Wills – Australia 2028

I’m expecting Samantha Ratnam to give this another crack in 2028 and I can see the Greens winning this in 2028.

I’m also expecting Sam Ratnam to give it another crack, but I don’t think she’ll win. Palestine is no longer going to be an issue by then (hopefully), and I think Peter Khalil’s a very active local member who’ll probably get some big projects funded over the next three years based on such a slim margin.

I also wouldn’t be shocked if Ratnam moves to the senate to take Lidia Thorpe’s spot once the Greens take it back in 2028. If I was her, I’d probably take the safe guarantee (the senate) over being possibly humiliated by losing a third time in the same seat.

@spacefish yeah absolutely. Wills is easily the lowest hanging fruit for the Greens to pick up in 2028, it’s more winnable for them than Melbourne is.

The only thing that could make it interesting is if Peter Khalil retires/loses preselection. Otherwise, I assume it’s a Greens pickup.

I think it is easier to win than Melbourne for the reason i think Sarah Witty could build a personal vote as she is a left-leaning progressive MP. Peter Khalil is a right faction MP and more centrist so there will always be voters turned off by him even if there is peace in Gaza in a way he maybe like David Feeney who was a drag on Labor.

The ALP vs Greens margin here is 1.43%. In Melbourne, it’s 3.02%.

The fact that Peter Khalil is now also the Assistant Defence Minister would absolutely NOT play well in the Brunswick/Coburg section of the electorate. He’d better suit one of the non-polarising seats like Maribyrnong or an outer suburban seat like Scullin, Calwell etc.

A left-winger is needed in the seat of Brunswick, Coburg etc.

Well there goes the idea of a preselection challenge. Aren’t Labor ministers/assistant ministers immune to preselection challenges?

@CJ perhaps but then again if Labor wants to keep Wills they’ll need to think about either sandbagging Khalil heavily or intervene heavily to get him out of there. They could move Ged Kearney across (given she’s a left winger and actually lives in Brunswick) and find someone else who can keep Cooper in the ALP fold.

Given that the left controls the Victorian branches it wouldn’t surprise me if some form of factional maneuvering takes place and displaces Khalil and other right wingers.

@ CJ/Tommo9
I have no personal criticsim of Peter Khalil. He does have an impressive resume and i think he is competent. He also has an amazing migrant history someone who is of Egyptian Coptic background and grew up in Public Housing. However, his foreign policy views are qute Hawkish and Wills is very left-wing and as Coburg gentrifies it is becoming a cheaper version of Bruswick. I do think he is suitable for Maribyrnong, Scullin, Gorton, Lalor etc. He may actually even be a better fit for Bruce, Holt or Hotham on the otherside of town

@Nimalan I think Peter Khalil doesn’t seem to be as willing to speak out about issues like Palestine like Ed Husic and he’s very much someone who sticks to the party line. There was this video online from the socialists (so take that as you will) that showed Peter Khalil walking away from pro-Palestine protestors when they confronted him about supporting Israel. He gave a stock standard response and was also caught yelling at some of the other constituents in Arabic after they went outside to talk about Palestine. It gives off the vibes that he’s arrogant and not willing to budge from the party line on issues that matter to his electorate.

Josh Burns is also from the right but he’s broken from the ranks to talk about other matters rather than sticking to whatever the party wants their MPs to say. It’s likely that’s why he got a swing to him on PV whilst Khalil’s collapsed.

@ Tommo9
I think Peter Khalil is geniunely Pro Israel than Pro-Palestine which is strange considering he is Arab himself. Peter Khalil is also Pro-US and very Anti-China usually people who have Pro Western Hawkish foreign policy like James Paterson, the late Kimberly Kitching, Raff Ciccione are Pro-Israel not Pro-Palestine so if Khalil was a Senator he probably will be vocally Pro-Israel. Khalil had to avoid the topic. I believe Khalil survived narrowly because he courted other ethnic communities such as Italians/Greeks around Pascoe Value/Oak Park and the rapidly growing Nepalese community in Glenroy. Those other ethnic communities would hvae been neutral on the conflict. I dont want to say who is morally right or wrong in the Israel-Palestine conflict as i have both Jewish and Muslim/Arab friends and Khalil is entitiled to his views but his views are not reflective of the direction of Wills.

@Nimalan what will be in favour for Labor in Wills is that the massive swing around Glenroy and Fawkner should correct itself as Australia’s now officially recognised Palestine and called out Israel’s actions more aggressively since the election. That itself should help Labor sandbag the seat north of Bell street and the other half of the quinoa curtain will probably just vote Green but won’t be enough to swing it unless they make more ground in the north.

Also the Greens need to work on their postals as that saved Peter Khalil from losing the on-the-day votes.

@Tommo9
That should help Labor only caution is that the Greens will always change the Goal posts like they do with climate change and housing and say that Labor is too soft. Next time around they may say Palestine recognition is not enough they needs to BDS against Israel or that Israel is banned from 2032 Brisbane Olympics or Australia boycots 2028 LA Olympics due to US support for Israel tht may help them in Wills. Just like Greens voted against CPRS. The other issue is that the Quinoa curtin is moving northwards as Melbourne grows and along the Sydney Road corridor there has been a decline in Italian community as older generations pass away and younger generations move to more suburban areas like Niddie, Keilor etc

I live in Pascoe Vale in Wills. What I think Khalil has done well here to sandbag against the Greens is:

a) Running on more “old school” down-to-earth Labor issues like jobs, industry, and provision of services. This provides something to hook in those Labor or Soft-Green voters who aren’t hung up on foreign policy (or at least it isn’t the number one issue for them).

b) Painting himself as a local who gets things done, contrasting with the Greens as being too pie-in-the-sky obsessed with international politics at the expense of day-to-day concerns of ordinary people.

So far, I’d say he has been quite effective at this.

I keep seeing a lot of people (here and elsewhere) who thinks Khalil needs to win Brunswick, he doesn’t. He just needs to keep what he has and win back Fawkner, which is very easy.

Plus, Wills has one of the highest rates of turnover between elections (people leaving before the next election), and those who come in skew younger, and it’s no longer a given that young people automatically are skewing Greens, especially with the Greens stronghold in Melbourne gone now leaves the Greens party apparatus centred on Brisbane.

He’ll hold on in 2028, and then after the next Federal election we should see the AEC (rightfully) give Victoria back an extra reps seat once the census has been processed and that’ll make the seat safer again, they’ll probably give him Broadmeadows or the bits of the West lost to Maribyrnong and take away Fitzroy/Carlton North and perhaps even take away Brunswick depending on how far the borders need to shift, or perhaps Farrell will get his electoral reforms through, which would probably see a seat like Wills split in two and Khalil can take the top half, Ratnam the bottom half.

Samantha Ratnam may or may not run here again. Either she or Adam Bandt might aim to get the Greens senate spot that Lidia Thorpe got in 2022.

Surely, the Greens will target Wills heavily in 2028 to avenge for the losses in 2025. I can’t say that the Greens will win it.

I was speaking last night to a friend who lives in Wills and is poltically tuned in:
– gave Peter Khalil credit for a hard campaign but the view is that the Brunswick end is growing with more Greens voters and they are moving north.
– Samantha Ratnam was polarising, people either like or dislike and a fair few voters were turned off after dealing with her personally. I.e. there might be a better candidate out there.

It has to be said that the Greens in the Northern Suburbs do tend to put out the same candidates until they hit a use by date.

@Redistributed when you said use-by date the first person I thought of was Alex Bhathal. I mean, she contested Batman/Cooper for 7 elections straight (2001-2018). Talk about desperation.

Last time Greens ran heavily on Palestine to appeal to the north. In the end the north did swing but it wasn’t enough to unseat Khalil whilst bar Brunswick, most of the south, including the new suburbs around Carlton and Fitzroy North swung hard to Labor. Next election the issue of Palestine will mostly be neutralised and the north should return back to being fairly safe for Labor. Whether Labor could make any further inroads around the Brunswick will depend on how they deal with housing, climate change and so forth given that Brunswick is the most left-wing place out there.

Labor will be probably never win against the Greens in Brunswick again. Brunswick is the most left wing suburb in Australia, and a more radical kind of left wing, not a leafy, professional, progressive type that is increasingly the profile further east in Northcote, Fitzroy, Clifton Hill etc

@Adam I agree although I guess if Labor wants to stretch their margin in Wills they kind of have to make up some sort of ground in areas like Brunswick and Coburg (which is becoming rather Green these days despite having a bigger population of boomers). They were saved this time by the fact that the huge margin that the Greens had in Carlton North and Fitzroy North (from Melbourne) were cut heavily by a big swing to Labor plus postals which balanced out the negative swing in Brunswick, Coburg, Glenroy and Fawkner (what with a massive swing to the Greens, which I guess is the big Muslim area).

If Labor can recover some of that big swing this time north of Bell Street and eat into the Greens’ margins in Brunswick or Coburg then that should be a comfortable win for them. 1.4% is nothing to be proud of and they can do better.

If Sam Ratnam wants to go federal she’d be better off going onto the Senate ticket where she’ll definitely win if she’s No.1.

Labor will easily win back Fawkner and Glenroy and even some of the Coburg vote next time as Labor has now recognised Palestine and it’s unlikely to be as big of an issue next election. I don’t think the Palestine issue was as much of a factor in Brunswick which has a smaller Middle Eastern population. Obviously the voters there are extremely pro Palestine, but more the type of white activist Pro Palestine type who would have voted Greens before the latest escalation in the middle east anyway.

@ Adam
No disrepect to Peter Khalil but as the seat gentrifies he will be more like David Feeney. If David Feeney ran again in 2019 or 2022 it is very possible your seat of Cooper/Batman would have had a Greens MP. There was no international issue that hurt David Feeney in 2016 but he still nearly lost. Peter Khalil is quite Hawkish on Foreign policy (even without Palestine) and Coburg is gentrifying and becoming more like Brunswick with Anglo Progressives replacing the older Greek/Italian communities. Maybe Fawkner/Glenroy and Hadfield will swing back but the Middle East is very unstable and the Greens can always shift the goalposts maybe in 2031 they will say Israel should be banned from the 2032 Olympics so i dont think Labor can really neutralise the issue if it erupts again. I have personally said many times before that Peter Khalil should be shifted to Senate or another seat and a left-wing MP should ran in Wills. For example if Ged Kearney retires i will certainly not recommened that Senator Raff Ciccione who is very right wing for a Labor MP is moved to content your electorate.

Khalil is gone in 2028. the only thing that saved him this year was the poor liberal campaign and the surprising well disciplined labor campagin.

@ John
Labor can afford to loose Wills to Greens now that have Melbourne, Brisbane and Griffith. They have also secured themselves in Macnamara