Corangamite – Australia 2022

Thanks for the clarification Yoh An, you’re right that this division encompasses only the outer edges of Geelong-proper and the Bellarine Peninsula, not the “most urban parts of Geelong” as I inaccurately described it. Point still stands though that the redistribution has concentrated down into the more urban parts of the region, losing a lot of the inland, small towns encompassed in the Surf Coast and Coloc Otway shires.

Population wise (total not voters), only about 35,000 live in the outer southern suburbs of Geelong that are in Corangamite. Compare this to the coastal/rural townships of the Bellarine, around 60,000 all up. 25,000 in and around the coastal town of Torquay. Finally the small number of Golden Plains townships being about 10,000. These coastal/rural townships are all part of Geelong’s commuter belt (and increasingly Melbourne’s) but don’t see themselves as part of Geelong.

Stephanie Asher’s dawn service self-promotion bungle would have done her a disservice here. I wouldn’t write her off yet, but this will be harder for her to win as this would have angered a lot of people.

Indeed if you look at the breakdown of booths, about a quarter of the population is in Geelong, about half is on the Bellarine peninsula, and the other quarter is to the west of Geelong.

I would consider anywhere within the City of Greater Geelong to be part of Geelong, especially places like Leopold and Drysdale.

Greater Geelong extends beyond Geelong itself, in the same way that Greater Bendigo, Greater Shep or City of Ballarat do. Residents of the Bellarine (which was a separate LGA until the 90s and seeks to become once again) don’t see themselves as part of Geelong, more a neighbour.

you realise some people got vaccinated because they were basically told they would be jobless and cast out of no essential businesses

I’m from the area – by way of breakdown: the electorate can be divided into the following parts; the outer southern suburbs (growth areas) of Geelong, the Golden Plains Shire, the Surf Coast and the Bellarine. Geelong as a whole is reliably Labor, the parts of the Surf Coast that sit within Corangamite are also pretty reliably Labor. The Golden Plains Shire is predominantly ‘tree change’ types hence their voting habits replicate those of suburban working class areas (pretty reliably Labor) and the Bellerine, prone to large swings between Labor and Liberals in the past, has become more stable in recent years, generally favouring Labor. The Bellarine is where Stephanie Asher is more well known but this is a by and large a party contest and the Liberal brand is very much on the nose.

As such, I think Labor will retain the seat even though their campaign on the ground hasn’t been particularly huge.

The electorate is becoming more progressive though and more condensed, the last redistribution basically moved the most reliably Liberal friendly areas out of the electorate.

PS: vaccine mandates and other conspiratorial rubbish will have absolutely no barring on the result here. That’s just fanciful thinking.

https://www.tallyroom.com.au/aus2022/corangamite2022/comment-page-2#comment-767677

Bellarine has been a few percent more ALP than South Barwon for decades but it is still a marginal but that is somewhat disguised by the fact that the Liberals haven`t had a big win at a state election in Victoria since the 1990s. Unless Victoria has another single-term Liberal Government elected in 2030, I expect the Liberals to win/retain Bellarine in 2034. The Liberal also cannot be ruled out for 2030 or even this year if Neville retires.

It would not be a surprise if Lisa Neville pulled the pin this year – 20 years is a long stint – and she has not been particularly well. Possible Lib pick up with her retired.

I really don’t understand why Morrison is spending so much time here, it doesn’t really seem like a seat the LNP will get back. Maybe I’m wrong but with a sophomore swing in a likely pro Labor swing election it should be a Labor retain

I can only assume they are looking at the margin and thinking they can overcome it. They clearly haven’t thought about demographic change. If I was Asher, I definitely wouldn’t have Scomo campaigning with me. He is a complete mismatch to this progressive electorate. Odd they chose Torquay too, where I expect their vote to drop below 30% this election.

Need to add the www to Paul Barkers website

@wander west, There only two areas i can see some hops for the Libs are Outer Geelong suburbs and potentially Queenscliff where there rich retirees. Last election the Libs did get a swing to them in Outer suburban Geelong but this was outweighed by the increased progressive vote on the Surf Coast. I agree i expect the Libs to do badly around Torquay, Ocean Grove etc with an increased sea change demographic

Asher has pulled out of this evening’s community forum in Torquay and advised she will not be participating in any further community forums of the campaign. I believe there are at least two more scheduled beyond tonight’s.

Why does it seem that so many candidates for the Liberal and National parties always try to dodge any sort of forum or debate scheduled to include the other candidates within their respective electorate? I noticed even Scott Morrison himself pulled a similar stunt and refused to participate in any debate hosted by a half decent media outlet or commentator. They so badly want to be oppressed by the evil fake news media even though they have Murdoch’s empire behind them every step of the way.

All candidates avoid some forums.
Candidates forums are unscripted and party managers know how they can go horribly wrong. There is normally at least one candidate whose views allign with the majority of the audience. Both major parties view debating with minor parties as a risk.
During the 2019 Frderal election I represented the Country Party candidate ( now Federation Party) at a Catholic Parents and Friends forum in Caboolture re private education. Simon Birmingham represented the Liberal Candidate . I managed to bring the house down when I told the audience about the Goulburn Strike and explained to the Audience at St Columbans Caboolture that they were not receiving government funding but rather subsidising Governmrnt by sending kids to private schools. Simon Birmingham responded by making snide remarks about minor parties. In effect the candidates forum put the minor party agenda on the front foot resulting in a cabinet minister have to veer off track to deal with the issue.
The Candidates Forum in Longman in 2010 derailed the ALP candidate and in effect lost the the ALP the seat.
Candidates Forums are dominated by individuals who are very committed to the issues they present and often raise issues which journalists sweep under the carpet. They are a quagmire that both major parties want to avoid.
The major parties do not want minor parties and independents to have equal time but only the most biased of forum organisers can be a blatantly major party biased as the mass media is.

Andrew is correct that the majors don’t much like the forums – but the fact remains that the ALP and Greens are still largely showing up for them, whilst prominent Libs are in hiding.

Voters are noticing that.

Laine
Morrison is willing to debate on Channels 7, 9, & Sky – the 2 top rating News services in Australia, along with the top rating Channel on social media and pay TV. Politicians do aim to communicate to an audience, after all.
How many debates did Bob Hawke do against Howard, I wonder?

That actually supports Laine’s point.

He’s willing to debate, but only on outlets owned by friends and moderated by cheerleaders.

Morrison won’t willingly go anywhere where there’s a chance he could be asked a genuine question he wasn’t expecting.

Hawke vs Howard isn’t really relevant as the scene has changed since then, starting particularly with televised debates like Keating vs Hewson with The Worm in the 90s.

Exitpoll of 100 pre-poll votes in Corangamite (2019% in brackets): 50 (32) ALP, 6 (14) GRN, 39 (41 LIB), 4(2) AJP, 1 (3) UAP

@Geoff is this at Clifton Springs pre-poll?

And where are those 2019 figures from? Same pre-poll booth, same day of campaign?

Geoff … Why are your 2019 figues only adding up to 92? Did the Independent get 8% – if so maybe you should have listed him with 0 (8).

@Geoff, this lines up with what I would expect in Corangamite. The “Coalition insiders” who have been purporting that this division is in play for them are out-of-touch or lying. There just isn’t any winds that would be in their favour: the redistribution, the population growth composition, the anticipated national swing. And also the high-vaccination rates (relative to Melbourne, Victoria and Australia) which discount the narrative that electors are frustrated at Dan Andrews & Labor here. None of those suggest that there would be a swing in Coalition’s favour in Corangamite. McEwen I believe is probably a different story to Corangamite. My assessment is that the suburban West of Melbourne might also swing slightly in Coalition’s favour due to covid frustrations/backlash, but these divisions already have too insurmountable of a Safe Labor margin to make any impact or difference.

I’m guessing Geoff’s figures are from the paywalled Geelong Advertiser article. This is from the Torquay PPVC. Comparison should therefore be with the 11,000 pre-poll votes at the equivalent booth in 2019, not what I am assuming are the 4,000 declaration votes. Either way it points to an easy Labor win with Cole’s votes flowing back to Labor this year. 09/05/22 Exit Poll (2019 Torquay PPVC) : 50 (32) ALP, 0 (15) Cole, 6 (9) GRN, 39 (39) LIB, 4 (2) AJP, 1 (1.5) UAP, 0 (1.5) DHJP

@Wanderwest, seems a few of the paywalled publications have done exit polls across many divisions at pre-poll voting centres. Is there a good place I can access the breakdown of these exit-polls outside of the paywalls?

@SEQ no idea, sorry, I was relying on original post’s data and then AEC for 2019 data. I would like to see an exit poll for Corangamite from Clifton Springs, on the Bellarine. That would give better insight into Corangamite’s trend, given the Bellarine’s tendency to swing.

I suspect the Liberal candidate will have a crack at South Barwon at the state election if they haven’t already selected a candidate?

I expect Labor will achieve a swing here but it will be less than the statewide average.

The Liberals are NOT going to win Corangamite. They may surprise in McEwen but as other posters have noted it wouldn’t makes sense for them to win Corangamite.

However I believe that the ALP are at a high watermark in Victoria and there aren’t many places where they can expand the map – Deakin, Casey, La Trobe don’t look like they’re moving; remember that bizarrely Jason Wood held La Trobe against the odds in 2007 against the Ruddslide, somehow lost in 2010, but then returned in 2013 and has remained ever since. The real battlegrounds are Higgins, Kooyong, Chisholm, Goldstein, and McEwen.

Liberals have already presented former South Barwon MP Katos, who will lose. I imagine Asher will run for Bellarine.

*preselected

Actually Liberals already have a Bellarine candidate, so it looks like Asher will be sitting it out in November.

Entre…
Jason Wood ‘somehow’ lost in 2010 amidst the 1.5% fall in coalition vote across Victoria. Presumably something similar to the usual ‘how’ happened in perennial marginal seat of laTrobe.
Julia Gillard was standing in a Victorian seat & lent a boost to the Labour vote in that state – and that state alone.

Entrepreneur there are reports Labor think they can win Casey, espscially since popular local MP Tony Smith is retiring. Clearly Deakin is also at play because Albanese, Chalmers and Wong were all there today. La Trobe must come into play with the interest rate rise in that mortgage belt seat. I don’t seriously think McEwen is in play with a decent swing expected to Labor nationally.

Observations at the prepoll centre in Torquay yesterday; there were a lot of people taking only Labor HTV cards and a significant number of people taking only Greens HTV cards, while a lot of people took only Greens and Labor, knocking back the right wing parties. Very few people were taking only Liberal HTVCs, and fewer people still were taking only Liberal Democrats and UAP. Of course there were a lot of people going in who weren’t taking anything at all.

Labor’s got a Corangamite retain in the bag and any suggestion that the “freedom” parties might gain enough support to unseat the incumbent based on the state government’s handling of the pandemic is still laughable (even more so after seeing with my own two eyes who people were actually positively engaging with versus who most of them weren’t).

Labor have a negative campaign against Asher on social media highlighting layoffs at Geelong Council during Covid, so trying to make her strength a weakness (a sign it’s still in play?). Irony is that if Mayor was still directly elected (a system Labor scrapped) Asher would never have been Mayor.

I believe the big YouGov poll did show this seat is close, so maybe there is some logic to the campaign heating up again here.

Morrison has been in Corangamite 5 times, Albanese hasn’t been even once. Wong did make a brief appearance last week. This seems to indicate that Labor are pretty confident here. I’ve been surprised at how little campaigning has been happening here by the candidates themselves. Lots of announcements through media release/social media but both candidates have been knocking back opportunities to be interviewed by the media and Asher pulled out of all public (non-staged) appearances. If I could make an individual seat prediction it would be 53-47 to ALP TPP and potentially wider.

This one was a complete fizzer after all the talk, one of the biggest swings to Labor in the state.

It has a Corio-like margin now.

There are some huge swings against the Liberals here, the largest of which appear to be in the smaller rural townships that have traditionally been strong for the Liberals. Even Asher’s home town of Ocean Grove swung solidly against her. A lot of people had been wondering how the thousands of new residents in Armstrong Creek would vote. Some people expected UAP to do well, but they didn’t, meanwhile the Greens picked up 20% in Armstrong Creek east.

This seat is now more Labor leaning than Victoria as a whole and a safe Labor seat for the first time. i wonder if this now permanently lost by the Libs. In some of the Torquay booths and Bellbrae the Greens outpolled the Libs

This will only get safer for Labor as Geelong grows, and in future redistributions.

It’s as if every time Scott Morrison popped by to a marginal electorate, 1% of people switched their vote. It happened in marginal Labor seats he thought he’d win as well as Reid, Chisholm etc.

I know this is easy to say with the benefit of hindsight but I never understood why this was ever supposed to be a competitive race, given the demographics. Always seemed like it had more in common with Jagajaga or something than any of the socially conservative outer Western Melbourne seats.

Since the Torquay area is the strongest area for the ALP, the growth of Geelong will eventually reduce the margin when Torquay is eventually moved out.

Although the growth in the Geelong part of Corangamite is going to occur in the Armstrong Creek growth corridor, which is currently leaning strongly to Labor and to some extent Green. I would also imagine the Golden Plains parts of Corangamite to move out ahead of Torquay, given Torquay’s central location in the electorate and the strong connection between coastal Surf Coast and the Bellarine. While strict growth boundaries are currently being put in place on the Surf Coast and the Bellarine, there is still capacity for quite a bit of population growth through already zoned greenfield areas as well as infill in established areas – particularly in Torquay, Ocean Grove and Drysdale-Clifton Springs-Curlewis.

Despite the redistribution slightly not favourable to the ALP they over performed here, particularly in the liberal leaning parts.

i think this division is one that eventually needs to be fixed. geelong(corio/corangamite) should start at port phillip and work upwards not downwards.