Benambra – Victoria 2022

If the independent runs here again the LNP could easily lose.

An Independent got very close in 2018, wouldn’t be surprised if they ran again off the support of Helen Haines. Nearby Ovens Valley would also be susceptible to an independent challenger, the local National MP was charged with a number of fraud offences just before the last election but cleared in court in 2021. Interesting to see what damage that would’ve done to his local reputation.
Benambra and Ovens Valley both cover the electorate of Indi, so the starting base is already there.

If the claims of guilt by the Prosecution didn’t damage him, then I guess the verdict of innocence from the Judge won’t hurt him either.

Jacqui Hawkins is re-contesting in November, she came within around 1000 votes of winning in 2018.

This is probably the most likely Independent gain in the state. Liberals will likely throw a lot at trying to avoid losing this seat, they can’t afford any losses.

Helen Hayes area,?

Yeah, this is entirely in Helen Haines’s electorate. She got a huge 7.5% swing in Indi but it’s probably the incumbency effect.

I assume the last map combines the primary vote of both independent candidates in 2018.

McGowan was still federal MP when this was last up. Since then Haines has proven you can still win as an independent in this region with the right campaign.

IND gain since Hawkins is running again, but will be marginal.

Especially if Guy survives until the election. This dodgy money business with his chief of staff is madness, and totally toxic.

@Entrepreneur

But Dan stealing millions of public funds and refusing to pay it back is a-ok.

Righto

@Mark The problem with the Matthew Guy scandal is that it basically neutralises the Libs’ campaign on integrity. It doesn’t mean the Labor corruption is ok at all but in the eyes of the average voter, it makes the Libs look as bad as Labor in terms of integrity and corruption. It also has echoes of 2018 with the lobster with a mobster campaign and we all know how well that turned out for the Libs then. That is why the scandal has scared so many Lib MPs and candidates to the point that some want to Matthew Guy to be replaced. The state Libs seem to have a problem where every time it finally looks like they are getting back in the game, an internal problem happens and messes everything up just like with the Tim Smith drunk driving incident last November.

@Dan M

I won’t argue at all with that, but the problem comes when VIC Labor/Dan supporters point the finger at Guy when Dan himself held repeated quid-pro-quo dinners at the Flower Drum restaurant in China Town. He met corrupt developer John Woodman there who, at the time, was representing none other than Antonio Madafferi, also known as the lobster monster. Funny how that barely got any attention. Anyway….

So it’s hilarious that Matthew Guy gets all the flack when Dan is actually worse, especially when you account for all the misuse of taxpayer funds, the failed infrastructure projects, health system failures, VicForrests logging, IBAC hearings and so on (literally too many to list).

Of course, any corruption that Dan’s involved in gets about 5 minutes in the media, while Matthew Guy gets an entire week on one issue, so this plays a huge part on how the two are perceived by the average voter.

Ultimately there will be a swing to the Libs in seat count and vote share regardless, because Dan generates more hatred than Matthew Guy. A potato could take the place of Guy and the Libs would still get a swing towards them at this point. Best case for the Libs would be to pick up Hawthorne (quite likely at this stage), and parachute Pesutto in as Leader. If John was Lib leader now, Dan would be facing wipeout.

Matthew Guy is already spending time up in this electorate with election promises, I think the Liberals are fairly worried they could lose this seat to Jacqui Hawkins the Independent. Very difficult to find any path for the Liberals to form a majority government if they’re losing seats at the same time to the cross-bench and Labor in other parts of the state.

Jacqui Hawkins, a former advisor to Cathy McGowan, will run again. Matthew Guy and the Libs have reasons to be worried based on federal election results.

Helen Haines got a 7.5% swing to her and scored a higher 2PP result than what Cathy McGowan ever did in Indi. Indi covers all of Benambra and most of Owens Valley.

Jacqui Hawkins ran in 2018, long before Helen Haines or Zali Steggall entered federal parliament. She may feel buoyed by independent and teal successes at the federal election and would want to emulate them. On the flip side, the Liberals may have learned a thing or two from the close call here in 2018 and their federal election losses.

I still think this is a likely Independent gain. Also, there are so many Liberal/National MPs in regional Victoria who have held seats like this for close to 20 years and basically never left the backbench – really odd.

More people in Indi voted for Haines in May than had ever voted for McGowan or Haines previously, so Hawkin’s chances a pretty decent.

This one will go down to the wire. Hawkins, the Independent, seems an effective candidate.

I think that the Vic Libs announcing that they’re lowering the independent driving age from 18 to 17 is good for teen workers, rural folk, and early school leavers. I put that here since that pledge is being targeted at seats like Benambra.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7993664/vic-coalition-vows-to-change-driving-age/

It’s very much a target to border electorates like Benambra and Mildura where kids in NSW get their P’s at 17.

@Witness This pledge if implemented would likely apply statewide as in the other states. Although, you’re 100% right with it being a target pledge in border seats.

Suffer in your jocks teals

I think this seat and Pakenham are the best examples of federal results not necessarily translating to state results. Haines would have won this by around 9% yet Tilley was re-elected by around 1%.

@Ben the sweetest moment was when the Voices volunteers left the prepoll count at 1am in the morning cussing how they could of lost.

the way election night was here you would of thought it was a presidential election. there was no state election here just Tilley v Hawkins.

Sitting MP and dare I say friend of mine bill tilley has announced he won’t contest the next election

@John not surprising since he’s been in since 2006, meaning that by the time of the next election he’ll have been in Parliament for 20 years.

Nationals could have opening here, But I never full understood why the Libs are strong around this border region of NSW and Victoria (Albury, Wagga Wagga, Indi, etc) I am sick and tired of the Libs being complacent about these rural areas, Time to give the Nats a chance.

Geographically speaking it would be better for the Libs to run in areas like Coffs Harbour, Ballina, Tweed, etc. and let the Nats run in Wagga Wagga and Benambra for Victoria. Would make much more sense.

If Cathy McGowan was to announce she was running here as a “Independent revival” in Victoria would she win? I would suspect she is a much stronger candidate than Suzanna Sheed in Shepparton.

@daniel t it’s more urban that’s why in Vic they can both run as there is zFPV and from I hear they are planning to. Also fully agree on Ballina. The nats aren’t winning there Cathy won’t she’s out now won’t divulge my knowledge of the libs here either. If HH sides with a Labor minority govt independents will be finished both in benambra and indi

Also I think you.meant rival

@Daniel T in NSW the Coalition virtually never runs two candidates in a seat (I say this as a Liberal member). I’ll make a map of this tomorrow but basically the Liberals contests every seat in the Sydney Basin (Sydney, the Central Coast, the Illawarra, the Blue Mountains, the Hawkesbury and the Southern Highlands) as well as every seat in Newcastle and on the South Coast. The only other seat they contest is Port Macquarie which is a Liberal seat simply due to the defection of the Nationals MP Leslie Williams who joined the Liberals in 2020. In 2023, a rare case of two Coalition candidates running in the same seat in NSW occurred in two seats: Port Macquarie (where Labor’s vote was already bad and it dropped more allowing it to be a Liberal vs National contest, a phenomenon that only occurs in very safe conservative seats in regional and rural areas), which was because of the defection of Leslie Williams (who was easily re-elected over Nationals candidate Peta Pinson, the local Mayor), and Wagga Wagga, which I’m not sure why but the Nationals finished second to the incumbent independent MP Joe McGirr and made the final count (but lost easily to Joe McGirr) while the Liberals finished fourth, surprisingly falling behind Labor. It’s odd because even though Wagga is usually a Liberal seat and the Liberals only lost it to Joe McGirr at a by-election after corrupt MP Darryl McGuire resigned (people hated him personally for his corrupt conduct but Gladys was, and still is, widely liked and trusted). Yet that by-election was in 2019, before the state election, and at the state election, the Nationals contested but the Liberals didn’t. So I really don’t get why Wagga was like that. In 2027, however, I know that Port Macquarie will only have a Liberal candidate and no Nationals candidate for the first time ever (and the Liberals will win easily), while I think Wagga will have just a Nationals candidate but I’m not sure.

However, I agree that if the sitting members for Coffs Harbour and Tweed resigned today they should be replaced with Liberal candidates. Ballina might be a good seat for a Liberal to contest but they still won’t win it back from the Greens by just changing parties: to win it back you’d need all the Byron Bay hippies to move back to the city or out to little communes in the bush just west of Byron in the seats of Clarence and Lismore where they would have little effect on the seats given they have plenty of other rural towns and the cities of Grafton and Lismore, respectively. And I don’t think either of those things are happening: in fact hippie towns other than the ones around Byron Bay and Mullumbimby seem to have become less hippie and the Greens vote has fallen in those towns, yet in Byron and Mullumbimby and the surrounding hippie towns neither of those things have happened.

The Victorian Coalition doesn’t have a rule about both parties not being able to contest the same seat like the NSW Coalition does, which leads to seats contested by both parties. Personally I think they shouldn’t contest the same seat but in Victoria there’s compulsory preferential voting just like in other states and the NT plus of course on the federal level while NSW has optional preferential voting and I think that’s where the NSW rule stems from (plus the fact that the NSW Coalition has always remained relatively stable while the Victorian Coalition has been broken on several occasions).

At the 2022 Victorian state election, the there were five seats where the Liberals and the Nationals both fielded candidates: Bass (Labor vs Liberal), Euroa (National vs Labor), Mildura (National vs independent), Morwell (National vs Labor) and Shepparton (National vs independent). None were Liberal vs National contests.

The seats where both parties have ran in other years however is different and it was actually less common. In 2018, this phenomenon occurred in just three seats Bendigo East (Labor vs Liberal), Morwell (independent vs Labor) and Shepparton (independent vs Liberal). In 2014, it also only occurred in three seats, but three completely different ones: Burinyong (Labor vs Liberal), Eildon (Liberal vs Labor), Euroa (National vs Labor) and Ripon (Liberal vs Labor).

*I meant to say four seats in 2014 not three.

Anyway, here’s a summary showing the seats where the Liberals and Nationals contested by election (21st century):

* 2002: 17 seats (Benalla, Benambra, Bendigo East, Bendigo West, Gippsland East, Gippsland South, Lowan, Mildura, Morwell, Murray Valley, Narracan, Polwarth, Ripon, Rodney, Shepparton, South-West Coast, Swan Hill)
* 2006: 20 seats (Bass, Benalla, Benambra, Bendigo East, Bendigo West, Gembrook, Gippsland East, Gippsland West, Hastings, Lowan, Mildura, Morwell, Murray Valley, Narracan, Polwarth, Ripon, Rodney, Shepparton, South-West Coast, Swan Hill)
* 2010: five seats (Bendigo East, Bendigo West, Gippsland East, Ripon, Seymour)
* 2014: four seats (Burinyong, Eildon, Euroa, Ripon)
* 2018: three seats (Bendigo East, Morwell, Shepparton)
* 2022: five seats (Bass, Euroa, Mildura, Morwell, Shepparton)

Note that the Coalition officially did not exist in Victoria between 1999 (after the Coalition’s shock defeat at the state election) and 2008.

@np the reason for te 2 candidates in port Macquarie is because it was Nationals seat but the member defected to they exercised their right to run. And there was a reason for Wagga but I forgot exactly the reason the libs finished fourth was because their vote went to the nats. Based on this result and the nats holding it federally they should run. Also I agree they should run in ballina as they would do better then the nats. In regards to Tweed the nats will continue to run their until it becomes unwinnable as they will press their claim. In regards to nswvs Vic they run 2 candidates because Vic has FPV so any votes simply come back to them unlike naw where they can exhaust. The libs should also be running a candidate in Richmond federally. They are allowed to compete for the same seat in Vic and federally due to FPV but their is a handshake agreement they will not contest against the other where their is a little ng member as there is no point wasting resources on a seat you already hold.

The reason why the Liberals finished 4th in the Wagga state election was because Liberal candidate Julia Ham made up a story that she had a commitment from the Liberal party that the main bridge in Wagga would be duplicated if she was elected and the Liberals won government. National Party MLC and Wagga local Wes Fang called her out that what she was saying was fantasy and demanded that she exclude herself from running.

It also didn’t help that Julie Ham isn’t even from Wagga where the vast majority of the voters are.