Macnamara – Australia 2025

@Trent I think you (along with many of us) are probably shocked at the extent of the results here. Burns has defied the odds and increased his primary votes at the expense of the Liberals (stable) and Greens (backwards). He’s sailed back into parliament with ease.

I have to say the thing with Jewish outrage and Greens’ so-called momentum were all fibs if the results this election are anything to go by. Labor clearly knows something that we don’t that they were able to take the risk of an open ticket and it paid off handsomely.

I’m not sure this was a tactical masterstroke from Labor. Either the Labor primary was going to go up or down following something like the national trend, and the Greens attacked Dutton and the Coalition made errors when Labor stayed disciplined. Would’ve made enough people realise that either they vote Labor to stop Dutton or vote Labor to stop the Greens because they knew the Liberal vote would drop.

I’ve said before on this page that the open ticket was a whole lot of drama without any real influence on the actual result, but at any rate I never got the impression it would hurt Labor. I always thought Burns would at least increase his primary vote, Semmens would not be able to match Hodgins-May, and the Liberals would probably not go up, and that’s exactly what we’re seeing. And I based this off not much more than the council results and the change in the profile of the individual candidates. The media interest in this electorate appears to have caused perceptions of higher Liberal or Greens support than what really is the case.

@Tommo9, I definitely wasn’t expecting the level of swing to Burns that happened. The Greens vote is actually not far off what I expected, but as a “correction” to 2022 plus the Libs expected to maybe get a 2% swing in VIC, I expected a 4-5% swing to the Liberals which is really what the Greens’ chances hinged on.

Overall, I think it’s the national/state trend that causes this result more than anything else. The Libs tanked everywhere including Victoria, their polling plummeted massively, and Burns was the beneficiary.

Interestingly the result so far is very similar to that Advance poll but with ALP & LIB switching places!

@NP, as for the booth results, you’re right that there are 3 distinct patterns here:

– In the renter / apartment heavy suburbs (St Kilda & Southbank) the result was near status quo from 2022, Greens vote not only held up but overall they got a small swing to them

– Port Melbourne, South Melbourne & Albert Park had huge swings to Labor, at the expense of both Liberals and Greens

– Some Caulfield booths had big swings to the Liberals mostly at the expense of the Greens

Living in St Kilda, my local observations were obviously more informed by that area where the Greens vote did hold up strongly in the 40s. Whereas I hadn’t ventured north of St Kilda West during the campaign at all.

Also in Caulfield where there were some big swings to Libs, big swings against Greens, Labor vote mostly just held up with small swings, I don’t think it was a direct GRN to LIB swing, but more a case of ALP to LIB swings being offset by GRN to ALP swings.

Whoever said a couple of pages back that Burns playing “both sides” would probably go down well in Port Melbourne, South Melbourne and Albert Park was probably bang-on because they got swings from both flanks in that area. No doubt assisted by the national/state rejection of Dutton too and just a “gotta vote Labor to keep Dutton out” vibe.

In hindsight, Greens should have focused more on WIlls they may get another chance in Macnamara but if they miss out on Wills. With a big majority now, Albo may push out Khalil in 2028 or move him to the senate and put a left wing mp.

@Trent @Nimalan looks like my thoughts about the fact that Greens would likely win Wills but simultaneously lose Macnamara for the exact same reason materialised. Seems quite clear the people of Macnamara did no go down the path of ‘Cutting off their nose to spite their faces’ and swing behind the Liberals which would’ve given the Greens the seat. Credit to Josh Burns too for sticking up for both sides and it’s now paid off in dividends. The 3CP gap is now way to big for Burns to be at risk next time. He’ll have to stuff up massively for him to lose this.

If the Greens hadn’t put Steph Hodgins-May in the Senate then perhaps they would’ve still had a shot with her personal vote. Sonya Semmens just wasn’t as well known given she previously contested Higgins and only the Windsor part of it was put into Macnamara. She would’ve been better off contesting Kooyong or Chisholm.

Yeah now the close 3CP margin is between Greens & Liberals for second place, not Greens & Labor, and as we know Labor wins easily if Liberals are in third place too.

That won’t be the case this time – although it did look like it for a while last night (ABC even changed it to an ALP v GRN 2CP) – but the 3CP margin between Greens & Libs will mean any progress the Greens make next time, will probably only make this an ALP v GRN seat instead of the GRN v LIB seat the Greens need to win.

I will say, if Labor’s national polling hadn’t dramatically improved in the last 2 months, this could very well have been a Greens gain.

I think the biggest factor here had nothing to do with Labor’s HTVC or Gaza or anything like that, it was simply that Labor just recovered their national & Victorian support, surged in the polls and ended up getting a swing to them.

“Whoever said a couple of pages back that Burns playing “both sides” would probably go down well in Port Melbourne, South Melbourne and Albert Park was probably bang-on because they got swings from both flanks in that area. No doubt assisted by the national/state rejection of Dutton too and just a “gotta vote Labor to keep Dutton out” vibe.”

Trent, are you referring to my comment? Hard to tell considering how many comments have been on this electorate but I don’t remember if someone else said this. For reference, this is what I said at the time:

“It’s true that Burns has been copping it from both sides but that might just help him if anything, as he managed to achieve what he sought in putting distance between himself and the Greens. Positioning himself in the middle between the Greens and Liberals is perhaps the optimal play as opposed to being seen as “left” alongside the Greens vs the Liberals, even in an electorate as generally left wing as this one. I think in times of uncertainty people do prioritise the “safe pair of hands”, like how Mark Carney in Canada is riding high with even NDP voters flocking to him.”

@ Tommo9
Totally agree i think Josh Burns was a good fit for Macnamara she comes across as this young cool guy who is very gentle and the person you would like to go to Espy in St Kilda for a drink with. I warned people earlier to dismiss at your own peril. I think he was the centrist pragmatic candiate in this election the closest to a Teal option. He is different to Peter Khalil who is a macho war hawk.

@Adda I do recall that comment too and you were right, but another comment specifically mentioned Port Melbourne, South Melbourne and Albert Park as where it would happen and that’s exactly where the results do show Labor gaining from both Libs & Greens (whereas Greens held up in St Kilda & Southbank, and the Libs got swings in Caulfield).

I also agree that Josh Burns is a great fit for Macnamara and even though I voted for Sonya Semmens, similar to 2022 I’m also not disappointed at having Burns as my MP because I think he’s an excellent one.

@ Trent

Please see the Dickson thread posted for you 🙂

I did my usual exercise of trying to group polling places by the suburb they’re in (or for out of electorate polling places like Prahran, assigned it to the nearest suburb) to get a better idea of the geographic trends. The results are not really surprising.

On 2PP, the following suburbs swung to the Liberals:

Caulfield (6%), Caulfield North (2.9%), Caulfield East (0.5%), Middle Park (0.4%) and Windsor (0.1%).

Everywhere else swung to Labor:

Albert Park (5.9%), Port Melbourne (3.6%), Elsternwick (2.7%), Southbank (2.5%), Elwood (1.9%), St Kilda (1.6%) and the remainder under 1.5%.

Labor’s 2PP was over 60% in every suburb except Middle Park (59.6%), Caulfield North (55.2%) and Caulfield (46%). Caulfield was the only suburb the Liberals won the 2PP in, whereas in 2022 Labor won Caulfield 52-48 as well.

In terms of the Greens’ primary vote, they went backwards in most suburbs, but the following is where I would say it “held up”:

Caulfield South (+0.5%), St Kilda (+0.1%), Caulfield East (-0.3%) and the swing against was also less than 2% in St Kilda East and Southbank.

The biggest swings against the Greens were in Windsor (-7.5% surprisingly), Caulfield (-7%) & Caulfield North (-6%) which makes it interesting that Caulfield South held up. Windsor had a +10.5% swing to Labor on primaries.

In terms of which suburbs the Greens won the primary vote in, that reduced from 8 in 2022 to only 4 in 2025 – St Kilda, St Kilda East, Southbank & Windsor (despite the swing against them they were still 0.2% ahead of Labor).

Elwood, Melbourne & Albert Park flipped from Greens to Labor winning the primary vote, while South Yarra (removed in redistribution) was the 8th suburb the Greens won last time.

I think everyone’s underestimated Josh Burns by quite some margin. He’s someone who’s certainly much more in touch with his electorate than Michael Danby ever was. Also demonstrated that apart from St Kilda and Caulfield (polar opposite politically), no one wanted the far left or right politics from either the Greens or Liberals, with the big swings to Labor in Southbank, Albert Park, Port Melbourne etc which are all middle/upper class rather than hippies or Jewish voters.

You’re right Tommo, and I think so much of the focus on Macnamara is on those two areas you mention.

It’s also seen a push-pull between the hard-left Greens vote in St Kilda and the more conservative “Jewish vote” in Caulfield. That very much created a vibe on the ground that it was a similar race to Prahran, Greens vs Liberals.

In reality, most of the seat is just dominated by moderately left/progressive professionals who want a pragmatic, moderately progressive centre-left MP and government, and Josh Burns just completely dominated in the suburbs north of St Kilda with huge swings.

Also I think outside of Caulfield, the Liberals probably picked up almost no votes from Labor or the Greens. While their primary vote did increase by around 2%, that can easily be explained by the reduction in the right-wing minor party vote coming back to them.

Caulfield aside as the trend was a bit different there, what I assume happened broadly in terms of swings was:
– A 2-3% swing from Greens to Labor;
– A 2-3% swing from minor parties to Labor;
– Liberals recovering about 2% in primary votes from right-wing minors

Really nothing swinging to the Greens, and the Liberals probably only getting swings from the ‘left’ in Caulfield / postal votes.

Mazel Tov to Josh Burns!

I think everyone underestimated him including nearly everyone on all tallyroom, I think it was only Tommo9, Nether Portal and myself who thought he had a chance. I think the Liberals decided to mark a play here not to win the seat but to knock out Labor out of the 2CP and make it a Greens seat.This was part of their strategy to force a Greens-Labor governemnt. After the Ripponlea Synagogue attack it was reported (link below) that Dutton prevented James Paterson from a reading a statement from Josh Burns who was unwell at the time. If that is true that is a disgrace and James Paterson IMHO is a coward for not defying Dutton. Perhaps Dutton losing Dickson was Karma for this if it is infact correct. Each election that Josh Burns has been the Labor candidate Labor has picked up primary vote eventhough demographically it is getting worse for them as it is Blue/Green seat.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-10/josh-burns-accuses-dutton-of-blocking-show-of-unity-at-synagogue/104705900

Did people really think he didn’t stand a chance here? I’m pretty sure he was widely perceived as the favourite. I myself said that I thought he would have a straightforward retain and increase his primary vote. YouGov MRP also consistently said this would be a seat that would swing to Labor.

I would also dispute the notion that the seat is getting worse for Labor demographically. If anything I would suggest the opposite. The Liberals are in long term decline here, like most other inner city electorates, and that is helping Labor since they are more likely to drop into 3rd place and elect Labor on their preferences. We’ve seen the examples of this with Griffith and Melbourne and it is likely the future trajectory of seats like here and Brisbane.

Unless the Greens can appeal to a wider bloc of left-wing voters then they look like facing bigger challenges in these seats. Perhaps one way would be by focussing more of their campaign efforts on general left-wing causes like the environment rather than divisive issues like Israel and Gaza, or being seen as blocking progressive legislation in the Senate. Rightly or wrongly, those have tarnished their brand in the electorates they were targeting this election. There’s a good article here which seems to capture the general picture of how they lost voters in their electorates. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-08/federal-election-result-adam-bandt-greens-melbourne-vote-2025/105266174

@ Adda
Read all the commentary upthread, people mentioned number of corflutes etc also in the prediction threads. I think the arguements went along these lines
1. The Liberals hit rock bottom in 2022 so no room to fall down
2. Anger in the Jewish community will lead to a swing to the Libs knocking Josh Burns out of the 2CP
3. The Greens vote will hold up or slightly grow due to issues such as the St Kilda primary school hall, Public housing being demolished by state government
4. State Labor unpopularity will lead to a swing against Labor and get Burns knocked out
5. Liberals have a better candidate, more resoucring anger at Morrison would have gone so Libs may slightly rise.
6. Port Melbourne has some tradies and Dutton would appeal to them

When i meant this seat was getting worse demographically for Labor. It means it is sandwiched between young renters and wealthy property owners. No real middle classs nuclear families, unionised workers, poor ethnic communities etc so will become like Griffith in 2022 when Labor was knocked out and it became a GRN/LIB seat.

Middle class professionals are the bulk of seats like Macnamara and Griffith and those are a Labor mainstay that I expect will only continue to strengthen for them. The idea that the Greens and Liberals are set to eat away at Labor from both ends doesn’t seem to be substantiated by evidence. As I mentioned in my reasoning above, I think the Liberals will only weaken in the long term across inner metropolitan capital city regions and that helps Labor, while the Greens haven’t shown any signs of growing across the last few years of elections and if anything are going backwards in their former strongholds. For the Greens to win they have to win north of 40% of the vote and there’s no sign of that, and even in Melbourne where they did have that they still lost.

As for predictions – frankly, anyone who is using corflute numbers to predict results is not making a serious prediction. Polling and more serious electoral analysis by viewing results in recent elections always suggested that Labor was going to be the favourite here, and I don’t think even the optimists for the Greens thought that Labor had no chance. And this was the broad perception – I hate to bring up betting odds, since they are often very flawed, but they do highlight where people were putting their money and Labor was the clear favourite here.

@Adda and Nimalan, I agree with Adda that I don’t think anyone here wrote off Josh Burns.

At most, the commentary was that the Greens had a good chance and it would be a 50/50 tossup between Labor & Greens.

I definitely agree with Nimalan that Josh Burns was underestimated because I don’t think people expected Labor’s primary to end up a full 10 percentage points higher than the Greens, or Labor to get a +5 primary vote swing, but I wouldn’t say anybody thought Josh Burns didn’t have a chance.

Most people (myself included) seemed to think Greens & Labor would be close at the 3CP stage and the Liberals would be first. Partly as a correction to the Libs’ disastrous 2022 campaign here. Labor coming a clear first on both primaries and 3CP was somewhat of a surprise, but Josh Burns holding the seat wasn’t.

@Adda, I also agree that this is a sign these areas are moving strongly to Labor.

Looking at overlapping state seats, even with state Labor apparently “on the nose”, I don’t think Nina Taylor will be in any sort of trouble in Albert Park, and I think Labor will be very competitive in Prahran which will probably be more similar to a 2018 result (very close ALP/GRN margin at 3CP, and whoever finishes higher probably beats the Liberals by a 7-8% margin at the 2CP).