Kew – Victoria 2026

@Nimalan, the thing is Teal Votes tends to actually tends to be Labor/Green Tactical Voting plus a fair amount of Former Traditional Liberal Voting White Collar Professionals/Doctor Wives which enabled the Teals to win. I don’t think the Teals would have won over business owners. With Kew having low population growth and rates of densification just like Brighton, Liberal would still be able to hold for the time being unless if there is a fats rate of densification.

@ Marh
I agree with that and what remains of the Liberal voter base at least Federally is buisness owners, older, asset owners etc. They have lost the tradie and farmer vote. The point i am trying to make is for Labor to win Hawthorn in 2026 (which people seems to suggest) when there polling is much worse than in 2018 it relies soley on densification outweighting a swing against Labor from voters who lives there in 2018. When Labor won Hawthorn in 2018 they got 43% of the primary vote statewide but they still got 11% less in Hawthorn and only 32.2% so if they are get around 26% of the primary vote statewide now it is fair to assume their primary vote in Hawthorn is less than that. I would assume the ONP vote in Hawthorn is less than the statewide vote, the Greens PV is higher, Liberal primary higher and the Labor primary below statewide vote.

Where Labor will have a major problem in seats as Kew and Hawthorn is that these are types of seats where the issues of CFMEU corruption and the perception of crime will really resonate. It is also possible that there might be some ongoing blowback from the federal budget as well. I could see the Labor vote collapsing in these areas and everybody else picking up a piece. The big problem that Teals have at a state level is that they don’t actually have many policies to run on beyond:
– we are not one of the major parties
– we are independents and we are nice

@ Redistributed i agree with you. Only thing Teals have to run on really is support for Treaty and Climate action. I agree these seats are Fiscally Conservative though

And climate action at the state level has more to do with things like building transmission lines rather than the overall principles of the issue.

@ Redistributed it really only makes an impact if ONP pushes Jess Wilson to repeal the state based Net Zero legisaltion targets, renewable energy targets and Push to extend life of Loy Yang and Yallourn power station.

With talk that the Federal teals are looking at potentially forming a party alongside David Pocock I suspect the teal movement could end up promoting a more left-coded populist message around issues such as gambling advertising reform, political transparency and a combination of resource industry taxes/climate change action

The days of their ‘independent’ candidates peeling off disaffected tories are potentially over, and ONP preferences will probably harden against them as a result.

What this means for Kew is less clear, but as others have mentioned, teals lack a powerful narrative at the state level unless the electorate is particularly sensitive to environmental concerns as we have been seeing lately in Southern Tasmania. Wilson has built up strong personal appeal and is doing a reasonable job at keeping the moderate/swing voters in her corner as Nepean showed, if proper tories park their vote with ONP the Libs will get a great deal of it back as preferences

I believe Jess Wilson will hang on. There’s the prospect of either a sophomore surge or leader’s surge that will help. I don’t think a teal candidate would do any better than in 2022. Add to that, Labor will likely see a drop in their primary vote here and statewide.

I think teal candidates, at the state level, are quite overhyped. They generally lack the compelling argument and resources and motivation that got federal teal candidates elected (or close to winning) at past federal elections.

Also, Jess Wilson is more palatable to moderate Liberals in Kew or Hawthorn than say, Peter Dutton or Angus Taylor. She was more willing to break ranks and support the voice to parliament at the voice referendum.

I also think that especially with the increased profile, Jess Wilson will hold here and that teals probably don’t have a whole lot to help them.

The wildcard of course will be if there is an increased perception that the Coalition could only form government with One Nation.

There are very likely to be a significant number of Liberal voters in seats like Kew & Hawthorn who would not want One Nation anywhere near government. This is the one angle that I think teals could exploit: we won’t work with One Nation, a Liberal MP might have to.

Also, as much as Liberal voters may dread the re-election of a Labor government, if the narrative is that a minority of some sort is considered to be the most likely outcome (even inevitable), I’d say that even for a lot of swinging/centrist/moderate Liberal voters who may not want to see another majority Labor government returned, they might think the idea of Labor having to govern in minority with INDs who can hold them to account is actually somewhat desirable. At least more desirable than ONP being part of a minority government.

@ Trent
If you a centrist fiscal conservative in Hawthorn i agree you may not want ONP in a minority government however, why would they want a Majority Labor government so if you vote Labor instead of Teal/Lib you will get more policies that you dont approve of such as land tax and Private school payroll tax

Who is to say that ON would be in some sort of coalition arrangement with the Coaltion? The Libs might pull short of a majority and ON could put them over the line BUT when it comes to forming a government would ON support the ALP? Highly unlikely. If the Libs were close but not close enough they might not need any formal ON support. Would Labor play footsie with ON? Where would all the outrage be then? It would be an interesting question to put to Jacinta Allan. In terms of a stronger IBAC, VT reform, public housing towers there is a lot that the Libs could bargain with the Greens on without jeopardising any fundamental positions.

@ Redistributed, if no party can form a majority in government. Then what will happen is that Labor will stay in power according to Westminister conventions until there is a vote on the floor of parliament. Libs will move a motion of no confidence which ONP will vote in favour of but Greens will vote against. If ONP plus Libs have a majority then motion of no confence will suceed and the Govenor will ask Jess Wilson to get a chance this is where it is interesting as then Labor will move a vote of no-confidence which Greens will likely support but ONP will oppose so Jess Wilson can form a minority government if the no confidence motion fails.

Any such Labor-ON or Coalition-Green Agreement would had likely seen a massive anger from the voter base and rank-and-file party memberships of Labor and Coalition respectively with a potential for losing these two.

@Nimalan, I didn’t suggest that voters in Kew or Hawthorn might vote (or even consider voting) Labor, I was saying that the prospect of a Coalition-ON government would be an angle that teal candidates might try to use to their advantage.

I agree they wouldn’t want a Labor majority so they wouldn’t vote in such a way that could contribute to that; but at the same time if they perceive that the Libs can only win in minority with ON, they may not want that either. So the presence of two very unappealing options provides teals with a new angle: we can be the balance of power to keep ON away from government.

@redistributed, it’s not so much about what may or may not happen in reality but what the perceived threat or likely outcomes are. For example if Labor, Teals & Greens are all running a consistent narrative that voting LIB threatens ON being in a minority government – and that is backed up by polling pointing to the Coalition falling well short of 45 seats due to losing seats to ONP – that is a scenario that teals could benefit from.

I agree with Marh too that either an ALP-ON or LNP-GRN minority are extremely unlikely. Labor are clearly already linking the Libs to ONP as a key election strategy, it’s evident all over their social media; while the Liberals have only grown more & more hostile to the Greens. Both situations would anger too much of their respective bases to even toy with the idea.

So in summary I’m not predicting a teal will win, and I’m absolutely not saying the threat of ONP might drive voters in Kew or Hawthorn to Labor (I think Labor will cop a bit swing against them in both), but the ONP factor is definitely a wildcard in this election, and any threat (or perceived threat) of a LIB-ON minority is likely to spook some moderate/centrist LIB voters in the inner-city and have them consider other options. This is one new factor at the state level that a teal could possibly use to their advantage.

If the likely outcome increasingly looks like a hung parliament and minority government, teals could argue that regardless of who makes up that government, whether it be ALP-GRN-IND or LIB-ON-IND, they can be the voice of reason to prevent either an ‘extreme’ left or ‘extreme’ right outcome where either Labor is pulled left by the Greens or the Coalition is pulled right by ONP, by being the balance of power.

That’s probably a pretty compelling argument for wealthy, fiscally conservative but socially progressive voters in seats like Hawthorn & Kew.

@ Trent
I agree with that having a Teal MP can actually be a moderating force in such a parliament. The Reason that i mentioned that @Spacefish feels as you can see in the Hawthorn thread that they feels that ONP will spook a swing to Labot in Hawthorn even without a teal and potential pick up which i push back on. I agree that centrist voters may opt for a Teal as a better alternative.
I always mention the people who have the greatest to fear about the rise of ONP are poor ethnic/relgious minorities than the Upper Class whites as what ONP has done is to convince the White working class that there enemy are refugees and their neighbours who they may share the same economic struggles with are what is is a threat to them rather than economic inequality. If there is a Lib-ONP governemnt they will likely cut breakfast programs at schools, but keep private school fundings but may abolish multiculturalism at a state level.

Yeah I agree that multicultural communities will likely fear ONP the most.

The seats with large Chinese communities that may have otherwise swung to the Liberals may think twice if there is a realistic threat of the Libs only being able to form government with ONP. This could help Labor in seats like Box Hill, Ringwood & Glen Waverley (although Glen Waverley is probably too marginal for Labor to retain even with that factor blunting the swing).

But I do think there’s also a type of socially progressive, affluent, classic Liberal voter in seats like Kew, Brighton, Hawthorn and Caulfield that will be repelled by the threat of the Liberals having to govern with ONP too. Not for the same reasons, but more due to ONP’s culture wars, their war on “elites”, their war on the academic or professional class, their anti-climate stance, embracing anti-science conspiracy theories, etc.

I’m not saying teals will win them – I’d still tip the Liberals to retain all 4 of them – but this factor could certainly make the right teal candidates pretty competitive, especially if the prospect of a Coalition-ONP minority starts dominating the narrative in the media, polling and the ALP, GRN & IND campaigns.

I don’t think the ONP scare factor would sway many voters from Liberal to Labor but it may limit some Labor’s losses. There may be a cohort of past Labor voters who have grown tired or upset with Labor and are willing to switch votes even if there’s a possibility of ONP in minority government.

I can’t see the Liberals losing any of their inner-city or middle-ring seats. Neither of the teal candidates won in 2022 and they probably have less hope now.

The issue for Jess Wilson is that over the next 6 or so months, there may be greater scrutiny of where her party preferences will be allocated as well as One Nation.