Federal election 2016: Greens nip at Labor’s heels

Illustration: Eric Lobbecke

Senior Labor figures have all but given up hope that David Feeney can defeat the Greens in his Melbourne seat of Batman and while Anthony Albanese remains favoured to hold the Sydney seat of Grayndler, party operatives would not be surprised if he also lost.

The party’s internal polling shows Albanese has a high favourability rating among all voters, including Greens. If he wins the seat it will be because of his personal standing rather than affinity with the Labor brand. Grayndler would probably be a loss for any other Labor candidate.

But Labor’s polling in the inner cities is so unreliable that nobody really knows how it is performing. Younger voters who regularly change addresses, rarely watch television or read a newspaper, and don’t have a landline are harder to track. The reliance on cheap automated polling produces results that are unrepresentative of the electorate.

Ahead of the NSW state election last year, polling commissioned by the party from two companies showed it would win the seats of Newtown and Balmain. But on election day, Labor was comprehensively thrashed in both seats, which are now partly within Albanese’s redistributed seat of Grayndler.

Labor’s analysis of voter attitudes towards the Greens in Sydney and Melbourne has been better understood in focus groups. But the results are alarming. To Greens voters, the Labor brand is toxic. They have a protest vote mentality that defies reason, and going negative against Greens candidates may have little impact on their vote.

The Labor-held NSW seats of Grayndler and Sydney, held by Tanya Plibersek, and the Victorian seats of Batman and Wills, being contested by Peter Khalil, are turning Green. Despite predictions that the Greens had peaked a few years ago, they are either holding or expanding their reach deep into Labor heartland.

The problem is largely demographic. Even a rudimentary analysis of Grayndler and Batman shows that when voters are analysed by professions, incomes and house prices, these seats have much in common with the safest Liberal seats. That is why longer-term Labor strategists see a contest between Liberals and Greens for many of these seats. Labor’s loss of the seat of Melbourne to the Greens’ Adam Bandt in 2010 was catastrophic. Labor is not even targeting Melbourne at this election. It is a lost cause. Labor’s vote in Melbourne has declined sharply since 1993. Once Lindsay Tanner retired, the seat fell to the Greens.

It is therefore no surprise that the battle being waged by Labor to fend off a Greens assault in Batman and Grayndler relies more on the individual personalities of the two candidates rather than the party’s philosophy and policies. For Albanese and Feeney to hold on, it is as if they have to run as anti-Labor candidates.

The problem for Feeney is that he has become the principal reason why voters are turning off Labor. The failure to disclose a $2.3 million negatively geared property in addition to struggling to explain Labor’s position on the schoolkids bonus, and leaving confidential talking points behind, has seen his prospects tumble.

The “Albo” brand is what is keeping Labor afloat in Grayndler. He has a large store of credibility that has been developed over two decades. Whether it is “fighting Tories”, spinning records as “DJ Albo” or promoting the “Albo Ale”, many voters seem to love it.

Labor is raising huge sums of money to invest in the Grayndler campaign and is throwing everything at winning the seat on the ground with a large volunteer effort: doorknocking, phone canvassing, street stalls.

But it is social media that is the key to winning over otherwise Greens voters.

Although Albanese has targeted his Greens opponent, Jim Casey, as a mad Trotskyist who wants to overthrow capitalism, Labor insiders fear this may not help to shift many votes. The party’s focus group research confirms that many Greens voters don’t care how loopy the Greens candidate is.

Labor’s biggest problem in Grayndler is refugees. Albanese has strongly backed Labor’s pledge to turn back asylum-seeker boats and support offshore processing.

It takes courage to advocate a policy he does not believe in and voted against at the party’s national conference last year.

In the end, preference deals between Labor, Liberals and the Greens will determine who wins Grayndler. In Sydney, Labor is ­almost certain that Plibersek will be returned. In Willis, Labor is quietly confident that Khalil can retain the seat. But if the Greens finish ahead of the Liberals and then receive Liberal preferences, Labor is in real trouble.

While Labor is fighting the Greens harder than ever, it will nevertheless need Greens preferences in a dozen other seats to defeat the Coalition. Labor is also concerned about seats such as in Richmond and Melbourne Ports, and longer-term in Fremantle, where preference deals in three-way contests will be vital.

Labor’s senior campaign operatives do not yet see a clear pathway to majority government. There are just too many seats with popular incumbent Coalition MPs who are effectively “sandbagging” their electorates. The improved Labor vote is mostly being felt in the party’s safest seats.

The concern within Coalition ranks is disaffected conservatives. For a range or reasons that include the retrospective changes to superannuation and the leadership change, they may be inclined to park their vote elsewhere at this election. The big question is how many seats will the government lose?

If the Coalition surrenders its parliamentary majority, would Labor seize government with the support of the Greens? For all the declarations that Labor will never do a deal with the Greens, many in the party see no alternative if 76 seats are within reach. The irresistible lure of political power could again see Labor get into bed with its Greens enemy.