula, in areas once regarded as blue-ribbon territory for the Liberals. These days Hawthorn, in Melbourne’s east, is held by Labor on a 0.4 per cent margin. The Liberals hold bayside Brighton on 0.6 per cent and Sandringham on 0.4 per cent.

A further eight Liberal seats are held with margins of between 1.9 and 5.4 per cent, with only ­Michael O’Brien’s eastern suburbs seat of Malvern (6.2 per cent) – where he is one of five sitting Liberals facing a preselection challenge – and regional cities spokesman Bill Tilley’s ­Wodonga-based seat of Benambra (9.4 per cent) regarded as ­“fairly safe”.

Retiring backbencher Gary Blackwood’s West Gippsland seat of Narracan (11.1 per cent) is the sole Liberal seat regarded as “safe”, alongside four “safe” and two “very safe” Nationals seats, all of which are regional.

In contrast, Labor holds a dozen seats, predominantly in Melbourne’s Covid-ravaged outer north, west and southeast, with “very safe” margins of more than 20 per cent, and a further 29 seats with “safe” margins of between 10 and 20 per cent.

 

There are only 10 Labor-held seats where Labor has a margin against the Coalition of less than 6 per cent, and only 13 with margins of less than 10 per cent, with the Coalition theoretically requiring a swing of at least 11.4 per cent to win majority government.

The Greens hold three lower house seats and are competitive with Labor in another two.

Three regional seats are held by ­independents: namely, Mildura – won from the Nationals by former ALP member Ali Cupper; ­Shepparton, where small businesswoman Suzanna Sheed is in her second term with a margin of 5.3 per cent against the Liberals; and Morwell, held by former ­Nationals MP Russell Northe.

While Liberals privately speak of the 2018 election result as a “high-water mark” for Labor, hopeful of an automatic swing back in their direction, the ­Newspoll and the reality of the smaller-than-needed quantity of Labor seats held by margins small enough to make them winnable highlight the diabolically difficult task facing the Coalition.

A look at seats considered ­marginal in ­recent previous elections is also instructive.

The Frankston train line was regarded as a key battleground during the 2010, 2014 and 2018 elections, but seats such as ­Frankston, Bentleigh, Carrum and Mordialloc are now held by Labor with notional margins of 10.2 per cent, 11.5 per cent, 12.0 per cent and 13.4 per cent respectively.

“The problem for the Liberal Party now is they have to win back all their traditional heartland in the eastern suburbs before they even push into the seats which normally ­decide elections,” Mr Green said.

He also warned of the ­likelihood of another chaotic upper house, given Victoria is the only state which still uses group voting tickets – allowing candidates to be elected with as little as a 20th of the votes of opponents who miss out, due to the flow of preferences.

“It’s certain there’ll be a record number of candidates and parties if they continue to use group voting tickets,” Mr Green said.

There is currently a crossbench of 12, from across 10 different parties, in Victoria’s 40-member upper house, where Labor holds 17 seats and the Coalition 11.