Victorian election: ALP fears for 10 seats amid late challenges

Up to 10 doubtful ALP seats will be targeted by the major parties in the final 48 hours of the Victorian election campaign.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and his wife, Catherine, campaign at Joan Kirner Hospital in St Albans. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Geraghty

Up to 10 doubtful ALP seats will be targeted by the major parties in the final 48 hours of the Victorian election campaign amid scrapping over budget costings and the bill for the Andrews government’s cross-city Suburban Rail Loop.

Strategists on both sides believe a large number of government seats could fall at the weekend, with seven to eight seats considered an optimistic Labor prediction and up to 10 in the party’s doubtful column.

Senior Labor sources said it was notoriously difficult in the last week to determine whether scare campaigns and questions over policies would translate to significant changes to seat numbers, although the published polls so far have pointed to a reduced Labor majority with the potential for the government to slip into minority.

A senior Liberal source said the volatility in the electorate meant that a “train wreck was still possible for Labor” but that this would hinge on whether undecided voters broke the Liberal way and it was still unlikely the Coalition would seize power.

A “train wreck” would mean between 10 and 15 Labor seats falling, although some would probably fall to the Greens and independents, meaning the opposition gains weren’t likely to be enough to win government.

A senior Labor source said it was possible that “if the tide goes out” that Labor would lose as many as 10 seats, which would place it precariously close to minority government. “The Dan factor is alive,” the source said.

Based on the 2018 landslide result, Labor has 55 seats in the 88-seat lower house compared with the Coalition’s 27, but a later redistribution slightly favoured Labor.

If Labor lost only seven to eight seats and remained in a manageable majority, it would be judged a significant result for the Andrews government after one of the most turbulent terms in Victorian history.

The seats Labor are concerned about include Ashwood (2 per cent), Bass (notionally Liberal after redistribution), Bayswater (notionally Liberal), Box Hill (3.1 per cent), Hawthorn (0.6 per cent), Melton (5 per cent), Northcote (1.7 per cent versus Greens), Nepean (0.7 per cent), Pakenham (2.2 per cent) and Richmond (5.8 per cent v Greens). There are several other seats that the government is watching carefully, including Werribee (9.1 per cent) and Point Cook (12.8 per cent) in the western suburbs.

Dan Andrews was judged by the audience to have won Tuesday’s Sky News/Herald Sun debate, 38 per cent to 34 per cent, with 28 per cent undecided.

It is understood the Liberal Party’s poll track has the two-party-preferred vote locked at 50 per cent, although this relates to just 20 seats it is following.

Both campaigns were dominated on Wednesday by a new row over how much the suburban rail loop will cost.

Victorian federal frontbencher Michael Sukkar will refer the project to Canberra’s Parliamentary Budget Office for costing, in a move that could be highly embarrassing to Labor.

The Victorian Parliamentary Budget Office released an independent costings estimate for the first two stages of the rail tunnel in Melbourne’s southeast, via Melbourne Airport, to the southwest – which said it would cost $125bn.

The government's business and investment case said the cost of the first two stages would be $57bn. The Victorian Premier has disputed the PBO’s figures and had pledged to release Labor’s costings before the election.

But on Wednesday, Mr Andrews repeatedly refused to say the $57bn figure publicly.

“Suburban Rail Loop airport – fully funded. Suburban Rail Loop to Cheltenham East – fully funded,” he said. “The first stage and second stage is $35bn fully funded.”

Pushed on why he would not say the $57bn figure publicly anymore, Mr Andrews said: “It's in the business case. We’re not playing these games,” he said.

Mr Guy demanded to know how much the “so-called suburban rail loop going to cost.”

“Some time ago, the Premier promised that before the election Victorians would have an answer to that question and yet yesterday he refused to answer,” he said.