Today’s maps focus on the performance of the Greens, who went backwards in terms of votes, yet managed to win a record number of lower house seats at a general election.
This first map shows the primary vote swing for the Greens in the 88 electorates.
Seats coloured dark green or bright green mostly swung to the Greens. Pale green seats had a small negative swing, with the brown seats doing worst.
In the recent past we’ve seen the Greens gain swings in the inner city while losing ground in regional parts of Victoria, but the picture from this election isn’t quite as clear.
Yes there was a big increase in the Greens vote in Northcote, Prahran and Richmond (the last helped by the absence of a Liberal candidate), but the Greens vote went slightly backwards in Melbourne and Albert Park, and barely increased in Brunswick.
This second map shows the two-candidate-preferred vote by booth in non-classic seats. This includes five Labor vs Greens races, one Labor vs independent race and one Liberal vs Greens race, all in a contiguous area in the inner city stretching from Prahran to Pascoe Vale.
The map also shows the map data for Mildura, Morwell, Shepparton and Geelong, but you have to zoom out to see those areas.
You can also toggle the map to see the swing by booth, but only for four inner-city Labor vs Greens races for some obscure technical reasons.
That’s about it for today. I’ll have more maps tomorrow.
Do you see any rhyme or reason to the pattern of rural swings? Perhaps the rural electorates can be grouped according to whether an environmental issue was important (e.g. logging, Murray-Darling basin management) or whether a high profile independent was running? Or is it all just noise?
Wow, the swing in Williamstown would suggest an aspiration for Gellibrand is long off.
Amazing stuff as always!
Is it possible to show a Northcote specific swing that compares data from the 2017 Byelection?
In all likelihood a large proportion of the Williamstown swing was due to the independent running there.
I’ve found that, where possible, the best guide to the Greens’ real support is the 3PP vote. That removes the influence of an influx/disappearance of independents or microparties competing for votes to the left of Labor, and of changes to Liberal preferences.
Unfortunately, the VEC only counts preferences if it has to, and this time we’ve only got 14 seats of the 88 where 3PPs were counted for the same parties in 2014 and 2018. The Greens’ vote rose in seven of them this time, and fell in seven.
In the inner core, there were positive 3PP swings in Prahran (5.00), Northcote (4.15) and Brunswick (2.75), and negative ones in Albert Park (0.08) and Melbourne (1.60 – but that’s after a positive 10.15% swing last time).
In the second tier seats, only Essendon (-0.49) and Ivanhoe (-2.22) were counted out NW of the Yarra, and Kew (+1.26) and Hawthorn (-0.54) SE of it.
Of seats further out, the Greens won 3PP swings in South Barwon (0.89), Monbulk (0.24) and Wendouree (0.06), and lost ground in Eildon (-3.89) and Eltham (-1.58).
Add them all up, and there was an average swing to the Greens of 0.28 per cent. But some seats matter more than others, and in the five inner core seats for which we have comparable figures, there was an average swing to the Greens of 2 per cent – in an election where Labor had a king tide!
Had the Liberals stood in Richmond, it would reduce that average, but not change the conclusion. This is the only area where the Greens can actually win seats. This time they won three of the six, up from two in 2014 and zero before that. Northcote they lost narrowly, in Richmond they were cleaned up in what came down to a battle of candidates, and in Albert Park their tide has certainly gone out since 2010. But in an election that was one of Labor’s three best ever in Victoria, they held on and a bit more where it mattered. If you’ll forgive a free plug, Ben, I’ve said a bit more on that in Inside Story:
https://insidestory.org.au/final-reckoning-nine-views-of-victorias-election/
The Greens made no significant headway anywhere else, and went backwards as often as forwards. If the preferences ever get counted, they almost certainly ended up second in Footscray and Williamstown as well as Preston. But Labor is still miles in front of them there, and in Preston it looks like it increased its majority by 2 per cent.
They have held on to their niche at a very difficult election. That’s the achievement.
Tim: the reality is that the Greens have no significant vote in the outer suburbs where elections are decided. Many of them are also ex-comms and Trots who shifted to them post-1991, which means the Greens cannot appeal to the middle like the Australian Democrats could.
I have a question about the Higgins 2PP. I thought this might be the place to ask it because I saw it mentioned in Tim’s article too.
In many sources – including Tim’s article and also the Poll Bludger tracker – Higgins’ margin is listed as 10.1%. Where does that figure come from?
The AEC website, and also the Tally Room guide, only has a margin of 8%. I know that was before the redistribution, but surely the redistribution didn’t add 2% to the Liberal margin. Tally Room actually estimated that their margin reduced to 7.6%, although being that the area lost was Liberal v Green and the area gained was Liberal v Labor there’s no accurate way to calculate it.
Regardless though, I’m sure the redistribution couldn’t have increased the margin from 8% to over 10%?
Looking again I see that the 10.7% margin in Higgins is the Liberal v Labor 2PP.
Wouldn’t the 8% 2CP margin vs The Greens be the more relevant one in the context of the probability of the Liberals losing the seat? Labor weren’t even close to making the 2CP count in 2016 and even if they achieve huge swings in 2019 (which they will), trailing the Greens by 11% in the 3PP count is a lot of ground to make up, so it’s far more likely to be another Liberal v Greens final count where only 8% needs to be erased – which is considerably less than the swing against the Liberals across Malvern.
Contrary to Paul most Greens voters have little connection to previous political movements – cultural orientation and education are key factors. Age profile of Greens voters suggest references back to 1991 don’t apply to more than a tiny proportion of them.
Both Lee Brown (“Rhiannon”) and Adam Bandt are old Marxists. Kerry Nettle is also considered far-left.
I think there is a silver lining for the Greens in this election, they were up against a good progressive government, they ran a poor campaign and had no issues to drive their vote so this kind of election provides them with the opportunity to take a step back and actually see how solid their vote really is.
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