Throughout this week, and perhaps the next, I will be posting booth maps for interesting seats, or clusters of seats. I will be doing this while also tracking the election results as seats continue to be called. But these maps generally just show the ordinary election day votes, so shouldn’t change much, outside of corrections.
For today’s post I’m starting in the inner north of Melbourne. There are three seats in this area that were Labor vs Greens contests this year: Melbourne, Wills and Cooper.
The first layer of the map shows the 2CP swing. I should note here this is my own calculated swing. The AEC had issues with properly calculating the previous 2CP in thirteen seats where new areas were added to a non-classic seat, which I explained here. When I first made this map using the raw AEC swings, it showed big swings to the Greens in the parts of Wills that were previously in Melbourne, rather than swings against.
This layer is fascinating, because the Greens actually gained swings in lots of places. Small swings were made in much of Cooper, but not at the southern end, particularly those bits added from Melbourne. There were also big swings against the Greens in the areas moved from Melbourne to Wills, but the Greens gained swings everywhere else in the seat. After all, the Greens did get closer to winning Wills, so you’d expect positive swings. There were enormous double digit swings to the Greens in the northern end of the seat, around Fawkner and Gilroy.
Every single booth in Melbourne has a swing against the Greens, with the biggest swings around Richmond.
The pattern is interesting if you look at the 2CP percentages. The Greens still won all of the booths in the south-eastern corner of Wills, despite the swings to Labor. In Melbourne there is a clear east-west divide, with Richmond and the newly-added areas south of the river giving Labor a majority. Despite the large swings to the Greens, Labor still won the northernmost booths, but not by quite as much.
Finally I’ve included maps showing the Greens primary vote swing and percentage. Probably the most interesting is that while the Greens 2CP was similar in Richmond and south of the river, the Greens primary was much lower south of the river. This seems to be due to a higher Liberal primary vote south of the river. While many of these votes would have flowed to Labor, they didn’t flow by anywhere near 100% and thus it contributed to a higher Greens 2CP relative to the primary vote than they achieved in Richmond.
If you have suggestions of other seats (or a cluster of geographically and thematically linked seats) please let me know.
It seems there’s really a connected Greens area in Melbourne. Besides St Kilda, everywhere that votes Greens consistently seems to be connected.
It also seems the more moderate and/or small-l-liberal voters in Docklands and East Melbourne are now Labor voters. This isn’t surprising to be honest, the Greens are far too progressive and even if Steph Hunt was a moderate candidate Peter Dutton is too conservative.
@ Nether Portal
There are also some Small L Liberal voters South of the River such as along St Kilda Road near the Shrine of Rememberence, Parts of South Yarra etc. Cremorne (north of the River) has some Small L Liberal voters as there a lot of tech workers who are fiscally conservative
Areas like Fitzroy/Collingwood are Ultra left where people oppose Australia Day, the Australian Flag is not displayed etc a lot of Palestinian flags instead These boundaries make Melbourne a slightly more centrist compared to the old boundaries.
To me, this map demonstrates that the Greens were campaigning offensively and not defensively. I don’t fault them – I think it was the right move given where all the polls were at. But when the red wave came at the last minute, there were no sandbags in Melbourne to stop it.
Some booth map analyses I’d be very interested to see:
– The new and abolished seats. That is Bullwinkel; Bennelong, Bradfield and Warringah; and the electorates that took in Higgins.
– The Brisbane Green seats.
– Western Sydney, particularly the M4 divide. Why did Greenway and Chifley swing red while McMahon and Fowler went backwards?
@ Chris
McMahon and Fowler the role of independent. Chris Bown PV largely held up small swing to Greens but prescence of indepdents.
@NP, I would say St Kilda is actually still connected to as it is directly south of Windsor which is also a Greens voting area.
Even though the Greens primary was lower in South Yarra & Prahran than in the other areas of Melbourne, it was still at least in the mid-30s so I would still consider that to be consistently Greens voting as that has been the case now for some time.
Along the bay, there is definitely a gap in ‘consistently Greens voting’ areas between the CBD and St Kilda due to Port Melbourne, Albert Park & Middle Park not being Greens’ strongholds, but remember St Kilda goes all the way to Chapel St and also borders Windsor, so I think St Kilda is connected to the contiguous Greens voting territory, but just via the Chapel St corridor instead of the bayside suburbs.
@Ben – thanks for the interesting post. May I suggest a visit to the teal seats of Syd to see the changes in vote across 2022 to 2025. Especially the impact of North Sydney being abolished. This cluster would include Mackellar, Warringah, Bradfield, Bennelong and Berowra.
I recommend this cluster to observe 3 points of interest:
1) Bradfield shed approx 15K voters to Berowra to the east of Hornsby and then gained voters on the south from the abolished North Sydney. It would be interesting to see what impact this double shift had on Nicolette Buelle’s chances and if that IND vote held up the same booths in Berowra where Tina Brown ran as the Climate 200 backed candidate.
2) If changing independent incumbent affects the vote much, i.e. those who were voting in Warringah, now in Mackellar. (And those in North Sydney now voting in Bradfield.)
3) The dispersion of independent Teal vote between Lab vs Lib in a marginal contest, i.e. those in abolished North Sydney now voting in Bennelong. That will help to give an idea of where the IND vote is actually coming from.
Greens got large swings against them throughout Richmond to Labor and Liberal. I am curious as to why as Bandt had represented that area for some time, maybe a demographic re alinement is happening through there? Also it puts a question mark on the Greens being able to hold the state seat of Richmond as it could return to Labor in 2026.
I know people have said young people moving out of the city have contributed to the Greens misfortunes but I personally feel its a bit more then that.
@Nimalan I thought South Yarra got moved out of Melbourne?
@Trent I can’t see Windsor on the map but you’re probably right. I’m not from Melbourne so I’m not always exactly sure.
Greens actually did better in more working class areas, because they were the only party (apart from VS, and Socialist Alliance) to talk about renter’s rights. Greens have come out in support of public housing as well. The dental into Medicare also attracted support from working class people. Class conscious voters also wanted to vote for a party that wanted to defend the CFMEU from ALP attacks.
Muslim votes matters actively campaigned for Samantha Ratnam in Wills.
The Greens increased their vote in the Footscray area (obviously not included in this map) because they didn’t come across as Fitzroy bougie hippies. The Greens dramatically increased their vote in Footscray for the reasons outlined above.
Areas like Richmond, Collingwood, and Fitzroy (apart from around the high rise estates) are increasingly losing any commonality with working class Northern areas. Demographically it may be more apt to talk about the City of Yarra as an Inner Eastern municipality.
The most common occupation, according to latest Census figures, in Fitzroy, Fitzroy North, Clifton Hill, and North Carlton is lawyer (the same as East Melbourne). The number one occupation in Cremorne is technical professional. The number one occupation in Collingwood and Richmond is sales and marketing manager. Compare this Brunswick West, Brunswick, Flemington, Kensington, and Footscray which is retail worker.
I would like to see a similar map for Fraser, and Maribyrnong.
We biggest swing to the Greens in the country was in Fraser. I’d love to see your analysis of that Ben. I think ti would be worth looking over time – the trend over the last 3-4 elections; and correlated with changing demographics, particularly age – lots more young people than there were a decade ago.
@No Mondays, Fraser could actually have been added to this map too I think and would have added interesting context. It was also an ALP v GRN contest in the end, and where the big swings to the Greens happened in that seat fits quite neatly with where they also occurred in the more economically deprived northern parts of Wills.
@NP, yep Windsor sits between Prahran & St Kilda. Church/Chapel St is a major north-south road that starts at the boundary of Abbotsford & Richmond in the north, runs through Richmond, South Yarra, Prahran, Windsor & St Kilda and finishes at the three-way boundary of St Kilda, Balaclava & Elwood.
@ Nether Portal
parts of South Yarra were moved into Melbourne when Higgins was abolished
@ Trent
I would say there is still a gap along Chapel Street between Swan Street and Toorak Road where you have a more Tealish demographic and Fiscal conservatives so the Church/Chapel Street coridor starts of left wing becomes more centrist in the middle and then goes back Left wing
@Nimalan, I agree with that demographically for sure, but just in terms of there being a consistently strong Greens vote (which I would define as being over 30%), that is definitely contiguous throughout the whole Chapel/Church corridor which creates that contiguous connection between St Kilda and the other Greens voting areas, even if the specific *type* of Greens vote is quite different in Cremorne and South Yarra compared to say Abbotsford & St Kilda at each end of it.
@Trent. I definitely agree with what you say about Fraser.
The parallels between Braybrook, and Fawkner are reflected in the increased Green vote.
I think the question with the Melbourne swing is was it anti Greens or anti Adam Bandt? It’s rather curious that the swing in this area is so neatly confined to Bandt’s seat plus the areas that were in his seat until this election (and thus presumably those in them are in the habit of thinking about Bandt as their local member). We’ll see at next year’s state election I suppose whether these areas are again much worse for the Greens than the surrounding areas, or not.
Ben would recommend the Brissie Greens seats as another group.
If the map extended to Macnamara it would show big Labor swings in Albert Park/Port Melbourne. So no, not specifically inside of Adam Bandt’s electorate. Instead it’s a particular profile of middle-class educated professional former Greens voter which has switched to Labor. Also the fact that the areas added to Cooper/Wills swung very far towards Labor if anything demonstrates that Adam Bandt had a substantial personal vote with those voters which was lost.
The loss of Adam’s personal vote was definitely felt in those suburbs moved north.
A big part of the Melbourne swing was the Labor candidate issues in 2022 that weren’t present this time.
@Adda that is certainly one interpretation, but “these booths swung for loss of personal vote and these neighbouring booths with the same personal vote swung for an entirely different reason” while possible, is not a gimme. More data from the state election will help.
Macnamara is a different kettle of fish where the Greens took a bath over Gaza despite various pundits who wrongly guessed that the issue would aid either the Greens or the Liberals or both and throttle the ALP vote.
Politics Obsesed – the areas in Bennelong, ex-North Sydney are interesting. The suburbs of Lanr Cove and Greenwich were 60% Lib 2PP when Hockey was MP and even when he went it was 55% Lib. Now it is 31% Lib. Somewhat unbelievable in one of the wealthiest places in Australia.
The way I see the Greens was that they sought two main demographics – renters and the Palestine-conscious voters. There was a pivot to become ‘the party of renters’. Unfortunately for them, the Greens base was dispersed.
Melbourne, Brisbane and Grififth have way more renters than average. Whilst these electorates are super expensive to rent in, they aren’t the ones with the most rental stress. The most distressed in metro Melbourne are in the western suburbs and Greater Dandenong. The post-pandemic reopening of the economy meant a return to the office and a real estate boom. This has brought in an influx of high-income renters and yuppies into the CBDs and neighbouring suburbs. A lot of them earn six figures and can afford to pay high rents. They might not even be traditional Greens voters.
We can’t be certain whether the swings to the Greens in northern Wills (Glenroy and Fawkner) is attributable to the pro-Palestine vote or the Greens’ policies on housing and renting and public services. These suburbs have large Muslim communities and are traditionally working-class.
You’re probably aware of the huge swings to the Greens on primaries in Fraser, namely Saint Albans and Sunshine. There were also double-digit primary votes recorded in Footscray and Greens winning the 2CP at several booths. It might have to do with the Greens testing the waters here or having a candidate of Vietnamese descent.
looks like if there was a few boundary changes there would be a pretty safe Greens seat there. looks like the redistribution did them no favours
There were large swings to the Greens in working class and suburban sprawl suburbs across the country, even in areas that the party didn’t really target, though the Greens campaign focus running well to the Left on economic and cost of living issues, at this election (and to a lesser extent in 2022, which also saw very large swings to the Greens in suburban growth areas), obviously resonated with low and middle income earners.
Palestine would’ve been ‘statistical noise’ at best, for this election, broadly speaking.
@Arky If you compare the booths of Fitzroy North/Carlton North and Clifton Hill, you will see they have double digit swings to Labor (Clifton Hill reaching up to 20%). Meanwhile, just south of them inside of Melbourne, the swings are contained to single digits. So that is quite substantial evidence of a personal vote which, when lost, enhanced the already present swing towards Labor inside of inner city Melbourne in general.
The Greens primary vote decreased in every state and territory except for NSW. Overall, ABC shows that the nationwide Greens primary vote fell 0.4%. The higher number of Climate-200 backed Voices/teal independents split the left-wing vote.
Regarding Bandt’s personal vote, I think it’s difficult to measure. There must’ve been a huge influx of new residents who weren’t in his seat last election either because they are in South Yarra or Prahran and got redistributed in or they moved in recently. He was certainly unchallenged for a while but it seems that a lot of progressive voters ended up swinging to Labor this time.
Also, Port Melbourne/Albert Park are a lot more similar to Richmond than they are to Caulfield or St Kilda. The Gaza issue is not much of an issue outside of the southeast portion of Macnamara.
Though I will say I think the Greens focus on Gaza is one of the reasons inner urban Melbourne in general had a swing towards Labor. My point is that the northern part of Macnamara is not one of the areas where this was especially sensitive.
We can clearly see a huge swing to Greens in the Muslim parts of Wills. Unlike in neighbouring Cooper Labor did not got swings to them in the Southern part (exceptly the newly added parts from Melbourne). In Cooper there were swings to Labor in Northcote while this was not really the case in Brunswick.
The extent of the Gaza issue in the north of Wills is partly hidden by the vote going to 2 candidates: Samantha Ratnam of the Greens and Sue Bolton, the socialist candidate (a Councillor representing Fawkner) Sue Bolton scored more than 10% of the primary vote from each of the 3 Fawkner polling booths, and 5% from the Glenroy booths. Vote Palestine Wills were handing out at every polling booth with a split ticket for Samantha Ratnam and Sue Bolton.
@Nimalan: one of the reasons for this is that suburbs like Brunswick West (especially the Northwestern part which is the electorate of Maribyrnong, and the Southeastern part around Union Square) have more in common with Footscray, than North Fitzroy, and North Carlton. The only two suburbs, within 10km of the city, that are deemed “affordable” (sic) are Footscray and West Brunswick. Of course the term “affordable” is loaded.
North Carlton and North Fitzroy (the first established middle class suburb) are noted for their grand Victorian terraces, which are in high demand. Both suburbs seem to attract lawyers. Brunswick West, like Footscray, has many streets lined with old school walk up brick flats. Brunswick West is far less gentrified and lacks the bougie cafes and boutiques of Rathhdowne Street and Queens Parade. One can even draw parallels between Union Square and Footscray Plaza. I have met people from East Brunswick who have never even been to West Brunswick.
Any talk of rent caps, and free dental is going to resonate more in West Brunswick, than in North Fitzroy or North Carlton.
In Cooper, the Victorian Socialists split the left-wing vote especially in Northcote, Thornbury and Prestons. At various booths, they got double-digits in primary votes. Whilst these suburbs normally have high Greens primary votes, there is probably less of a Marxist Green or deep Green vote than in Wills or Melbourne.
@ No Mondays
Excellent points. Carlton North and North Fitzroy have terraced homes and not much density most of the suburb is heritage listed so you will not have as many students/young renters etc. However, it is very socially progressive Carlton North PS had the highest vote for Yes in the Voice referendum and the second highest in the nation for the Republic referendum in 1999. Brunswick is undergoing densification i expect Coburg will become like Brunswick and a cheaper version of it so will trend Green left. The other point is i think Ged Kearney is a far better Labor MP than Peter Khalil in terms of alignment with the values of the electorate. With all due respect to Peter Khalil he fits better in a more centrist seat.
@Nimalan. It doesn’t surprise me that Carlton North had such a high Yes vote. Carlton North has always attracted old 60’s and 70’s radicals, who bought into the area. There is also a walk up housing estate in Princes Hill with very politically active tenants, like Jeremy and Fiona from Friends of Public Housing.
Density is increasing in Coburg, and some of it is more upmarket (Pentridge) while others are less so. Apparently Nightingale are planning a block in Coburg North. Nightingale apartments appeal to socially progressive professionals. It’s symbolic that Nightingale has targeted Coburg North as opposed to Brunswick West, Coburg North is becoming the new hipster environ. Many people who move out of Brunswick often go north as opposed to west.
For certain people Brunswick West has a stigma about it, as it’s cut in half by the freeway, it’s less leafy, it’s more of a heat island, and it lacks the hipster
cafes.
Ged Kearney is definitely more progressive. Apparently she lives in Brunswick.
One important distinction between Cooper and Brunswick is that the Muslim community is much less prominent in Cooper (the % of Muslims is not much above the state average). The most prominent migrant communities in the north-of-Bell parts of Cooper are still the Greeks and Italians (and their descendants), who remain a strong Labor constituency.
(that should be between Cooper and Wills)
Based on this map, what is the most left wing suburb in suburb in Australia – Brunswick, Brunswick East or Collingwood?
@Adam. Brunswick and Brunswick East has always had a high percentage of activists living there. It’s no coincidence that VicSoc/ SAlt has an organizing center in Brunswick. Salt now has a Brunswick branch.
I have lived in all three suburbs that you mentioned. Collingwood is unaffordable these days. The punk vibe it had in the 90’s is long gone.
@Adam to work this out here are the combined Greens and Socialist Alliance vote percentages in Brunswick with the Greens TCP in brackets:
* Brunswick: 61.2% (64.7%)
* Brunswick East: 54.0% (58.2%)
* Brunswick North: 56.5% (59.3%)
* Brunswick North East: 66.0% (68.9%)
* Brunswick North West: 54.2% (60.2%)
* Brunswick PPVC: 47.5% (50.4%)
* Brunswick South: 56.8% (59.0%)
* Brunswick South East: 59.8% (62.9%)
* Brunswick South West: 50.7% (53.6%)
* Brunswick West: 46.9% (50.1%)
In all of these booths except for Brunswick West the Liberals finished fourth and got less than 10% of the vote in all of them but the Brunswick PPVC and Brunswick West. So some of these booths are about as Greens-voting as some small rural booths are Nationals-voting.
Now for Collingwood and Fitzroy (the suburbs not the footy teams):
* Collingwood: 64.2% (68.3%)
* Collingwood North: 51.9% (57.8%)
* Fitzroy: 53.7% (58.4%)
* Fitzroy Central: 56.6% (61.3%)
* Fitzroy North: 42.8% (53.8%)
* Merri: 49.0% (57.7%)
Note that most of these are just Greens votes because Melbourne had no Socialist Alliance candidate so only the Wills booths have a combined vote (the Wills booths are Fitzroy North and Merri).
Based on all that I would say Brunswick.
@ No Mondays/Adam/NP
Often Fitzroy has the reputation for being the most left wing suburb probably because it is visited more due to close proximity to city and all the Live music on Brunswick Street. Yarra council also gets into controversey when it refuses to fly the Australian Flag, mark Australia Day etc. Howewever, Fitzroy is not as affordable so it it does attract as many young renters and has many more asset owners especially Fitzroy North
How are preference flows from the Victorian Socialists looking, particularly between Labor and The Greens?
@Nicholas there’s no DOP breakdown yet but they would obviously favour the Greens, as would the Socialist Alliance votes.
However it’s possible that the preference flow between the Socialist Alliance and the Greens may not be as strong as the flow from Liberal to Labor as the Greens had a 1.3% (233 votes) primary vote lead over Labor in the Brunswick PPVC but they only won the booth with a 0.4% (150 votes) margin. For the record in that booth the Greens got 36.2%, Labor got 34.9%, the Socialist Alliance got 11.3%, the Liberals got 10.9% and the rest were all under 3%.
I ask because it looks like the strength of these flows could be significant in the future in Greens versus Labor contests.
As I alluded to in the Melbourne thread, as much as we (anyone who is centre-left or anywhere further to the right) might not like to admit it, there is plenty of space to the left of The Greens. These far-left parties will be worth watching going forward.
Socialist Alliance are not even a registered political party at a state level in Victoria anymore (but maintain federal registration) which is why Sue Bolton was the only Socialist Alliance candidate to run in Victoria at this election, and they didn’t compete in the senate either.
Sue Bolton is a bit of an outlier as she usually runs as a socialist-aligned independent rather than as a party candidate, and she also has a significant profile in her area at local government level. Similar to Stephen Jolly who was also a Socialist Alliance member that never joined Victorian Socialists, and is also seen as more of an independent with a significant local government profile.
Whereas Victorian Socialists are the dominant socialist party in Victoria who run in a number of lower house seats as well as the senate, at both state & federal level.
So I’d think Sue Bolton’s preferences would flow a little differently to Victorian Socialists preferences, being that each has different dynamics around them – Bolton having a more local/indie vibe compared to VS being a more structured hard-left socialist party – and Labor would probably do better out of Sue Bolton’s preferences given her more local/indie reputation than they would out of Victorian Socialists’ preferences which would very strongly flow to the Greens.
To clarify a little more around the history, Victorian Socialists actually formed in 2018 with the goal of uniting Socialist Alliance, Socialist Alternative and other independent socialists (like Jolly) under the one electoral party to unify the vote.
However it only lasted 2 years before it fell apart and the Socialist Alliance withdrew from Victorian Socialists in 2020. Socialist Alliance hasn’t really been active as a political party in Victoria since (other than Bolton running with their endorsement at this election). In Victoria, Socialist Alternative is the dominant non-electoral movement and Victorian Socialists are their affiliated political party, while people like Bolton & Jolly are on the outside as more independent figures.
@Trent How do the Socialist Equality Party fit into that mix? If you know. They ran as the unendorsed Group G in the Vic Senate.
Good question! I think they are way off to the side and have never been affiliated with Socialist Alliance, Socialist Alternative or Victorian Socialists.
From what I understand, whereas the others have a broader democratic socialist agenda, the Socialist Equality Party are not so interested in a progressive social agenda and have a more hardline, almost Soviet-like ideology. I could be wrong but that’s my understanding.
@Witness whereas Socialist Alliance and the Victorian Socialists are parties that seek election to advance their policy platforms, the Socialist Equality Party takes the view that electoral politics is inherently bourgeoise and incapable of achieving the change they want and run as protest candidates with at most the notion of using any seat they might win to expose the bourgeoise system. They’ve even begun spreading misinformation about the AEC by claiming to have been unjustly denied party registration when in fact they just didn’t have enough members to get registered. They have long held an enmity towards the other far-left parties whom they accuse of being fake socialists due to their willingness to actually seek incremental reforms ever.
Thanks for the explanation Dryhad, makes sense as to why they were an unendorsed group then! They are definitely way out on the fringe compared to the others.
It seems like I have walked into a Monty Python sketch.