Deakin – Australia 2022

After the sweeping ALP victory at the 2018 state election, pundits were vocal about how damaging it could be to the Coalition if replicated at the 2019 Federal election. It turned out that the ‘Vic ALP bounce’ just didn’t happen at the federal election and there wasn’t much of an increase in the federal ALP vote in Victoria. it appears Victorians are quite willing and able to distinguish their state votes from their federal ones. My feeling is that trying to link Albanese with Andrews, either in a positive sense or a negative one, won’t have much impact.

There was argument that Daniel Andrews was unpopular through this part in Victoria, which I disagree with as he was helping campaign in eastern metropolitan Melbourne, I still think however the LNP will hold here with a reduced margin.

Deakin has been mentioned as a possible Labor gain but they seem to have almost no effort. It has to be said in the last 7-10 days the Libs have taken the foot off the accelerator as well. Greens have been invisible as well. We are close to Chisholm so some social media advertising from Carina Garland in Chisholm but none from Deakin.

Just back from the local polling station. 40 minute queue to vote. Interesting points were that there didn’t seem to be many blue HTV cards in the queue and Senate independent Susan Benedyka had a HTV person who was doing reasonable business.

Observer, 2018 Victorian Election was probably during the height of the unpopularity of Scott Morrison but then Morrison made a miracle given the unpopularity died down ever since the election. Speaking of distinguishing their state votes from their federal ones, a better case would be Queensland given the ALP governed all but 5 years since 1989, evident from comparing Federal and State seats in the same area.

Michael Sukkar looks set to lose though the postals could allow him to retain the seat.
The swing here mainly comes from the Whitehorse part of the seat, in particular Vermont and Vermont South which surprise surprise has a large Chinese Australian population. Though it’s not discussed nearly as much as the Teal victories in the election analysis, it’s also another equally crucial factor that should be discussed and analysed more.

@ Dan M agreed the Whitehorse part had a much larger swing compared to the Eastern fringe around Croydon which is very Anglo. We can see Menzies had a larger swing even though Labor put zero effort there. This is because in Menzies it really only the semi-rural part which is does not have a significant Chinese Australian community and these areas are not densley populated. Casey had a much smaller swing than neighbouring Deakin, Menzies and Aston as it much more Anglo-Celtic than the three previous seat.

If Sukkar does lose it will be the first time since the Hawke years Labor would have won this on these new boundaries. Under the old boundaries even if Sukkar just gets in, almost certainly would have lost under the old boundaries.

Very pleased to see Matt Gregg doing so well, & likely winner. Staff at Michael Sukkar’s Office, (one in particular), not fit to serve in Public Service.

@ Daniel, Correct this much more Liberal friendly than when Labor last held between 2007-2010 as a lot of the better Labor parts of Whitehorse Council are now in Menzies and Chisholm. It maybe the case that the La Trobe would have been lost on the old boundaries as well based on the Results in Aston, Casey etc although the results around Berwick are good for the Libs.

We’re his staff too busy stacking liberal party branches

Michael Sukkar has come come screaming back on the postals – he is now only 59 votes behind and there still 9700 postals to go. Absentees and provionals will fall to Matt Gregg – an interesting count!!

The postals seem to favour the Libs very strongly especially in Deakin and Menzies.

I wonder this year if the Covid postals will add a new dimension though.

Postals received early will likely follow the traditional pattern of skewing Liberal due to an older demographic.

But postals from the last week, due to Covid 19 isolation, could be a whole different story. So I think it might be premature to predict how the postals will break overall based on the earlier ones, because another 2000-3000 envelopes that are received later due to Covid could be the total opposite.

@Trent that is true. I don’t think Antony Green, the AEC or Poll Bludger has accounted for that in their determinations. Do you know if the telephone votes due to COVID isolation have been counted yet?

I haven’t seen any mention yet of Covid postals being accounted for either. It could give close seats a late swing back to Labor (or in a seat like Macnamara, the Greens).

As for telephone Covid votes, I notice an “EAV Covid 19” polling place exists for each electorate in the results, I assume they’re the phone ones? They are listed as results received but the ones I’ve looked at are all just 0’s. So I’m not sure.

I’m pretty sure telephone votes haven’t been counted. Really curious to see how they impact on the vote in these super close electorates. Theoretically perhaps they’d lean to a younger demographic given they have tended to have higher rates of COVID but think it would be anyone’s guess.

If he wins, Sukkar I predict will almost certainly be Shadow Treasurer.

Xenu, I also think we can assume the following about the Covid votes (both postal & telephone):
– Probably most similar to “ordinary votes” as these are people who planned to vote on the day;
– Probably excludes most of the anti-lockdown / “freedom party” types who are least likely to actually do RATs or report results (and subsequently have to isolate) now that testing isn’t compulsory
– As you say, also more likely to be younger

So I think the Covid votes, both by phone & postal, are likely to be a slightly more left variation of the ordinary vote. That will be the complete opposite of the traditional postal votes.

That’s why I’m not writing off Labor in Deakin or the Greens in Macnamara just yet. I’m really curious to see what happens with a) The phone votes, we don’t even know how many yet; and b) The postals that were requested between Saturday (the first day that testing positive meant isolation on election day) and COB Tuesday, which are most likely to be the ones not received back by the AEC yet.

Deakin only has about 1500 postal envelopes issued but not received, but Macnamara still has 2200. All of those won’t be returned; but I think we can safely assume that most that are returned will be Covid votes and not break anything like the other postals, and even the ones already received will probably start getting gradually less Liberal dominated too as the count progresses.

Absentee votes haven’t started being counted yet either. I think while all the modelling suggests the Liberals will hold Deakin and Labor will hold Macnamara, there could very well be surprises in both if Covid is a wildcard that the modelling has missed.

This one is very, very close. Seems much more likely to go the Sukkar, but later postals may not be a solidly Liberal

Liberals got a swing to them in Bayswater North, wonder why that was the case.

First absentee and declaration pre polls that I have seen have popped up in Deakin.

Absentees 55-45 to ALP
Declaration Pre Polls 55-45 to Libs

Absentees usually go to ALP but will be interesting to see what the Declaration PrePolls do elsewhere.

@redistributed Are the absentees stronger for Labor than usual?

Labor is closing the gap, the question is will it be enough for them to win here

I doubt it will be enough. 88.2% of the vote is already counted and it’s fast approaching the usual 90% turnout rate in elections. The turnout in this election may be lower than usual due to larger number of postals which means a larger number of rejected ballots.

Based on current outstanding absentee, postal and declaration prepolls you could see Sukkar’s lead being cut back to about 500. In 2019, there were 250 provisionals that go through and they would be expected to break to Labor. So lets say 450 – 475 lead. The big mystery are the Covid telephone votes – we don’t know how many there and if Flinders is anything to go by they might be heavily Labor. Could end up being less than a 100 votes in it.

This electorate was way closer then I anticipated, if the ALP target in 2025 they will get this. I believe Deakin is the most marginal electorate in the country now or one of them now.

@Bob Gilmore is slightly more marginal than Deakin. There’s a post-election pendulum on Wikipedia.

Counting is still not quite over yet so it’s yet to be seen which of Gilmore or Deakin is more marginal (and the margins of every other seat).

This may be the best result on these boundaries for Labor since the 1980s as Labor would not have won on these boundaries in 2007 and 2010. Based on 2018 Victorian state election results the Libs would have got 50.3% TPP in Deakin so it seemed they have just exceeded that. https://insidestory.org.au/twilight-of-the-liberals.

Labor performed really well on these boundaries despite them not favouring them but underperformed in Aston on boundaries that favoured them.

@ Bob, agreed it is partly a reflection of different campaigning decision in both seats compared to the past. See my comments in the Aston thread as well. Previously, a lot of the strongest Liberal parts of Deakin now were in Menzies (Croydon Hills, Warranwood, Croydon North) or Aston (Vermont, Vermont South). In 2007/10 these suburbs would not have had a Labor campaign but did in 2022 which in part explains Labor improved performance here.

The recent redistributions were very favourable for the Libs in Deakin but not so much so in Menzies or Aston. Of course before this election, it didn’t really concern the Libs since Aston and Menzies was too safe for the Libs to be concerned whereas Deakin was the marginal seat. In 2004, the Libs would’ve done much better in Deakin’s current boundaries compared to Menzies’ ones. Interesting to note that the Libs did much worse in all the Eastern Melbourne seats this time than in 2007 (and 2010 except for Aston and Casey).

Yes vote seems to have won here which seems to be bucking the trend into out of outer Melbourne.