Bruce – Australia 2025

For a long time I thought this seat would be a tossup.

It typifies a conservative target seat – outer suburban, working class, in Melbourne (where swings could be volatile) with mortgage belt areas especially in the eastern part. It also has a state Labor government that’s losing popularity.

The Liberals blew their chance with a problematic candidate. He is like the Jaymes Diaz of 2025. He was interviewed on Sky News and he bumbled and didn’t know his party’s policies. I understand that people get nervous on camera but the Libs are could’ve chosen a more confident and appealing candidate to represent them in a not-so-safe seat.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DIxhOZ5SpE8/

I also think that the Palestine issue makes it harder for the Liberals who are seen as more pro-Israel.

And now it turns out Zahid Safi lied about obtaining his masters degree. He is the gift that keeps on giving to Labor.

I got second hand embarrassment watching the Zahid Safi interview with Sky News today. Not sure why the Liberal Party allowed to be interviewed again, considering his last interview with Sky News turned into a embarrassment where he didn’t know his own Party’s policies.

The guy is clearly not up to it. Libs have spend a lot of resources here, they could have won if they had a slightly more competent candidate.

Zahid Safi just doesn’t seem like a serious candidate. He wouldn’t look out of place if he was a parody candidate running on a comedy show like Mad as Hell. He just laughs off and dodges each question posed to him by the media. Julian Hill will easily walk over him this election.

Yea lab retain here. Libs might be able to win it in 2028 with a better candidate d ame as in whitlam

I wouldn’t be surprised if some local Liberals are so embarrassed that they’d rather volunteer elsewhere.

I reckon there’s a solid argument to be made that Safi was the worst candidate pick by either major party in 2025. Even despite Bruce shifting eastward to take in Berwick and Beaconsfield, there was 10%+ swing AGAINST the Libs. What an absolutely catastrophic local campaign.

It is amazing that this seat had one of the biggest swings to Labor and is once again one of the safest Labor seats in the country despite now extending out to Berwick and Beaconsfield, and despite being constantly talked about as a close seat and potential Liberal gain.

Clearly the Libs had a dud candidate but there was an 18% swing to Labor in southern Berwick which is the biggest swing in any area I have seen anywhere in the country so far. Similar very big swings in nearby Clyde and Clyde North in Holt. There is a huge South Asian migrant population who probably rejected Dutton’s assertion that new migrants are the cause of all our problems.

I also think there was a big anti Labor swing last time due to COVID lockdowns and those votes came straight back to Labor this time.

The largest swings to Labor in Melbourne are in seats along the Pakenham/Cranbourne Line corridor (Hotham Bruce, Holt and La Trobe), something which I wouldn’t expect. It’s even more substantial than in the middle ring Eastern Melbourne seats which the Libs lost and where you’d think Dutton would appeal the least towards (Menzies, Chisholm, Deakin, Aston). Absolute disaster for the Libs, so much for the outer suburban strategy.

Zahid Safi was a bit like Scott Yung – on paper seemed to be a great candidate – from a CALD background in a very CALD electorate – and it all turned to total s**t. And it seems to have spread to La Trobe and Holt too.

Part of a wider problem for the libs definately still a target when they get their act together

Mightn’t be a South Asian thing as very very low swings to the ALP in Lalor, Hawke and Gorton that have sizable South Asian populations.

So much for the Liberals trying to promote and outgun Labor in the outer suburbs, when in fact they didn’t just get outgunned by Labor at their home turf, they got nuked entirely. Bruce and Holt were originally in the firing line but both got huge swings to them. Dunkley stayed relatively neutral, whilst Isaacs, Hotham and Chisholm all swung to Labor, as did Deakin, Menzies and Aston of all places. On the other side of town, a decent swing in Gellibrand to Labor and virtually no swing or small swing to Labor in Lalor, Gorton, Hawke and McEwen. Complete Failure of the Liberals to make any inroads in their supposed ‘new heartland’.

I’d say Zahid Safi is worse than Scott Yung. At least Scott has more appeal and better communication skills and a better resume. Zahid Safi was laughed-at more often.

I think the biggest swing in all of Victoria might’ve been in Bruce. The swing of 10% is probably amongst the highest in the country. For a while, we thought Victoria was the danger zone for Labor.

And ironically the two bright spots for the Libs in Melbourne: Kooyong and Goldstein where they are clawing back the margins through postal votes quite substantially. All that talk about abandoning the teal seats for a new outer suburban working class heartland yet its the two teal seats where they are doing the least worst.

@Dan M Kooyong wasn’t exactly helped by the redistribution which gave the best Liberal booths of Higgins to Kooyong. Those are old money affluent boomers who’d vote Liberal hell or high water.

As for Goldstein, I’m going to guess Israel? And before anyone mentions Macnamara, Josh Burns is Jewish himself which kind of neutralises the protest votes as he’s at least considered ‘one of them’. Not so much for Zoe Daniel unfortunately. If she lost that one I feel bad for her because unlike Ryan she hasn’t exactly put a foot wrong this term.

in regards to the new liberal heartland it still is. If tbe wheels hadnt fallen off the libs would have done well and probably will once they regroup.

The big swings against the Liberals in Bruce, Hotham, Aston, La Trobe and Holt, and the pretty neutral results in Hawke, McEwen, Gorton etc make me confident that Labor will win the 2026 Victorian election.

Yes, federal is different to state, Allan is different to Albanese, Battin isn’t Dutton.

But purely based on the map, Labor only need to sandbag a small handful of seats under 8% margins to retain even majority government let alone government at all, while the Liberals need to gain 18 seats (assuming they won’t keep Prahran) which takes them to over an 8% swing on the pendulum, to win government.

I’m not denying the Allan government is unpopular, but I think this election showed that discontent doesn’t necessarily translate into a swing.

Mid-term polls may reflect satisfaction & discontent, but once a campaign is underway that turns into more of a focus on the future.

Labor are a campaigning machine and the Liberals are just terrible at it, probably nowhere moreso than Victoria.

Yeah there will be a swing to the Libs, Labor will lose seats, but I just don’t see these outer suburban seats on 8-10% margins falling, which would be needed if any of those eastern suburbs on 6-8% margins don’t fall and I doubt they will either.

This seat was hyped about and in hinsight i think the Liberal’s strategy was driven by emotion. I think it was more about to prove a point that they can win outer suburban seats. In essence they want to avenge the loss of Higgins and win a seat with with Dandenong and Doveton two of the poorest suburbs in Melbourne. It was about realigment but Libs crashed here and in Holt. In the commentary a lot of Liberal supporters hyped about who great it was to have an Afghan candiate, John Howard, James Paterson campaigned with Zahid. My in laws live in Bruce and they got a lot of campaign material from the Libs all of it is a waste now. Someone even suggested that if the Liberals made people aware that Julian Hill is Gay that Muslims may vote Liberal yet they voted for a gay athiest over a Muslim man whose wife wears a hijab and has 6 kids.

There were actually big swings to Greens in working class booths will a lot of Muslims especilaly around Dandenong, Hallam and Doveton. Getting 18 primary in Hallam for the Greens is extraordinary. The Greens dropped howver, in Anglo areas like Berwick and Harkaway. One Nation actually did quite well in some booths in Berwick, Harkaway and Narre Warren North which are the less diverse parts.

I think the Libs claim that having Zahid will mean that Afghan Community will swing to the Liberals completely failed to take into account that most of the Afghan Community are Hazara (Zahid isn’t Hazara) and Zahid also once suggested that Hazara are not a persecuted for ethnicity in Afghanistan.

Agree Marh
It was a big flop. I wonder if Zahid being the candidate may have driven more Nationalist Anglos in Berwick, Narre Warren North etc to vote ONP?

The biggest drops in the Liberal primary votes were in Berwick, followed by Narre Warren and Endeavour Hills and Cranbourne. At this election, One Nation was the biggest beneficiary of the drop in the nationwide Liberal vote. In Bruce, the pole position of One Nation surely helped a bit.

Bruce had the biggest 2PP swing to Labor outside of Tas and QLD and maybe the 5th biggest overall in the country (after Braddon, Lyons, Leichhardt and Bass).

As Dan M mentioned earlier, Pakenham Line electorates (Hotham, Bruce, Holt and La Trobe) had the biggest swings in Victoria. They were all over 4%. Labor got swings in Eastern Melbourne seats – the Liberals’ traditional heartland e.g. Aston, Deakin, Menzies.

Also swings in Isaacs parts are along Pakenham line

also Berwick is an area where I expect One nation to do well especially the Anglo parts

@Votante: The 2PP swing towards Labor in Bruce (9.31%) was the largest in Victoria and the largest in the nation towards an incumbent Labor MP. Labor MP Jerome Laxale got a 9.30% 2PP swing towards him in Bennelong.

Perhaps counterintuitively, the 2PP swing towards Labor is getting larger as you drive further East or South East from the CBD. 2PP swings towards Labor in Melbourne’s outer East and South East were much larger than in the inner or middle Eastern suburbs.

The Liberal Party even got small 2PP swings TOWARDS it in Macnamara (0.37%) and Goldstein (0.25%) that are close to the CBD. Swings towards the Liberal Party in the heavily Jewish parts of both seats offset the swings against the Liberal Party in other parts of both seats, however it was still surprising to learn that both seats backed the statewide trend and swung towards the Liberal Party. Liberal Party gaining Goldstein from an independent was one of the biggest upsets in this election.

2PP swing towards Labor was modest in the middle Eastern suburb seats of Menzies (0.66%), Chisholm (2.37%) and Deakin (2.84%). Seats further away from the CBD recorded much larger 2PP swings towards Labor. There were 4.83% 2PP swing towards Labor in Isaacs, 5.27% in Hotham, 6.04% in Aston (compared to the 2022 election result), 6.92% in Holt, 9.31% in Bruce, and surprisingly 6.37% in peri-urban La Trobe despite having a popular sitting Liberal MP and Labor not putting in much effort. There were also large 2PP swings towards Labor in many outer suburban seats in Sydney and Brisbane. Peter Dutton’s pitch to outer suburban voters have spectacularly backfired.

Dutton’s Coalition was deeply unpopular among CALD communities, however Chisholm or Menzies was not in any way significantly less multicultural than Bruce or Holt. Smaller swings towards Labor in Chisholm and Menzies compared to Bruce and Holt were partly due to Chisholm and Menzies having well-known and well-respected Liberal candidates and the Liberal Party putting in more effort.

@Joseph, you are quite right about metro Melbourne. The Bruce result was amplified by a controversial, gaffe-prone Liberal candidate.

Brisbane and Sydney and Adelaide are much different in that multiple seats in the middle-ring and outer suburbs saw 2PP swings of over 4% to Labor. In western Melbourne, including Geelong, seats barely swung. In Gellibrand, the swing was 3.9%. In Fraser, the Greens entered the 2CP due to a rise in the primary vote of the Greens and Victorian Socialists.

@ Joseph speaking for someone who is a lifelong resident on Menzies. while Menzies is multicultural we need to look at what groups live there.Menzies has large Chinese and Iranian communities as well as Southern Europeans it’s percentage of other non Europeans such as South Asians, Pasifika, Africans and Muslims are much lower than greater Melbourne. The swing among Chinese community would have already largely occured in 2022 and Keith Wolahan is popular among Iranian community due to his advocacy for that community. Menzies is fairly affluent so there is a stubborn Liberal vote just like parts of Chisholm would have that as well. By contrast Bruce and Holt have above average Muslim, Pasifika African and South Asians. there was also anti lockdown backlash last time so room to recover