Learning nothing from their humiliation in Prahran, Greens will march on

Modern politics is not, by nature, given to self-reflection. The unrelenting tempo of the never-ending campaign gives little space or time for it, even in those rare moments when parliamentarians are willing to put down the party-tinted glasses and take an honest look.

The morning after a byelection should be one of those moments. Neither Werribee nor Prahran was going to change the government, but they tell us plenty about the state of politics in Victoria.

Federal Greens leader Adam Bandt and Greens candidate Angelica Di Camillo hand out how-to-vote cards in South Yarra on Saturday morning.Credit: Penny Stephens

What happens in November next year will be shaped by the extent to which the state’s three largest parties chose to accept or ignore what voters told them on Saturday.

For Labor and Premier Jacinta Allan, the message from Werribee is a humbling one. An electorate that has faithfully supported Labor for nearly half a century has dramatically turned its back on the government.

She insists she has heard them and won’t cop party colleagues trying to downplay the Werribee result. A senior Labor figure was more blunt: “The hard heads in the party have taken a view that if a caucus member or cabinet minister comes out and says everything is fine, that person is going to get f---ing punched in the face.”

The only thing likely to keep the seat in Labor’s hands is that, for now, Werribee isn’t willing to throw its lot in with the Liberals. When it comes to the west, the Liberals don’t know how to pick good candidates, don’t know how to campaign and don’t know how to win.

Werribee by-election posters of the Liberal and Labor candidates, Steve Murphy and John Lister, in Wyndham Vale. Credit: Chris Hopkins

For Brad Battin, this is the message he is determined to drum into any party room colleagues who, after spending the past 10 years in opposition, have delusions about voter fatigue with Labor being enough to deliver them government.

“Get out and work hard,” he told them on Sunday. “But I also say, we’ve got to pick the right candidates now – pick the people that Victorians can trust.”

The only party that still has the tinted glasses on is the Greens.

If they were a party with serious aspirations to govern, the Greens would be mortified by the message delivered to them by Prahran voters.

At the 2022 state election, more than 10,000 people voted for Labor in Prahran. In Saturday’s byelection, the Labor Party didn’t stand a candidate. This meant there were roughly 10,000 votes up for grabs.

It is reasonable to assume that these voters, having supported Labor at the last election, hold to basic Labor values. Yet none of them, in the absence of a Labor candidate, was willing to doss down with the Greens.

Some of them knocked on the door of Liberal candidate Rachel Westaway and nearly 4000 parked their vote with Tony Lupton. He is a former Labor MP who believes the Greens, since the October 7, 2023, attacks in southern Israel, have fuelled a hateful protest movement and inflamed antisemitism in the community.

For all this mass migration of votes in Prahran, the Greens primary support barely budged. Angelica Di Camillo’s share of the vote marginally shrank, and her party’s 10-year hold on a hip, inner-city electorate came crashing down.

Victorian Greens leader Ellen Sandell and Greens MLC for Southern Metro Katherine Copsey in Melbourne on Sunday.Credit: Luis Ascui

In response, Greens leader Ellen Sandell offered a range of excuses. She blamed Lupton for preferencing the Liberals. She blamed the timing of the election, which coincided with the tail-end of university holidays. She blamed a low voter turnout and a lack of absentee voting.

“If you look at these results on this primary vote, it bodes very well for the Greens,” she insisted.

Instead of making excuses, Sandell should be asking why Labor voters can’t stomach her party. She should be asking why Lupton directed preferences to the Liberal Party.

She should question the effectiveness of her party’s focus on the protracted and miserable conflict in the Middle East, which is alienating Jewish voters.

Sandell rejected that the Greens vote had suffered because of a concerted anti-Greens campaign backed by right-wing lobby group Advance, which accused the minor party of fomenting antisemitism.

“I don’t believe it made a dent because of the high primary vote,” Sandell said.

Byelections offer a rare opportunity for self-reflection. Within the Victorian Greens, it appears the never-ending campaign will simply march on.

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