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I’ve always felt that if the Liberals had a moderate leader, a moderate, high-profile candidate, and better boundaries here (remove St Kilda, add in South Yarra), this seat could be a surprise win. This seat has somewhat-winnable demographics closer to the beach, but the Southbank and St Kilda areas tend to be quite unfavourable. There is also the fact that Nina Taylor could get a sophomore surge, unless a local on here has a differing opinion of that.
Libs almost won in 2010 and 2014. Port melbourne has been trending liberal for a while now
I’m local in the sense that I’m in St Kilda (but in Prahran electorate) so I see a lot of activity on local Facebook groups and things like that.
There is some very vocal anti-ALP commentary against Nina Taylor and state Labor in general that seems to be the loudest voice online but it’s just a small, rusted-on minority and mostly people who are aligned with the right-wing ‘Residents of Port Phillip’ (RoPP) group.
The Albert Park & Port Melbourne areas had above-average (for Victoria) swings to Labor at the federal election, and at least year’s council elections, Port Phillip was one of the few councils where Labor ran fully-branded and officially endorsed candidates.
So overall I think the Labor brand will hold up pretty well in this seat, although I don’t know how much of a sophomore surge or personal vote Nina Taylor will have. I expect a small swing against Labor but still a comfortable retain (high-50s 2PP).
The Liberals got very close here in both 2010 (2.1% margin) and 2014 (3% margin).
If the Liberals were more moderate on Social issues they could potentially win this over two elections say they form government narrowly but end up being popular and moderate like the NSW Government focus on sound fiscal management and service delivery but if the Libs end up being like the DLP/Moira Deeming they will be toxic here. People here prefer Tealish Liberals (Economically Right/Socially moderate or atleast Agnostic)
A Teal based Liberal Party would be competitive, both in Albert Park and the overlapping federal seat, and this is perhaps the ultimate irony in the realignment theory, since going right has achieved very little in seats gained, while areas like Albert Park offer a real chance of being won, if only the Liberals could see it.
Agree Nimalan/Pencil, moving to a class war rhetoric instead of a traditional economic based narrative has not served the conservative parties (Coalition/Liberals) well for Australia due to a large proportion of voters residing in major cities unlike other western democracies (mainly UK and USA) where old town industrial and rural areas still carry significant weight.
Voters in the urban areas often work in white collar, service-based industries and these individuals are put off by the class war, anti-woke rhetoric that the right faction of the Liberal Party has embraced.
@Pencil, it’s no coincidence that the Liberals’ best performance in Albert Park was under Ted Baillieu in 2010; and the Liberals’ best ever federal performance in Melbourne Ports / Macnamara was under Malcolm Turnbull in 2016 when the seat actually swung to the Liberals while most of the country swung away.
This was discussed as a potential Greens prospect in recent years.
The main problem is that Major party votes are too close to each other. I would have traditionally thought the Greens best path up would be to overtake Labor with Liberals out in front, but Liberals were actually the closer 3CP rival last time (and would have preferenced Greens to victory at that particular election).
Greens also seem to have lost some local strength. They were wiped out from council in 2024 and looking at booths in MacNamara they seemed to lose primary votes to Labor particularly badly here.
Given they’re now in a fight to win back Prahran that they might not win, and need to sandbag all their other seats, I expect Greens to campaign very little here. The result being a primary vote to drop back to the teens and they could be overtaken by a teal.
The Greens seem to have always really under-performed here at a state level compared to the federal level (or that could be framed at over-performing at the federal level).
The Greens went backwards significantly at the federal level, but due to the large gap between state & federal here, I don’t necessarily think that will translate to a significant swing against at state level. Their vote might hold up there because the ~20% range they tend to average at state level is probably just a core of rusted on support, and the sometimes-Green swing voters have been more likely to vote Greens federally than at state level.
In short, no hope in the current environment that they improve to a high-20s primary that would be required to win. They’ll remain in distant third place, probably still with a primary vote around the ~20% mark.
@ Trent
Macnamara is more winnable at a Federal level because the entire St Kilda-Elwood area is in one seat at at a state level split between (Cauflied, Albert Park, Brighton and Prahran). I think Greens put less effort into Albert Park for that reason
Port Melbourne and South Melbourne are not so favourable to the Greens. Both favour Labor or Liberal. It’s difficult for the Greens to win a bayside seat since St Kilda, St Kilda East and Elwood are all split up.