Maribyrnong – Australia 2028

One booth in Kensington probably had the highest Labor 2PP of all the seats with a classic ALP vs Coalition contest in 2025. The Greens got 53% of the primary vote. There were double-digit primary vote swings to the Greens in Kensington and Flemington in 2025. This was part of a national trend of low-income areas and areas with public housing swinging to the Greens.

The Greens finished third in the seat overall. This means preferences from Greens voters had to be distributed to the two major parties. Most of them went to Labor.

Some booths in seats ALP vs Green contests have much higher Labor 2PPs e.g. Brunswick in Wills and Newtown in Grayndler/Sydney.

@ Votante

Nether Portal did a table with all booths over 80% TCP.

Some comments i made to Nether Portal
.What is interesting about your table this time compared to the one you did for the 2022 election is there are now working class outer suburban booths where there was no signficant third candidate for example
1. Airds North (Macarthur)
2. Bradbury (Macarthur)
3. Springvale Central (Hotham)
4. Dandenong South (Issacs)
5. Inala/Richlands (Oxley)
6. Port Norgulana (Kingston)
Last time the strongest Labor booths had strong Green vote for example Marrickville (Barton), Castlemaine etc. Someday Labor could like booths in Scullin, Gorton, Rankin, Chifley and Spence to appear on that list as well

https://jumpshare.com/share/7uGPEm0iOWulHIIedfXh

@Nimalan, that’s an insightful list. Most of the working-class, outer suburban booths you mentioned had either had a strong Labor primary vote of over 50% or a swing to the Greens.

In working-class electorates, one reason why the Liberals did better in 2022 was because the Covid pandemic made a lot of voters swing away from Labor and to right-wing, minor parties (and most of the preferences went to the Liberals). Also, Scott Morrison was more popular than Peter Dutton was.

I didn’t expect a rural locale, Tanja (Eden-Monaro), to have a Labor 2PP of beyond 90%.

Agree Votante
The lockdown swings were partly reversed this time around. Labor still has room to increase their vote in Booths like Thomastown, Lalor, Deer Park. Mount Druitt, Woodridge, Davoren Park etc so those electorates on the list may appear someday. I actually dont know much about Tanja will be good if a local can share insights.

@Nimalan @Votante – I think Tanja has bit of a hippie vibe to it, in 2022 the Greens polled 44% and in 2025 it was just over 45%. I’d assume it’s a similar story to some booths in Page/Richmond, small in size but with a big Green vote likely as a result of hippies/environmentally-conscious voters.

If Maribyrnong loses the northern end and extends into North Melbourne and the likes the Greens could well make the 2CP in the future, conversely if it extends north or west then the Liberals could close the gap but won’t get close given Essendon and Niddrie are the only places that are more likely to swing compared to the northern extremities which are trending Labor.

Thanks James for the info
@ Tommo9
I agree, the boundaries make it hard for either Greens or Libs to win eventhough both parties have areas where they do well in. If it extends into Keilor, Taylors Lake it will help Libs but not sure if well be able to over come the strong Labor vote in parts of the seat. It could also extend into Attwood parts of Greenvale (suburb not state electorate) it will help Liberals but may not be enough if it keeps the Southern end. The Southern end is also densifying so is probably helping Labor even is parts of the electorate around Niddrie are getting better for Libs.

The Kensington part should be put back into Melbourne.

@Spacefish I agree. It sticks out like a sore thumb in Maribyrnong.

Also, I’m pretty sure that’s where Adam Bandt lives/lived.

you could probably make an argument for just scappring the whole seat and splitting it off. you could then have the city of mooney valley nad marbyrnong in one seat brimbank in its own seat. merri-bek all in wills and split hume between calwell and hawke.

I would have Maribyrnong only covering Moonee Ponds, Essendon, Essendon North, Niddrie, Keilor, Keilor East, if that was short of quota, then add the area west of 58 tram – Brunswick West and Pascoe Vale South. Then, put Flemington and Footscray into Gellibrand, which frees up the western end of Gellibrand for Lalor.

Opps left Strathmore out.

Bant lives in Flemington, not Kensington

Maribyrnong is growing faster than the average at the moment, i would have it as city of Moonee Valley plus Merri-beks box forrest and Djirri-Djirri wards. This ould give it an enrollment of just over 114,250 electors.

Ait no longer needs to have the city of Maribrynong in it

@moonlight it doesnt even have the city of Maribyrnong in it anyway. its all in Fraser

John, you said above that “you could then have the city of mooney valley nad marbyrnong in one seat” so i was commenting that it doesn’t need to go that way anymore

@ Pencil, in your proposal, where are you putting Ascot Vale and Travencore?

More importantly what’s happened to Fraser?

Marinyenong would be moonee valley and about half of marinyenong on current numbers and then fraser would be the other half and move further into brimbank and lose Hobson’s bay to gellibrand.

Alternatively fraser can be all of marinyenong and part of moonee valley and marinyenong can be the brimbank seat.

Correction. Fraser would probably move further south into Hobson’s bay and lose parts of brombank to gorton

Captain Moonlight, I would keep Ascot Vale and Travencore in Maribyrnong, i would want to keep all the City of Moonee Valley within the one federal seat.

Thanks Pencil, I agree with keeping all of Moonee Valley in 1 seat, but your suggestion above is to move Flemington into Gellibrand, which is part of Moonee Valley.

I understand Footscray but not Flemington

Captain Moonlight, thanks, i didn’t realise that about Flemington.

I forgot to post on December 10th so i will do it today instead. It has been 70 years since the 1955 Split when the DLP broke away. This seat was a stronghold of the DLP as it is the most Catholic seat in the Nation. Libs managed to win this seat on DLP preferences from 1955 Split until 1969 when the DLP started to recede. The DLP also prevented Whitlam becoming PM in 1969. The DLP also prevent Calwell from being PM in 1961. The DLP were a wedge in the Labor party support base a bit like Teals today. Eventually the Wedge ended Labor accepted funding Catholic Schools, Nixon Visited China and the Vietnam war ended. Even in the 1975 landslide (annivesary today) Libs would still miss out on this seat Corio etc. Before the 1955 split the only other time that Labor would loose the this seat would be the 1931 split in the Labor party over economic policy. This interesting in the context of the Teals , debates about Net Zero etc

Yes indeed, the DLP can be credited for keeping Labor out of office for years. It will be interesting to see what impact the teals, Greens and One Nation have in the long term on the Liberals.

The DLP just wore out. They never regenerated – they went to the Senate election in 1974 – with their youngest senator (Jack Little) being 59 and Frank McManus being 69. The senators had all been active in the splits of 1955 and 1957 and no younger person came forward (or was allowed to). They were stuck in 1955 and Australia had well and truly moved on. The Victorian Labor intervention of 1970 moved Victorian Labor away from the hard left and made the ALP more palatable. They were also seen as a Catholic party which made them unpalatable to many. For much of the 60s they were in some ways more progressive than Labor – opposed White Australia and supported the extension of the welfare state. But they became dinosaurs – and the social and political changes of the 1970s were like a comet and wiped them out.

Years ago I recall reading a long form article about the DLP in a magazine called the Current Affairs Bulletin. It was published in may be 1968. It postulated the view that the DLP was and could be the centrist political home of the aspirational middle classes living in middle suburbia – the eastern suburbs of Melbourne for example. That of course did not come to pass.

@ SpaceFish
With respect to Greens
I feel with the exception of Ryan which is a traditionally a blue ribbon seat like the current Teal held seats and Goldstein which Labor has never won before at a General election before, the other Greens targets like Wills for example dont actually have a long term blocker for Liberals forming government in essence it is an ALP to GRN Shift rather than the LIB to GRN shift we saw in Ryan.
With Respect to Teals
They are most simmilar to DLP in that they are a wedge in the traditional centre right Coalition namely it is the Educated Professional Class that left and became Teal so if Libs cant win this demographic back they need to look at an Alternative.
With Respect to ONP they are the right flank of Coalition a bit like VS and to some extent the Greens are the left flank of Labor. They include a lot of people especially in Rural areas who will never vote Labor and dont want to move to Centre so they are the opposte of the Teals. They represent the Coalition’s self-employed and rural base

@ Redistributed some great points which i agree with
1. DLP did not have any regeneration and were ageing. As Baby Boomers started to eneter electoral roll from 1969 onwards it was fatal for them
2. The DLP were progressive on many issues for their time such as Abolishing White Australia. Some of the views they hold today for example on LGBT, Abotion etc reflected Australia of the Late 1950s. As society became more Secular they looked like Dinosaurs
3. Victorian Labor and the Whitlam intervention helped move Labor to centre i think accepting Catholic school funding (State Aid) was a major turning point.
4. I do think some of the Foreign policy wedge issues i mentioned Vietnam War, PRC Recognition became redudant which also in part defeated the logic of the DLP.

The most significant existential threat to the Liberals, IMO at least, in the future is the age thing. The average age of a Liberal voter is 59. John Howard couldn’t win an election today. He did well in the 90s and oughts because the country was ready to have some “steady as she goes” for a while after a lot of change during the Hawke/Keating years. ON is peeling off a lot of voters, but they are mostly older, outer-metro and rural voters. While every vote counts the same, it is a short runway when you are attracting a piece of the pie that is getting smaller. Millennials lean left but not so lopsided. Gen Z and Alpha, the Liberals, and ON basically do not exist in their political world. Labor and the Greens (plus some others thrown in for good measure) consume a majority of their primary votes. I wonder if ON and the move away from Net Zero will be a bit like the DLP, in that, eventually, as Boomers and older Gen X ride off into the sunset, the numbers will drop off.

I could easily see, in say 2034, a lot of Labor v Green contests in lefty seats once there are a sufficient number of Gen Z and Gen Alpha voters.

I could see the Coalition between Lib/Nat/On if they had the numbers to form government. Hanson may be dead by then, but if Joyce is still around, he will want a seat at the table, which is how I view his move to ON. He wants to be back on the front bench, and ON is the easiest path now.

Imagine having someone like Moss Cass as your MP.

@craig the thing is as people get older and families and investments they want to look after they become more conservative. The liberal party is not dead just as the republican party is not dead. as their voters age and eventualy die so do the traditional base of the left hey get older and change their political beliefs and voting patterns

Gen Z currently lean left, however, the thing to remember is eventually the Liberal Party will start preselecting candidates from Gen Z, that will be when the Liberal Party will start becoming relevant to Gen Zers. This is why the next Liberal PM will more likely be a moderate women.

@Craig Ben did a great podcast just after the 2022 election with Shaun Ratcliffe that covers many of the topics you’ve raised — worth a listen if you haven’t already. It sets out the distinction between lifecycle effects and cohort effects, and how both shape voting behaviour.

John is right about lifecycle effects: as people hit major milestones — moving out of home, getting married, buying property, entering the workforce, having children, paying off a mortgage, and eventually retiring — these shifts tend to influence voting patterns, all else being equal.

But cohort effects matter too. The ABS has looked at census results every 15 years, focusing on each generation once they enter the 25–39 age bracket (link below). Baby Boomers reached this bracket in 1991, Gen X in 2006, and Millennials in 2021. I’m looking forward to seeing the equivalent data for Gen Z in 2036.

Lifecycle effects are one reason I think Pearce may be the first seat to show Millennials drifting toward the Liberals when the party potentially regains it, perhaps in 2028. Pearce has a low median age and lots of young families, but it also has several demographic features that make it relatively Liberal‑friendly and likely, in my view, to trend that way as residents age:

Low proportion of rental households

Very high share of detached housing

Above‑average incomes and strong quality of life

Low CALD population; predominantly Anglo

Lower tertiary education levels and an above‑average share of trades workers

However, there are also structural challenges for the Liberals. Younger generations have higher rates of no religion, greater racial and ethnic diversity, higher education levels, and potentially lower rates of home ownership before age 50. These factors can blunt the usual lifecycle effects that traditionally benefit the Liberals. If more seats resembled Pearce, the party’s path would be easier.

As for Gen Z, I think it’s too early to draw conclusions. Many are still in high school, and most haven’t yet entered the 25–39 cohort where these patterns become clearer.

https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/back-my-day-comparing-millennials-earlier-generations

Oh i forgot to link to Ben’s podcast from 2022 which i especially enjoyed on Generations

https://www.tallyroom.com.au/53757

@Nimalan younger people as a whole are likely to be more socially progressive too. So if the Liberals continue to take culture war angles (such as with LGBT issues and freedom of religion), they won’t win the youth vote.

Cj those people are probly voting labor or green anyway. They need to focus on economic policies not social and culture wars. Those have already been fought and won’t be going back

I would say that the current DLP (debatable if it is just a continuation) is mostly focuses on Christian Right culture wars rather than their economic stances. DLP has also started to jump the anti-multicultural bandwagon which follows alongside the Christian Right’s recent shift to become anti-multicultural.

Young people are more idealistic most are living at home or in a share arrangement with maybe a girlfriend/boyfriend care free about life no responsibility no major bills. They live in a world where life isn’t that hard and think the world is there’s. As they get older and kids become a factor mortgage they become more realistic and begin to focus on what’s best for them.

@Nimalan – thanks for the link I will look into it. I was active for the 2022 election but this election is the first for this blog.

Voters evolve the issues change circumstances change but people don’t forget where they come from. I am in my 40s now and a property owner and fairly settled financially. I am also aware of what it took to get there and the circumstances facing those coming after me. My parents are a bad example due to historical events but it does seem like the Boomers had the easiest glidepath to general prosperity. The parties have to evolve as well. As they say you have to fish where the fishes are.

@John – I think you are dreaming if you think today’s under 30 are living in a world where life isn’t that hard. I do focus on my needs first but not to the fault of making it hard on others. I am not sure I would want to be twenty years younger today than I am. I am not sure I would have made it this far in the same way. And that is a problem.

@ CJ
You are correct younger generations are more socially progressive especially on LGBT issues that is partly due to decline in Religion in the West and part as society has become more accepting. That is the Cohort effect which the podcast discussed
@ Craig
“but people don’t forget where they come from”. Correct that in the Cohort effects as you described especially the events that shaped as they came of age. I came of age in the Late Howard era and 2007 was the first federal election i voted. Palestianian Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah wrote a good book called “Coming of Age during the War on terror”, clearly events like Cronulla riots 2005 would live in imprint for the generation that came of age at that time especially those of Minority backgrounds.