Blog CemeteryMelbourne
October 29th 2007 09:47
Booth Information
The seat of Melbourne has traditionally been a stronghold for Labor, but with its increasing gentrification the Greens have developed their highest support base in the seat. While they only finished third at the last federal election, the likelihood that they would get Liberal preferences if they were able to split the major parties – as they have done at the last two state elections – means that they represent the only real threat to ALP member Lindsay Tanner.
Result History
(Therefore I will look at TPP based on ALP v Green, using preference flows gathered from recent state election seats [such as Melbourne and Richmond] where the Greens have come second in order to organize notional TPP figures. Of course, these are subject to considerable scepticism so I will also use primary votes far more than for most other seats. I will also look predominately at the two most recent state federal elections, as the Green vote was nonexistent or relatively negligible before then. I’ve put the other table in as well, but really it shouldn’t be used for much analysis.)
Result History
For the Greens to defeat the ALP they need to achieve two basic goals. Firstly, they need to overtake the Liberals on primary vote (or at least come second after all but three candidates have been eliminated, which may be a relevant point as the area has seen a number of high profile independent candidates, especially at state level). While they have not managed to achieve this at the federal level they have been over 4% ahead at the primary vote stage at each of the last two Legislative Assembly elections.
Booth Information
Secondly they need the ALP’s primary vote to be as far below 50% as possible to ensure that they have a chance to overtake the ALP on Liberal preferences which would overwhelmingly flow their way. Thus while it is useful for the Greens to take votes from the Liberals, these votes would come in handy in terms of their preferences. Therefore, winning Labor votes are twice as important as winning Liberal votes, especially once they get beyond the Liberals primary vote.
Booth Information
The strongest areas of Greens support are in the seat’s North, spread eastward from Carlton to Fairfield. However voters in these areas are prone to vote Green at the state level but vote Labor at federal elections. The problem here is that there are a lot of voters who would like to see a Green member of parliament but would prefer to see a Labor Government if forced to make a choice. Thus the 2006 state elections – in which the Bracks government was expected to win easily – saw the ALP win around 10% less of the primary vote in the North-East, and almost 8% in the North of the seat, than in the 2004 federal election where the primary motivation would be to vote out the Howard Government. This may work in the Greens favour if the ALP hold their strong lead in the opinion polls, but I would expect that regardless of the opinion polls these areas can be expected to provide a strong primary vote to the ALP until the government has been changed. Further, the Green’s vote in these areas may have plateaued in these areas, with the vote rising only marginally in the 2004 House election, and dropping back in the 2006 Legislative Assembly election. Further, their Senate improvement in this area in 2004 was largely attributable to the demise of the Democrats, with both major parties improving in this area.
The most important part of the seat may now be in the North-West, where the Greens have traditionally polled the poorest in the seat. This was the area of the seat where the Greens improved most in 2006, although they still polled slightly less than the Liberals and the ALP’s primary vote stayed above 55%. Because they require ALP votes more than Liberal votes this becomes an important area as their improvement was largely at the expense of the ALP. The Greens may have realised that this area of the seat may be the key to their outside chance of winning the seat – despite it’s relative insusceptibility to ‘Green’ values - because they have nominated an IR lawyer more reminiscent of a Labor candidate than a ‘Green’ candidate.
In all likelihood, the Greens will not win Melbourne in the current electoral climate. Regardless of the national vote, the areas where they have their strongest support will swing behind the ALP in an attempt to push towards a change of government, and to register their disapproval with their Howard Government. Thus while the Greens has a good chance of splitting the major parties, it is unlikely that they are able to get the ALP primary vote as low as necessary in order to win the seat.
WHAT TO WATCH FOR
The Greens could win Melbourne if…
- They get above 20% at the Ascot Vale booths (12.19% in 2004)
- The ALP’s primary vote falls below 50% in Fitzroy (55.8% in 2004)
| 79 |
| Vote |
