GRN 6.9 vs ALP
Incumbent MP
Adam Bandt, since 2010.
Geography
Central Melbourne. Melbourne covers the Melbourne CBD, as well as the inner city suburbs of North Melbourne, Parkville, Carlton, Docklands, Abbotsford, Fitzroy, Ascot Vale, Richmond and East Melbourne. The seat covers a majority of the City of Melbourne and City of Yarra and a small part of the City of Stonnington.
Redistribution
Melbourne shifted south, picking up South Yarra and part of Prahran south of the Yarra from Higgins and Macnamara, and losing Clifton Hill to Cooper, and Carlton North, Fitzroy North and Princes Hill to Wills. These changes cut the Greens margin from 10.2% to 6.9%.
History
Melbourne is an original Federation seat, and was held by the ALP for over one hundred years before it was won by the Greens in 2010.
The seat was first won by Malcolm McEacharn, the former Mayor of Melbourne, who joined the Protectionist Party. Although McEacharn had defeated his Labor opponent William Maloney with over 60% of the vote in 1901, the 1903 election saw McEacharn only defeat Maloney by 77 votes, and the result was declared void after allegations that the result was tainted.
Maloney defeated McEacharn at the following by-election in 1904, and the ALP held Melbourne for the next century. Maloney polled over 60% at the 1906 election, and never polled less than 60% as he held the seat right through to 1940. Indeed, Maloney was elected unopposed at two elections. Maloney retired in 1940 but died before the 1940 election. He never held a frontbench role, and holds the record for the longest term of service without serving as a frontbencher.
The seat was won in 1940 by Arthur Calwell. Calwell held the seat for thirty-two years. He served as Minister for Immigration in Ben Chifley’s government from 1945 to 1949. He served as HV Evatt’s Deputy Leader from 1951 until 1960, when he became Leader of the Opposition.
Calwell led the ALP into three federal elections. The ALP was defeated by a slim margin at the 1961 election, but suffered a larger defeat in 1963 and a solid Liberal landslide in 1966. Calwell was replaced as Leader by Gough Whitlam in 1967 and Calwell retired in 1972. At no time did the seat of Melbourne come under any serious danger of being lost.
The seat was won in 1972 by Ted Innes, who held the seat until 1983.
He was succeeded by Gerry Hand, who served as a federal minister from 1987 until his retirement at the 1993 election.
The seat was won in 1993 by Lindsay Tanner. Tanner became a frontbencher following the defeat of the Labor government in 1996, and served on the Labor frontbench right until the election of the Rudd government, and served as Finance Minister in the first term of the Labor government.
The seat of Melbourne had been considered a safe Labor seat for over a century, but at the 2007 election the Greens overtook the Liberals on preferences and came second, and the two-candidate-preferred vote saw the ALP’s margin cut to 4.7%.
In 2010, Tanner retired, and his seat was won by the Greens’ Adam Bandt, who had first run for the seat in 2007.
Bandt was elected with the benefit of preferences from the Liberal Party, but in 2013 managed to win a second term despite the Liberal Party preferencing Labor. Despite losing these preferences, Bandt’s margin was only cut by 0.6%, and his primary vote jumped 7%. Bandt has since been re-elected in 2016, 2019 and 2022.
Bandt was elected leader of the Australian Greens in early 2020.
Assessment
The margin in Melbourne was significantly cut by the redistribution, but the Greens vote south of the Yarra was produced without the strong position of Adam Bandt personally – I expect he would pick up more support in that area, and retain his seat easily.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Adam Bandt | Greens | 47,883 | 49.6 | +1.6 | 44.7 |
| Keir Paterson | Labor | 24,155 | 25.0 | +3.9 | 25.7 |
| James Damches | Liberal | 14,660 | 15.2 | -6.0 | 19.5 |
| Colleen Bolger | Victorian Socialists | 3,156 | 3.3 | +3.0 | 2.6 |
| Richard Peppard | Liberal Democrats | 1,596 | 1.7 | +1.7 | 1.9 |
| Justin Borg | United Australia | 1,709 | 1.8 | +0.6 | 1.9 |
| Bruce Poon | Animal Justice | 1,316 | 1.4 | -0.7 | 1.4 |
| Scott Robson | Independent | 1,094 | 1.1 | +1.1 | 0.9 |
| Walter Stragan | One Nation | 937 | 1.0 | +1.0 | 0.8 |
| Others | 0.4 | ||||
| Informal | 2,993 | 3.0 | 0.0 |
2022 two-candidate-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Adam Bandt | Greens | 58,050 | 60.2 | 56.9 | |
| Keir Paterson | Labor | 38,456 | 39.8 | 43.1 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Keir Paterson | Labor | 75,191 | 77.9 | +10.1 | 73.1 |
| James Damches | Liberal | 21,315 | 22.1 | -10.1 | 26.9 |
Booths have been divided into four areas. Fitzroy, Carlton and Abbotsford are grouped as North-East. East Melbourne and Richmond are grouped as East. Booths close to the Melbourne CBD are grouped as West. Those south of the Yarra are grouped as South-East.
The Greens topped the primary vote in all four areas, with a vote ranging from 34% in the south-east to 57.2% in the north-east.
The ALP came second, with a primary ranging from 23.2% in the north-east to 27.9% in the south-east. The Liberal Party came third, with a primary ranging from 9% in the north-east to 29.6% in the south-east.
| Voter group | GRN prim | ALP prim | LIB prim | Total votes | % of votes |
| East | 44.7 | 24.5 | 20.9 | 10,324 | 10.9 |
| North-East | 57.2 | 23.2 | 9.0 | 10,033 | 10.6 |
| West | 51.5 | 24.2 | 12.2 | 9,984 | 10.5 |
| South-East | 34.0 | 27.9 | 29.6 | 6,258 | 6.6 |
| Pre-poll | 44.0 | 26.4 | 19.8 | 35,904 | 37.8 |
| Other votes | 40.3 | 26.2 | 23.6 | 22,470 | 23.7 |
Election results in Melbourne at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-candidate-preferred votes (Greens vs Labor and Labor vs Liberal), two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Greens, Labor and the Liberal Party.
@Nether Portal It’s not wokeness that won Labor Melbourne. If anything, it’s Labor not leaning into the woke debate that gave them an increased vote at the expense of the Greens which helped them leapfrog the latter.
Most of the new Melbourne are the professional class people who aren’t receptive to the activist-heavy iteration of the Greens in this election. Yes places like Parkville, Carlton, Fitzroy and Collingwood are still very left-leaning but they’re not as strong as Brunswick or Northcote in terms of their left-wing strength, and losing its northern portion for a more swingy South Yarra and Prahran which is far more competitive for Labor contributed to this effect. Bandt’s party leaned too heavily into the ‘outrage’ bandwagon whilst Labor fought a consistent campaign on the bread and butter issues with bread and butter solutions, more than the Greens’ fantasy world. Palestine also turned a lot of neutral voters off as they saw it as a distraction from the Greens’ pro-environment background, and a lot of those people from the middle/upper class switched to Labor as a result.
The Liberals were never going to win this seat in any cases so it was always going to be down to Greens versus Labor. In this case the Greens overplayed their initial trump card of being outraged over every single thing and Labor stuck to their A game and was rewarded handsomely with a win. Melbourne’s now safer for Labor than Wills now. Even if Bandt contests again in 2028 he might not be able to have much leverage given his personal vote is gone and Sarah Witty will likely experience a sophomore surge to keep the seat.
@GPPS left-wing.
@Tommo9 I do agree that the new Melbourne isn’t as left-wing as the old one but it’s still very progressive, as you mentioned there are still suburbs like Carlton, Collingwood, Fitzroy and Parkville that are leftist and activist.
@ NP
Parkville is not as activist it has a lot of expensive terrace homes and is leafy
Furthermore Parkville was never working class to start with
@Tommo9, Northcote is not as ‘left’ as Brunswick, or even Parkville, Fitzroy, Collingwood, Carlton. Well at least the ‘left’ voters in that suburb much prefer Labor over the Greens.
@ Adam
As i mentioned above i dont think Parkville should be compared to Fitzroy, Collingwood or Brunswick so please dont make that comparision. Parkville was never working class so does not have warehouse conversions etc it may have some uni students but otherwise have much more expensive homes due to Royal Park. Parkville is not Bohemian at all.
@Nimalan I thought Parkville was more susceptible to being activist due to having Melbourne uni’s main campus right in the middle of it and a corresponding high green vote. But you’re right it does look a lot more posh compared to the average Melbourne inner city suburb, almost old-fashioned British old money posh, like Clifton Hill which swung hard to Labor. Perhaps the high Greens vote could be attributed to Adam Bandt’s personal vote? Because this should otherwise be a safe Labor area and I presume Lindsay Tanner would’ve done better in Parkville when he held the seat vs Labor today.
@Adam would it be fair to say that the suburbs on the eastern side of the creek (Northcote, Thornbury) etc are less ‘woke’ or ‘outrage-inclined’ than the western side like Brunswick and Coburg? High Street looks very similar to Sydney Road on the other side but the Greens margin in Northcote and Thornbury are minuscule compared to Brunswick and (increasingly) Coburg.
@ Tommo9
Agree that it does have a large student population but in Australia univeristies do not have as big impact because apart from interstate, Regional and International (who dont vote) students people tend still live at home so different to UK or USA which is why we dont have frat parties and college sports are not a big thing in Australia. Also high rents will mean some students will have to settle for Brunswick instead. For this reason Parkville will have a lot of University Deans etc living there as well as Doctors due to big hospitals nearby. Parkville does have a Push feel and live you said Old Fashioned British Old money posh.
@Tommo9 Yes, the eastern side is less ‘outrage inclined’ – Northcote has an average household income around 10% higher than Brunswick, and the median age is 37 in Northcote compared to 34 in Brunswick. Brunswick has way more 20-24 year olds than the state average, whereas in Northcote this age group is below the state average, while 25-29 year olds and 30-34 year olds make up a greater proportion. Brunswick proportion of children is about half the state average, while Northcote is close to the average so clearly more families.
I guess a similar pattern would emerge with Coburg v Thornbury/Preston.
In terms of High St v Sydney Rd, they both have lots of bars, pubs, restaurants etc, but High St has an increasing number of higher end ’boutiques’ which you wouldn’t find on Sydney Rd, and some of the restaurants on High St are quite high end, which isn’t really the case in Brunswick.
One Nation is taking credit for the defeat of Bandt. They posted “From South Yarra to the Sea, Melbourne will be Free”.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DJX4Lf1y9Hi/?hl=en
Peter Dutton sort of claimed credit for Bandt’s defeat in a tweet. He said it was because his side preferenced the Greens last.
It’ll be interesting to see whether the Greens would like to pursue extra HoR seats in the future. I think Larissa Waters would be more pragmatist as a leader who is a senator. Bandt was more radical, quite economically interventionist and was polarising.
These right wing nutbags seem to think that they’ve defeated the Greens. Fact of the matter is that the Greens primary vote dropped by about the same amount that Labor increased by. It’s Labor gaining momentum in their own right. One Nation and Liberals didn’t win one single booth in Melbourne so I want some of what they’re smoking.
@Tommo9 I agree that One Nation Haf nothing to do with it since their vote here was minuscule but Liberal preferences favouring Labor did indeed help Labor. However, they’ve done this at every election since 2013 so it doesn’t really matter.
As for Bandt himself, he also kinda blamed the right as well. He said he only lost because One Nation preferenced the Liberals and the Liberals preferenced Labor. On one hand he’s (for the first time ever) right, as the Greens got the most primary votes, but on the other hand, that’s no excuse for his primary vote tanking so much. Last time he got almost 50% of the primary vote.
It was a combination of preferences the liberal vote collapsing and labor’s recovery nationwide due to the failed liberal campaign. Also the redistribution. Without all of these factors working together Bandt would have probably won
One Nation got a small amount of votes and the swing came from the absence of minor right wing parties e.g Trumpet of Patriots, Libertarians. Bandt said in his departing remarks that although he got the most primary votes, Liberal and One Nation preferences helped Labor win.
From an electoral perspective, it was the redistribution and surge in Labor vote that worked against him.
@ Votante
Maybe the absence of UAP/TOP helped ONP. However, i dont think Libertarians and ONP have the same demographic voter base just like ONP and Family First/Christian parties dont have the same demograhphic voter base. The UAP did quite well in Victoria last time especially Outer Melbourne due to the lockdowns this time they flopped nationally despite so much advertising. I think Advance Australia campaigning would have driven some Liberal voters to ONP despite the aim of Advance was to hurt Libs.
Aim of Advance was to hurt Labor. The “Weak Woke and Sending us Broke” campaign against Albo may have animated the right flank.