Croydon – Victoria 2022

Curious to see what people here think of this seat. What are the chances Labor picks this up?

With a sitting Liberal member i feel as though it is unlikely. Also this part of Melbourne has become better for the Libs over the years. The northern part of the seat is quite affluent (Croydon Hills etc) and i often feel it is spill over of Manningham LGA being quite leafy and hilly. I feel Labor has a better prospect to improve their vote in Bayswater instead with Jackson Taylor as a sitting MP and will concentrate their resources there as well.

@Nimalan

I would imagine you would have a similar assessment of Evelyn and Eildon?

Even though there were quite strong swings against the Libs in the federal election by Eastern Melbourne standards, they weren’t that large compared to the massive ones in say Boroondara, Manningham, Whitehorse and Monash LGA. So, I think the Libs would still be favoured to win here unless they collapse like the WA Libs.

Nicholas, yes with respect to Evelyn it has many demographic similarities to Croydon and has also seen a long term improvement in the Liberal vote. Both areas are quite Anglo and have large proportion of tradespeople. I would compare it to the Hughes part of Sutherland Shire (excluding waterfront areas) and maybe parts of Hawkesbury LGA. My assessment of Eldon is also similar but for slightly different reasons. Elidon is a very varied electorate and has some very left wing areas around Warburton and some very rural conservative areas in the North. Personally, it is interesting that the edge of the electorate is quite close to my house and extends past Mount Buller to include Mansfield etc. This is a seat where a personal vote is critical as much of the seat is semi-rural and regional. Last election, Cindy McCleish had one of the smallest swings against her compared to other Liberals and i expect a status quo result here. However, i think Labor could win it in a good year provided it is an open seat with no sitting Liberal MP.

The Labor party improved here in the last federal election, there is a real possibility if Liberals are in serious trouble here then it could fall

The further along the Lilydale line past Ringwood the more the Liberal vote seems to improve towards Lilydale. The Labor party only *just* won the booths around Croydon often only 51 or 52 2PP at the federal election.

This seems to be a more likely Liberal retain than Labor gain, especially if Labor didn’t gain this in 2018.

All but 2 booths at the last election were Labor but yet the Liberals won it, Do the maps on these websites like pollbludger don’t show the postals/pre-polls? I feel the maps of the booths seems to look more red than the margin actually is.

You’re right, they don’t show the postals or pre-polls. If you look at the table you can see the pre-poll and special votes listed at the end. And yes there is usually a skew, something I wrote about in the context of the federal election, so a close seat can look more Labor-friendly on the map than the actual result.

I was out in Croydon Hills this morning and didn’t see a single sign – does the council here not allow them or are the locals just particularly disengaged?

Hodgett will win this comfortably – Labor is not really trying here by the looks of it.

This seat is close with Labor possibly getting over the line here

Just before the election there was talk of surprise Liberal gains further down the pendulum. If Labor wins here, the truth was the opposite.

Terrible for Libs honestly.

They should’ve at least made gains into the 30s, and they went backwards

Still, Mick’s prediction of 70 seats fell flat on its face haha

Mick predicted 65-70 if I’m not wrong which is closer than the hung parliament club. And based on the reasoning of “Labor can stay at the same 2PP or go slightly backwards and gain seats” – well, clearly that held ground. The result is looking to be around 3 points lost but keeping a similar number of seats as 2018.

Wow, that is a pretty funny observation… Mick’s prediction was closer than many predictions of Labor losing their majority.

So what happened here? Is Hodgett unpopular? This is the sort of area that I thought would be OK for the Liberals

That’s not the case though. 44 is closer to 53 than 53 is to 65-70.

Labor could end up slightly more than 53, but that is nonetheless why I said “many predictions”, not all.

Yes my prediction of 65 to 70 was too optimistic.. but I did not expect nat or green extra seats nor did I expect Morwell to be won by the nats.

There is still a lot of counting to
Go but I think still my 65 figure
Or plus 7 seats won’t get there

Polwarth given to the libs.. I think the seat is still undecided

In hindsight, Labor probably regrets the effort it spent in Morwell and Caulfield and may have wished that they focused resources here instead. On election day Labor got a significant swing to them enough to comfortably win the seat although early votes had a swing against Labor. In 2002, Labor won the former seat of Kilsyth which covers much of this area although those boundaries were more pro-Labor than the current Croydon which extends north of the Maroondah Highway to cover affluent Croydon Hills etc, back then in Warrandyte. If the old boundaries of Kilsyth were used this time then Labor would won it this election probably better than they did in 2002.

Nimalan, does Kilsyth overlap with parts of Menzies federal district? If so, it could explain the strong ALP vote as Labor also polled well in Menzies at the federal election.

@Yoh An, no it doesn’t since in the last redistribution, all of Maroondah has been moved into Deakin with Menzies expanding southwards into Whitehorse. Even then, the bulk of the swing wasn’t in the Warrandyte green wedge area which borders Croydon/Kilsyth but rather in the core of Box Hill, Doncaster and Templestowe which areas with some of the largest ethnic Chinese populations in the country. Keith Wolahan, the Menzies MP often remarked about the 16.2% swing to Labor in the pre-poll booth in the area.

Inresting to note the Manningham area (Bullen and Warrandyte) essentially had no swing in the state election, reflecting it demographically being halfway between the affluent Lib heartland which saw swings to the Libs and the middle ring and outer eastern suburbs which saw swings to Labor.

In response to Nicholas and Mark, Labor’s final 56 seat count represents a net gain of one since last election. This is actually closer to 65 than 44.

Some of the unexpected/shock results include Labor retaining Pakenham, Melton and Northcote (I predicted these would be easy gains for non-Labor parties/candidates) and also gaining Hastings from the Liberal Party.

It doesn’t all matter because Labor will lose the next election in a 1992 style LANDSLIDE at the next state election if they keep Andrews.

People will see into this “pro-infection” policy. Andrews was popular when he lockdown the state. But now that he is keeping it open with hospitals struggling with cases. People will see into this and wonder “Is he really keeping us safe anymore”? I saw an article on the ABC saying the Royal Children’s hospital was struggling to keep up because of this.

A moderate liberal leader will win back many lost voters since the Kennett years. And it will actually. Because Turnbull actually IMPROVED in Victoria and gained Chisholm for the Liberals in the 2016 federal election despite Bill Shorten being from Victoria. It proves that moderate libs (like Menzies and Holt who were both from the state) can win here.

I agree in some seats the Liberals will struggle to gain ground in, many seats that they held previously while in government are going to be much harder to win, but there are new seats they can win such as Melton, and some argue Point Cook and Macedon. They don’t need Carrum and Frankston of they can win those.

Labor needs to dump Andrews if they have any chance. Labor got lucky again, but I don’t think the same playbook they used this time will work in 2026 under a fresher, more polished, and more popular Liberal leader.

Agree Daniel, pesutto as leader may well be like Ted Baillieu in 2010 and lead the coalition to victory.

Just because the Libs chose a sensible leader this time doesn’t mean they will automatically win. The Libs really screwed their strategy this election. They still have a lot of things to work on with the far and religious right still yielding tremendous power in the party. It seems quite likely Andrews won’t last until 2026 anyways and replacing him with someone else would really help Labor recover in those economically deprived working class seats that saw double digit swings to the Libs given those swings seem entirely due to anti lockdown sentiment. It’s true though that the Labor party could get blinded with arrogance and not learn any lessons just like the Libs did in 2019 and did absolutely nothing to reverse the huge swing against them in their traditional heartland and look how that turned out for them. The Libs’ best bet to gaining power though is to focus on recovering the vote in the eastern suburbs and picking up those seats and win the outer south east growth corridor seats (2 Narre Warrens, Cranbourne, Pakenham, Bass, Hastings) + a few sand belt seats and a combination of Point Cook, Sunbury, Melton and Yan Yean if they’re lucky while hoping the Labor party wastes all its resources on its northern and western suburb working class heartland and the contests with the Greens. One good thing for the Libs is that the teals and the affluent heartland shouldn’t be an issue in 2026 so that’s one less thing to focus on. It is absolutely correct the Libs need to expand their target seats outside of their eastern and inner southeastern suburb heartland because there aren’t enough seats in those areas but they can’t sacrifice them to win seats in new areas since the maths doesn’t work out that way. They should be targeting the sandbelt where their vote recovered a bit from 2018 as well as the growth corridors in the southeast (Narre Warren, Cranbourne, Bass, Pakenham, Hastings) and a few growth corridor seats in the north and west (Point Cook, Melton, Sunbury, Yan Yean). They don’t need to win all the seats they used to hold in the past if they can gain new ones but they can’t just sacrifice half of them and hope half of the seats in the west and north become blue.

Labor won’t “dump” Andrews, but he will likely retire before 2026.

Seriously though, no one really has any idea this far out what 2026 looks like…

Expat, whilst the exact specifica are not known yet, the next election should see a further swing against Labor because of the its time factor, the alp would be in office for 10+ years by that stage.

Then again, there was the 2014 sa election where the Liberals only achieved a small swing in their favour despite running against Labor who were running for their 4th consecutive term.

The Victorian election result reminds me of NSW 1981. Labor reelected in a second Wranslide – with more seats as the gerrymander had been abolished. Libs had the same number of seats as Nats but sense prevailed and the Libs were the opposition. The Lib leader lost his seat for the second election in a row. In 1984 the Libs made gains with Nick Greiner as leader and won easily in 1988. The third term was where the wheels started to fall off. Daniel Andrews has said that he will serve a full term. He is now unchallenged and a combination of hubris, government tiredness and the fact they cannot blame anyone but themselves will take their toll. It will be a two election rebuild. As well the pathways identied above the Libs need to win back Ripon and be competitive in Eureka, Bellarine, South Barwon and take it up to Jacinta Allan in Bendigo East.

The Liberals realistically need a swing of over 8% in 2026 to form government, whether that be minority or majority (because the entire cross bench are Greens).

Considering they could only manage a swing of about 2.4% (in 2PP terms) this election, where they actually had a lot more ammunition than they usually would due to effects from the pandemic such as the health system crisis and the budget forecasts, it’s difficult to believe they could realistically achieve the 8% swing required (53-47 2PP) in 2026 to form government. Especially when a lot of major projects that deliver benefit to the most marginal / key areas will be completed over the next few years leading up to that election, and when the electoral map is no easier (arguably even harder) than it was for this election due to the larger margins in the east now.

It is most likely that with federal Labor no longer being in a ‘honeymoon period’ and the state government being 12 years old, there will be a swing against Labor… But 8%? A two-election strategy is really their only hope.

Even then, I don’t even see why the Liberals have to be the opposition to be honest. Victoria is a progressive state, I don’t think it would be the worst thing if rather than being Labor v Liberal contests, our state elections were more about determining the makeup of progressive minority coalitions, as the alternative to Labor dominance. That would arguably be better than a single-term of Liberal government every 12 years or so, which really does nothing but put progress on pause for 4 years while Labor regroups.

Redistributed, in terms of regional seats I think Bellarine and South Barwon are almost impossible to win off Labor, given that the demographics of Geelong are now heavily left leaning. I think the Ballarat area (Eureka) and also Bendigo districts are where the Liberals/Coalition can target Labor as those regions are not so strongly Labor leaning.

Trent, based on the current electoral map, the Liberals could technically forgo targeting their traditional eastern suburbs seats and instead focus their efforts first on the ultra-marginal seats in the outer southeast/Mornington Peninsula area and then some key targets in the northern and western suburbs (Melton, Yan Yean, Sunbury and Greenvale). That would result in a net loss of several seats and force Labor back to a narrow majority or hung parliament for their 4th term.

I’ll just go back to 2010 too, all of the following occurred in the Liberals’ favour:

– 11 year Labor government
– Popular Labor leader recently replaced
– Enormous federal drag and brand damage due to the recent Rudd/Gillard drama
– About as popular/moderate a Liberal leader you can get for Victoria in Baillieu

Despite all of those favourable conditions, they were only able to achieve a 1 seat majority, and lost that majority mid-term.

Now this time around, yes it will still be a 12 year old Labor government who are likely to have recently replaced their leader, federal Labor will no longer be in a honeymoon period, and Pesutto is far better than Guy. BUT, Andrews is no Bracks in terms of popularity (not anymore anyway) so a leadership change will more likely be a positive reset, federal Labor are very unlikely to be as damaged as they were in 2010, and Pesutto is likely to have a very challenging 4 years leading such a divided party dominated behind the scenes by the religious-right. He probably won’t be as popular in 2026 as he is right now.

Most importantly though, the electoral map is WAY harder than in 2010. Firstly, going into 2010 the Coalition only required 13 seats to form government, in 2026 that number will be 17. And of that 13 they needed (and won) in 2010:

– There were 4 eastern suburbs Labor seats on <4%, in 2026 there will be 1 (Glen Waverley);
– The sandbelt was all between 3.2% and 6.7%, in 2026 they are all over 8%;
– Prahran was a 3.6% Labor seat, it is now a 12% Greens seat which no longer includes Toorak

That's already 9 of the 13 seats they won, that either require much bigger swings (most of the east & sandbelt) or are completely out of reach (Prahran) this time.

On top of that, they have to defend marginal seats like Hawthorn (1.7%), Caulfield (2.1%) and Brighton (4.2%) which were just not a factor at all in 2010. Not to mention that the party leader having to defend Hawthorn while also trying to focus the party towards Melton & Pakenham won't be easy.

The only part of the electoral map that has become more winnable for the Coalition in 2026 than 2010 is Melton, Sunbury and Yan Yean. But the rest of the north-west is really not any more winnable despite the large swings. And then seats like Melton, Point Cook & Werribee didn't even swing in 2022 despite significant anti-Dan sentiment in those communities! They'll be even more difficult to flip without the pandemic/Dan factor, and most likely with Labor focusing a lot more on them.

Overall, not only are the factors listed up the top in 2026 likely to be a little less favourable to the Coalition than in 2010, but they require 4 more seats on a much harder electoral map, with a larger swing, while there's also just the broader factors of demographic change (millennials not shifting right with age like previous generations) and Victoria increasingly embracing its progressive identity while the diminished Liberal Party has an increased presence/influence from the right.

In summary, 2026 is very unlikely to have more favourable conditions than 2010, their best result in 25 years, which only netted them the absolute slimmest of victories (45-43 on a 51-49 2PP) on an easier electoral map.

@Yoh An, I think it’s very unlikely that those western suburbs seats have potential to swing too much further to the Liberals next time though.

Anti-lockdown sentiment was definitely a major factor there; the Liberals’ primary vote didn’t increase all that much in those areas, but the 2PP swings came a lot from swings from Labor to minor right wing parties then to the Liberals via preferences. With the pandemic likely to be more of a distant memory, I think at best for the Liberals the results will remain stagnant in those seats (Labor recovering some anti-lockdown vote cancelling out a natural right-ward shift + 12 year old government swing).

On top of that, Labor really put zero effort into them this time but will need to focus more on them next time. Look what happened in the seats Labor did focus on – Melton had almost no swing and Werribee actually swung to Labor.

Therefore I can’t really see the Liberals making any gains in the north & west, if they were unable to do so this time. The east & southeast is still their most winnable area.

Seats like Bass, Hastings & Pakenham should be easy gains in 2026; then they’d have to focus on areas like Bayswater, Glen Waverley, Ashwood, Box Hill and Ringwood. But even still, that’s only 8 out of 17 seats and already getting up to margins over 7%…

Seats like Cranbourne, Narre Warren North & Narre Warren South didn’t swing at all even with all the freedom parties, so like the western suburbs seats this time, if the Liberals couldn’t swing them with the anti-lockdown sentiment as a factor, it’s difficult to see them achieving 10% swings next time.

There’s just not a whole lot of the map available to them I don’t think.

Also one challenge is South Barwon is much stronger for Labor than going into 2010 and Ripon, Labor can entrench themselves if Martha Haylett proves to be popular. Eltham is also a seat which is stronger now for Labor than in the past. I do believe Greenvale, Syndenham, St Albans, Mill Park etc will swing back so they need win higher up the pendulum. Also note there are fewer seats in the Eastern Suburbs than 2010 (Mount Waverley, Doncaster, Ferntree Gully all seats that they won in 2010. The only new seat that the Coalition did not exist in 2010 but does so in 2026 in Pakenham. IMV they need to win the Sandbelt and win all Eastern suburbs seats including Monbulk to have any hope of government. If not they have to win Yan Yean, Niddrie, Melton, Sunbury which maybe harder than winning Carrum etc.

That’s a good assessment Nimalan, I agree.

When talking about the harder electoral map I hadn’t even thought of the fact that the eastern suburbs lost seats as well.

I agree that those seats like Greenvale, Sydenham, St Albans, Mill Park etc will swing back. There is a long term realignment happening, but 2022 artificially accelerated it due to the very specific lockdown resentment. I imagine those margins will swing back to where they would have been with the natural, slower realignment that was occurring (probably somewhere between 2018 & 2022).

Melton will clearly still be winnable, but it also was in 2022 and they didn’t make any progress at all…

For the Liberals to form government they basically need to win: all 3 outer southeastern marginals (easiest ones), all 5 eastern suburbs that Labor hold (up to 7.5% margins), all 4 sandbelt seats they lost in 2018 (all between 8-10% margins), and then another 6 seats on top of that such as Sunbury, Melton, Yan Yean, Ripon plus a minimum of others likely to be on at least 8-9% margins (eg. Point Cook). That’s a MUCH harder task than what was in front of them in 2010.

Counted wrong there – they need an additional 5 seats on top of cleaning up all the southeastern marginals, eastern suburbs and sandbelt seats, not an additional 6. Not that it makes much difference anyway..

Another demographic problem for the Libs is that all the population growth is occurring in Labor friendly areas such as NW Melbourne, Geelong region and South east Melbourne. If we take Yan Yean for example the growth is occurring around Donnybrook not Plenty or Yarrambat same in Bass it is either Clyde or sea changers in Bass Coast shire so in 2026 these seats are actually slightly stronger than the margin suggests.

“pro-infection policy”. What an I sane thing to post Daniel T. Pretty sure you’ve gone down the cocid zero rabbit hole and fortunately forever restrictions people like you are a minority in Victoria as the election showed.

I probably disagree about Greenvale. It is not as safe ALP as the other big swing seats, having some more marginal areas (the Liberals won a 2PP majority in the Greenvale booth in 1999, when it was in marginal Tullamarine and the sitting Liberal (Bernie Finn) lost the seat). It is now within the uniform swing the Coalition need, so the Liberals are likely to target it and so any swing to the ALP might be limited and probably not cover the whole seat.

Agree Telling, pretty much the whole world except China has now abandoned covid zero and has moved to a policy of living with the virus. Whilst infections are high, with full (90%+ vaccination rates) amongst the population, the risk of serious illness and death is generally low for healthy, able-bodied people.

Trent, it would be nice to see an increased leftist/progressive vote forcing Labor into a minority government, however I’m not sure where the gains would come from. Even if all the seats that the Greens and Gaetano Greco got close to winning end up falling to more left/progressive entities than Labor in future, doesn’t that still leave Labor with a majority? I suspect there will have to be a big ramp-up in campaigning in middle-ring suburbs and regional cities by the Greens, VS et al to bring about this scenario.

Being a populist to be against pandemic measures has not worked well for the community and Victoria showed that by rejecting Matthew Guy’s Libertarian agenda Victoria is not alone though. In Canada, the Canadian Conservatives had a similar stance for covid to the Vic Libs such as supporting the anti-vax truckers’ movement and recently failed to gain a seat in a byelection (even though the seat did vote Conservative in the past), and their leader Pierre Poilievre is politically similar to Matthew Guy by being shouty and Libertarian

@ Tom the first and best, you make some good points about the suburb of Greenvale and its past in the Tullamarine electorate. Greenvale itself is an affluent area. At the 2004 federal election, the Greenvale booths were narrowly blue so that is certainly possible. However, while the name of the electorate might be Greenvale only about 1/3 of the seat is actually in an area where in normal times will even remotely vote Liberal the remaining part of the electorate is Labor Heartland. Meadow Heights (especially Bethel Primary booth) is a very deprived area it was this area that had the big swing. Bethel primary booth may be one the strongest ALP booths in the country and in 2018 recorded 87.3% TPP for Labor. Neighbouring Roxburgh Park is a degentrifying area that has moved from a growth area to a working class suburb so it only leaves Greenvale. Assuming there is a correction back to Labor in working class area as the pandemic becomes a distant memory then Liberals may need to win about 70% TPP in the 3 Greenvale booths to make it even a marginal seat. Ideally the Libs would like most of Greenvale to put into the Sunbury seat which could be winnable at a high tide election for the Libs.

I read people’s comments about the LNP winning in 2026 & there is a few things I would like to point out. Firstly, Daniel Andrews will not be primer at the next state election so the anti-dan vote will go away & I’m expecting Labor’s heartland primary & tpp vote to recover. Secondly, the margins that the LNP need to overcome are too great so it’s extremely unlikely Labor will win with even Tim Smith saying that they won’t in 2026. Thirdly, the Christian Right has infiltrated the party & keeps preselecting the right-wing candidates that don’t appeal to the overall electorate with possibility of them removing John as a lot of the right view him as too left wing. Fourthly, when the LNP last won office there were more seats on the eastern side of Yarra with Forest Hill & Ferntree Gully being replaced with really safe labor seats on the western side of the Yarra. Fifthly, the LNP won a seat like Prahran which has had a major demographic change & is unlikely to go back into their hands so thats another seat they need to find. Finally, if the LNP do some how defy the odds how will they govern with candidate e.g Ringwood & Narre Warren North if they want remove abortion & etc which would end up the government being in a gridlock like in 2010 & paralysed with it unable to do anything (or very little) which would prevent them from being re-elected. The Liberals need to do some serious deep cleaning before they have a chance of winning & to be re-elected.

I can’t fault the logic of the arguments that the Liberals will find it very difficult to win in 2026 in terms of the pendulum, demographics etc… and yet, it reminds me of comments made by Democratic strategists in the run up to the 2016 Presidential election about their impregnable blue wall in the electoral college, that would secure Hillary Clinton the White House and give the Democrats a lock on the presidency for a generation. The blue wall was impregnable until it wasn’t. If there’s a strong sentiment and a big swing, democracy finds a way – as with the eventual demise of the gerrymander-protected Qld State governments in the 1980s. No, I’m not comparing the current Labor government to Bjelke Petersen and his successors, and personally I have no wish for a Victorian Liberal government at any time in the future – though I do think there’s a real potential for arrogance, complacency and corruption where any political party feels it’s dominance in government is overwhelming. But would I be amazed if a credible time traveller told me that a Liberal government gets elected in Victoria in 2026, bearing in mind we know nothing about the 2026 political environment now ? Surprised yes. Amazed No. (Well I’d be amazed to meet the time traveller of course and would have heaps of questions, beyond Victorian politics for her.)

Demographic change in the country is also favouring Labor.
The seats in Bendigo and Ballarat are safe for Labor. The greater Geelong over spill is
Helping Labor and Polwarth is changing like Corangamite did. A combination of Surf Coast growth and future boundary changes will end up shifting more and more of the Country towns out of that electorate
They will go into safe non Labor seats held by the npa. Logan already includes Hamilton
Or the less safe seat of South West coast.which with the growth of large towns Like Warrnambool is drifting away from the liberals probably vote I dep first. Ballarat is also growing so any over spill from that area will vote Labor maybe up to 10%