Kew – Victoria 2026

@Tommy9 I think that was probably the biggest thing about the 2022 election that was overlooked by many more so than the back to back landslide achieved by Dan Andrews – an exodus of effectively star talent/the “A-team” from the frontbench, and all at once, rather than gradually over time, and once Andrews himself left, it was significantly diminished.

Agreed with @Dan M though, the Coalition needs a better TPP margin, not just preferred premier, else they may as well not have changed leaders. As for the shadow ministry reveal, I think it’s quite significant (and arguably the right move) that Jess Wilson has kept shadow treasurer herself given her background.

If it were something more like 24-39 the preferred premier reading might be a little less significant but at this point nearly a majority of respondents are saying they would prefer a first term MP as premier a couple weeks after a leadership spill when Wilson should really have quite low name recognition.

I am a little bit dubious on the methods for calculating 2PP in recent Victorian state polling, I asked Demos AU and they said they used 2022 flows and I would assume most if not all firms who are reporting 2PP are doing the same. I also asked Kevin Bonham how he was calculating his 2PP estimates for Resolve polls and he said the same thing – citing ‘vote parking’ as part of his reason for doing so. However the make-up of the ‘others’ vote (which is now at or above 20 in some of these polls) has likely changed given the Federal surge of ON (the demos poll’s upper house result for Victoria confirms this) so if a blanket preference flow is being attributed to ‘others’ based on 2022 I think it’s likely favouring Labor.

Does anyone here know more about this? I would assume the polls themselves don’t include all potential ‘other’ parties and therefore the polls wouldn’t be able to apply 2022 preference flows from each minor party.

@WL I would say if Jess does win the election, she won’t serve as her own Treasurer. She’ll give it to someone else, maybe Groth, maybe Newbury, maybe even John Pesutto.

She won’t give it to pesutto. Growth will probly get it. Pesutto is damaged goods.

I doubt she gives it to Groth, he has no economic credentials.

Treasurer usually goes to the opposite faction of the leader. @adam jim chalmers economic credentials is that he did a thesis on Paul Keating to get his PhD in political science.

It seems likely the Coalition will get a 2PP swing statewide and likely get the higher 2PP, but will the swings be in marginal Labor seats? I take preferred leader and statewide 2PP polling with a grain of salt unless show geographical variations like inner Melbourne, eastern suburbs, rural Victoria or by Legislative Council region.

There is a mixed bag of seats with Labor margins under 8%. There’s a mix of eastern suburbs, western suburbs, Mornington Peninsula (e.g. Hastings) and regional seats. The Coalition would need to appeal to various demographics and community interests for a good election night.

I think the swing will be much bigger in the regions, likely costing Jacinta Allan her own seat; given how unpopular she is I don’t find it all that unlikely that the blue wave sweeps her out of Bendigo East.

Once we crawl further towards Melbourne, the swing will probably weaken. If there were any swings to Labor, they’d occur where there are infrastructure promises being delivered.

Unlike 2002 where putting dan adrews face on their billboards didn’t help them associating jacinta Allen and labor will. Dan Andrews was a master at manipulating the media machine. Jacinta Allen isn’t. Remember Dan Andrews hit a cyclist and effectively had it covered up by saying nothing to see here. Tim Smith the previous Kew MP lost his seat because he had a drunk drving incdwnt. Jacinta Allen will be forced to spend time in her own seat (tbh that’s probably gonna do more harm then good). She’s probably better off contesting Bendigo West and get Mareeba Edwards to retire. But if she loses the election she will probably too.

@Votante Recent DemosAU poll (done with Battin as leader) was 57-43 in the inner suburbs, 46-54 in the outers suburbs, and 43-57 in the regions.

Not sure what seats qualify as which, but 46-54 in the outer suburbs is probably translating to a double digit swing to the LNP there.

Having wilson as leader the libs are going to be competitive in winning. I don’t see how labor holds onto majority government.

@John Labor may have to, god forbid, govern with the Greens!

I do wonder what would happen if it ended up in a hung parliament, as Labor hate the Greens but the Greens are, as it stands, the only crossbench there…

Usually you have to give people the bribe after they do something for you not before. Not really any incentive to vote for you afterwards especially if they hate your guts. Even Albo knows this. Cause usually the government just bribes you takes you vote then refuses to pay. Like Dan did with the Commonwealth games.

Freshwater poll was 50-50 TPP basis. For Liberals to form government they need around 53% TPP. Also preference flow will be critical as Both parties according to the poll are in the 30s in primary according to the poll. Even when Napthine lost in 2014 COalition got 42% Primary statewide.
I expect Cooker parties like Freedom Party, DLP and anti-lockdown parties to do worse than in 2022.

I think the cooker vote will be similar but just consolidate behind One Nation rather than splitting all over the place like last time. The preferences might flow a little stronger to the Liberals too.

But you’re right that a 2PP in the 50-52 range probably won’t deliver the Liberals government, and it’s possible even a 53% 2PP wouldn’t deliver government if the bigger swings are concentrated to the wrong seats, or even if 10% outer-suburban swings fall 1-2% short (like the Werribee byelection) while 6-8% middle-suburban seats like Box Hill, Ashwood & Bentleigh are held by Labor.

@ Trent
I think the Cooker vote will be less in Greenvale especially among Muslims/Non Europeans as i dont think lockdowns will have same effect and ONP has moved onto Nationalism/Anti Immigration which do not appeal to Muslims etc. Among Muslims i think we will see a Cooker to Greens/Victorian Socialists swing like we saw at a Federal level which should help Labor in 2PP.
Areas like St Albans should also see a reduced Cooker vote and increased Greens vote which happened Federally.

Will interesting to see what impact now the new metro tunnel link is opened, that should help out Labor in Western and South Eastern Melbourne. Either way the Liberals need to be polling 55/45 if they want to have a serious shot of majority government.

I think the flaw in the ‘Coalition need a 54% 2PP’ argument is that it sort of relies on deep rural seats making up a decent proportion of the swing – do we really think places like Lowan and Murray Plains are turning into 80-20 seats? That would seriously surprise me. So if a swing of any decent proportion is on it’s going to be in provincial centres and Melbourne primarily. But I do think too that a 1-2% difference on 2PP could be the difference between the Coalition winning 38-40 seats or 50+ – but Labor aren’t hanging onto government with 47% of the 2PP IMO

If Labor can sandbag even 4-5 seats among the first 17 (vs LIB) on the pendulum, assuming the Liberals lose Prahran, that should be enough to at least keep the Liberals out of government even with the Liberals nabbing 2-3 seats on higher margins, and that is a very likely scenario even with a 47% 2PP, but it would put them in minority government which they obviously want to avoid.

So to hang onto majority government they need to limit their net loss of seats to a max of 11 compared to 2022. If the Liberal 2PP is anywhere around the 52-53% range that’ll be incredibly difficult. Labor need at least a 49-50% 2PP to hold onto a majority I think.

I think the absolute ceiling for the Liberals would be 45-46 seats though even if they get a 54-55% 2PP, and being Victoria, I don’t think that’s a result they could replicate in 2030 and a single-term government would be pretty likely, similar to 2010-14. I think the default setting for Victoria now is that it’s naturally Labor leaning but every 12-16 years will have a one-term reset when the “it’s time” factor rolls around.

Also I don’t think the big swings will occur in those rural areas like Murray Plains because the margins are already so high. I think a likely scenario is that seats on some of the seats on large 11-15% margins get huge above average swings but might fall 1-2% short. Similar to Werribee going from 10.9% to 0.8% at the byelection. And if the swings are concentrated in seats where they just fall short, but they hold onto seats like Ashwood (6.2%), Box Hill (7.5%), Monbulk (7.6%) and Bentleigh (8.0%), that’s where the electoral map is an issue for the Libs I think.

Of course, if the Liberals pick up 8-10 seats and leave a bunch of traditionally safe Labor seats on margins under 5%, it would be considered a pretty successful night and cement Jess Wilson’s place as leader for the next term.

@ Trent
I would consider Prahran a Greens seat as i compare to previous General election not by-elections so i will use Werribee as a 10.9% Labor seat.
I think of the first 17 seats these are the least likely to flip in order
1. Greenvale (may actually swing to Labor as some lockdown sentiment maybe reversed)
2. Monbulk
3. Box Hill
4. Bentleigh

Coaltion maybe able to pick the following seats above the 8% threshold in order of liklihood
1. South Barwon (due to no sitting member)
2. Bendigo East
3. Sydenham
4. Cranbourne (Unlikely but i cannot rule it out-Clyde rail extention maybe an issue)

There is also a real possibility that some of the TPP maybe that Labor is recovering in seats like Broadmeadows, Thomastown, St Albans etc. This happened in 1992 that may mean that Libs can win with 52.5-53% of TPP so Labor may waste some of the swing in its own seats as well.

Good point about Labor wasting some of their recovery in safe seats too. St Albans is one that reduced to under 10% in 2022 that I can actually see swinging back to Labor on 2PP terms because I can see the Greens & Victorian Socialists surging there and the right-wing ‘freedom’ vote plummeting, even if Labor’s primary vote doesn’t recover.

I agree that South Barwon, Bendigo East & Sydenham are probably the most likely seats above 8% to fall. Sydenham in particular sticks out to me on 8.8%.

I imagine Jess Wilson will get a pretty good swing in Kew. Probably not to the tune of 8%, but she could improve her margin to near 10%.

@ Trent
I agree i dont see a recovery in the Labor primary votes in the Red Wall. However a shift in right-wing ‘freedom’ vote plummeting and a surge in Greens & Victorian Socialists will drive a TPP swing. I think ONP will do well among White Voters especially in regional/peri-urban voters many of whom were not even 2018 Labor voters.
I expect some big swings in seats like Sandringham, Nepean, Mornington. Evelyn may have a much bigger swing than neighbouring Monbulk and maybe over 10%.

@Trent I think that argument makes sense in isolation but again I see issues when expanding that view to a statewide swing – I think it relies a little too much on Labor being able to sandbag in specific seats whilst a mostly uniform swing simply shreds Labor’s margins elsewhere or unproductively blows out existing Coalition leads.

If we are to assume a 7% statewide swing for a moment that delivers a 52% 2PP for the Coalition. Now they currently hold 29 seats and we believe (reasonably) that Prahran will be very difficult to hold, they are probably something like 6% off the pace in the current environment. Of those 29 seats, 7 are ‘deep rurals’ that are held by margins (some notional) of 15% plus against the ALP, I doubt any of them are going to slide much further to the right. Then we have the issue of the Liberal held metro seats, some of them in quite urbanised areas – looking down the pendulum I see 7 of them, mostly in the arc running from Bulleen down to Sandringham, I personally don’t see these moving 8-10% to the right even in a pretty strong environment, I think the days of seats like Caulfield/Hawthorn being 10% plus margins are over. That leaves their provincial and outer suburban holdings, where there probably are a mix of seats where the Coalition could significantly run up the score (Napean, SW Coast, Euroa, Morwell, Warrandyte and Eildon come to mind) but there are others where demographic change and retiring MPs are factors likely working against them (Berwick, Croydon, Rowville for example) where I’m struggling to see much more than a modest swing to them of 2-4%. Noting too that the polling indicates very modest gains on primary vote for the Coalition in pretty much all polls, inner suburban or urban seats they hold (where they receive a disproportionately high amount of their 2PP from primary vote) also points to the larger gains not occurring there.

That leaves Labor’s holdings, where I’d say the lions share of the swing would need to occur, and while I accept that a combination of demographic change, local projects and incumbency should help Labor in crucial seats @Trent mentions it honestly feels like a tightrope walk yet the consensus here seems that it’s currently more of a central thesis. Again, most current polling has Labor’s primary vote falling anywhere from 5-9% but neither the Greens or Liberals picking up much of it, referencing that upper house Demos poll the lions share of Labor’s losses are being offset by growth in ON, FF and LBT – which pollsters are currently defining as ‘other’ and handing most of the preferences back to Labor, in reality the Coalition would benefit mostly from said preference flow.

Now I doubt the floor is falling out of Labor’s vote close to the city or even in the middle suburbs based on this, but that pattern seems consistent with outer suburban seats and particularly provincial seats where Labor currently leads significantly on primary vote. Some of those seats are on 14% + margins and likely won’t fall but there’s significant fruit that hangs a little lower and if we rule out big swings elsewhere it stands to reason that such seats (on 8-14% margins) would therefore be in play (Wendouree, Bendigo East, South Barwon, Sydenham, and the Sandbelt seats come to mind)

There is an assumption that the trend of multi-cultural outer suburban areas that swung big on anti lockdown sentiment will normalise to a degree (not unreasonable). If that happens, which will affect a good 20 odd seats most likely, then where on earth is the statewide swing coming from? I am just thinking the argument that Labor can sandbag against a strong statewide swing in a few key seats as a bit simplistic from where I am seeing it and what the polling and trends are telling us. Not impossible by any means but I can’t accept it as my central thesis, particularly with Wilson as leader aggressively pursuing younger and more working professional voters which I suspect will ultimately have the impact of evening out the potential statewide swing, granted that’s a projection that’s yet to play out

A 7% 2PP statewide swing is quite rare. It would surpass the swings that the Coalition achieved in 1992 and 2010 to win government but still shy of the Brackslide swing of 2002. However, I wouldn’t rule it out since records do break and Jacinta Allan isn’t popular.

An unknown factor is whether Labor recovers their vote in the northern/western suburban seats. Many swung hard away (at least in primary vote terms) in 2022. In Mill Park, Kororoit and St Albans, the 2PP swing was over 10%. They might have “over-swung”. There might be a floor in Labor’s 2PP. If the above is true i.e. the seats have over-swung, it means that seats like Sydenham and Sunbury aren’t as winnable for the Libs as the sub-9% margins suggest.

I also think that in many northern/western seats, the Greens and Vic Socialists are also competing for the non-Labor vote as are One Nation and Family First. Freedom, DLP and Libertarians can’t rely on the anti-lockdown vote as they did in 2022. I sense their vote will slide as the election will return to one on cost of living, public services and bread and butter issues.

@Maxim I would say it’s more Labor voters going to the Coalition and right-leaning Coalition voters going to ON and FF (similar to the federal level just not to the same extent).

@ Scart
FF does pick up some religious Labor voters in the Red Wall. They do well among CALD Christians such as Assyrians/Chaldeans, Copts etc. There is a demographic of socially conservative Labor voters who will not vote Coalition due to a class based aversion but will vote FF. Australian Christians or DLP. A bit like how Fred Nile used to do well in Western Sydney.

@Scart yes I don’t mean to imply the actual shift in voting patterns just pointing out whose vote is dropping and whose is picking up, I do suspect that Demos undersampled left wing minor party voters though as LC and VS were low

Votante, I agree that in some of the ‘red wall’ seats, the swings were so aggressive in 2022 that even though they are now on sub-10% margins (after previously having margins close to 20%), for them to flip this time would require basically a 20% swing over just two election cycles, and 2022 which really accelerated that shift has possibly already moved the majority of voters who had the potential to swing, so the swings could be much smaller this time.

I think there’s more potential for eastern suburbs (especially outer east like Ringwood & Bayswater) to have bigger swings from Labor. There’s possibly potential for the Cranbourne & Narre Warren area to swing pretty hard too since they barely moved in 2022. The Narre Warren seats have been the beneficiaries of a lot of infrastructure though, but on other issues (and the “it’s time” factor) I think they are probably ripe for bigger swings this time.

@ Trent
The Narre Warren seats like you said have benefited from infrastucture like you correctly pointed out. They are also less of a growth area these days and become more settled especially Narre Warren North. Cranbourne is more volatile despite its margin due to it being a growth area and the Clyde rail extention being an issue. However, i think what you are assuming is that due to the Sandbelt being better educated and socially progressive that they will not swing as much compared to the Narre Warrens whch are more religious and blue collar. However, there is another fact you are missing which is critical the Narre Warrens are much more CALD that the Sandbelt and it is diversifying faster. If you got to the Food court at Westfield Fountain Gate there is more Black and Brown people than at Westfield Southland. In a seat like Bentleigh someone like Jess Wilson will have some appeal among Fiscal Conservatives while i doubt Fiscal conservativism resonates as much in Hallam and Hampton Park among poor ethnic communities.

I definitely think that Jess Wilson as leader will now somewhat balance out where the movement was happening a little more than with Brad Battin.

Meaning, previously there had been a pretty significant shift towards Labor in educated/affluent seats and a significant shift to the right in the outer suburban seats. Brad Battin I think definitely would have reinforced that shift, keeping Labor’s sandbelt margins pretty safe while potentially eroding their outer suburban margins.

Jess Wilson though will probably have a little less appeal in the outer suburbs than Battin but probably give the Liberals a bit of a better swing in areas like the sandbelt & eastern suburbs.

@ Trent
The Question remains is ethnicty a blocker especially if Battin focused on crime often it is seen as demonising minority communities like the African gangs scare campaign in 2018. It is why being tough on Crime works in the US among White communities but not among Black/Minority communties. I do think Battin may have appealed to White/European communties in the Narre Warrens but i dont see why an Afghan in Hallam would be attracted to him especially as Ethnic relations in Australia has worsened since October 7, March for Australia protests Australia.

*March for Australia protests and increasing Anti-Immigration rhetoric

I think the Liberals, under Jess Wilson, are more competitive in the eastern suburbs. The seats that the Liberals lost in 2018 and 2022 should be low hanging fruit. A lot of them had small swings away from Labor or even swung to Labor in 2022.

The outer south-east e.g. Bass, Pakenham, were going to flip to the Liberals regardless of the leader. They are on wafer thin margins.

@Trent, some traditionally red wall seats swung over 10% in 2022, but this followed a strong Labor result in 2018. There was potentially an ‘over-swing’ and their margins might be artificially low. This was the adverse reaction to lockdowns which hit western and northern seats much harder. If this is the case, there might be a recovery swing or a swing to the Liberals that is less than the statewide swing.

If the Liberals avoid racist overtones, a campaign on law & order could play well with minorities, many work in retail and have been victims of crime.

@Nimalan a tough on crime approach may work for the Libs in the eastern suburbs, which have seen many high profile crime incidents recently. In particular among the Chinese community.

@ Dan M
Agree i think it may work for middle class ethnic communties in the Eastern Suburbs. However, a lot of young ethnic CALD members especially those in the Red Wall often would have had negative experiences with such as being profiled, Stopped and Searched and followed in retail stores. In the Eastern Suburbs (such as Monash/Knox/Manningham and Whitehorse) the relationship between CALD communities and the Anglo Majority is generally good and there is more mixing and less segregation.

I think one other factor that never gets talked about is how anti lockdown swings might normalise yes, but pro-covid policy swings will likely do the same, a factor I think could be particularly pronounced in provincial cities outside the ‘ring of steel’

@Maxim, good point. There probably were some seats that Labor either sandbagged or got swings to them due to Covid policies.

In seats like Ashwood, Glen Waverley and Box Hill, Labor got swings. It could’ve been an acceptance, at the very least, of Labor’s Covid policies. Maybe it was a protest against the Liberals’ anti-lockdown campaign or in some cases, anti-vax campaign.

A lot of voters migrated from Mainland China. I mentioned in 2022 that many migrants were aware of relatives in China who were under harsh lockdowns and had to undergo daily testing even at the end of 2022. An anti-lockdown campaign in Victoria likely didn’t work or maybe even had the opposite effect.

I agree with Votante that especially under Jess Wilson, I think the Liberals’ lowest hanging fruit after the outer-southeast marginals of Pakenham, Bass & Hastings is reclaiming their eastern suburbs heartland that was lost in 2018-22.

All of those eastern seats that flipped from ALP to LIB over the past 2 elections are among the first 15 on the pendulum (Ringwood being 15th), and unlike the north/west seats, they either barely swung or even swung to Labor in 2022, meaning there is a lot more potential for them to swing back to the Liberals.

Winning all of them back is an absolute must and has to be the priority. The Liberals can’t win government without winning the eastern suburbs. I think Box Hill will be the hardest for them to win back though. It’s 14th on the pendulum and the densification and massive investment in infrastructure there will work against them.

Regarding the 4 ‘sandbelt’ seats which were once bellwether (Bentleigh, Mordialloc, Carrum & Frankston), they were all lost in 2014 and sit between 17th & 29th on the pendulum with margins in the 8-10% range.

Bentleigh & Mordialloc in particular already swung 3-5% back to the Liberals in 2022, so you could say the ‘correction’ to the 2018 landslide already happened there yet the large margins remain, which will be difficult to erase this time. Carrum & Frankston might swing a bit more, especially being more outer suburban in nature.

The coalition should be able to pick up some of those Ballarat/Bendigo seats as well. Ripon is the lowest of that hanging fruit, and if the Nats can convince Lethlean to run again, they can snatch Bendigo East from Jacinta Allan.

Agree CJ, with the sand belt seats being more out of reach compared to 2010 – the Coalition do need to win some (at least two or three) regional seats to win a majority.

Yeah that’s the next category they should target.

Thinking about what seats I’d predict they absolutely must win a starting point if they want to win government (ie. It’s very unlikely they could form government without ALL of these):

3x Outer Southeast: Bass, Pakenham, Hastings
4x Eastern Suburbs: Bayswater, Glen Waverley, Ashwood, Ringwood
2x Outer North/West: Melton, Yan Yean
1x Regional: Ripon

That’s 10, which puts Labor only 2 losses away from minority government, but leaves the Coalition needing 7 more gains (not counting Prahran as a Liberal seat) to form government, likely out of the following 13 seats:

Regional – Bendigo East (Nats), Eureka (Nats?), South Barwon
Eastern Suburbs – Box Hill
Sandbelt – Carrum, Frankston
Outer Southeast – Cranbourne, Narre Warren South, Narre Warren North
Outer North/West – Sunbury, Greenvale, Sydenham, Niddrie

Looking at that list makes it very likely that if they won the 10 in the first list, they would also win at least 2 of those to force Labor into minority. But winning 7 is much more difficult because even though it’s a big list, a lot of them (especially the southeast/sandbelt seats) are real long shots that they’d probably only win if they got a 54% 2PP and won 47+ seats.

That’s not to say they need a 54% 2PP to win the election, they could certainly win 7 of the others with a 51-52% 2PP in the right places, but that list of target seats shrinks quite a bit if you exclude the “long shots” like Carrum, making the path a bit more narrow without that higher 2PP.

Sorry I should add Werribee to the Outer North/West list too, forgot that! Obviously that’s on a razor thin margin after the byelection, although I’d consider its notional margin to be somewhere between 2022 & the byelection (eg. Around 6% or so).

It’ll be hard for the Liberals outperform the byelection result there, so I’d probably put it in the second list rather than the 10 ‘must-wins’.

@ Trent
I already pointed out to you in the Victorian Election thread that on Federal results which Nether Portal calculated that Greenvale would have have margin of 17.2% notional TPP which is 11% to the left of the state. Maybe look at Greenvale and its demographics before making such a sweeping statement. Also if Libs win Greenvale by 1 vote that means in 8 years they have got a 22% swing. If Libs win Greenvale then Labor will have massive structural problems as they have now exposed the red wall. If Labor loses Bentleigh they maybe able to win at back

https://www.tallyroom.com.au/61799

Btw Trent i dont mean to sound disrespectful but maybe look closely at Greenvale including the thread. I think the swing was inflated in 2022 and will normalise somewhat as Maxim said.

https://www.tallyroom.com.au/vic2026/greenvale2026

Agree Nimalan, Greenvale is not a reliable target seat for the Coalition as they will struggle to hold it in the long term. Its low margin in 2022 was probably a combination of it being an open seat contest and the fact that the working-class CALD minority voters (most of whom are of Muslim/Middle Eastern background) felt neglected or targeted unfairly by the COVID lockdown and vaccine mandates.

@ Yoh An
Correct further to that there is a large unionised workfrorce their/I expect Victorian Socialists to do well there even better than 2022. I think Gaza has ensured that the people there do not give a damn about lockdowns and vaccine mandates now. I doubt they care about Commonwealth Games cancellaiton
Unless Libs want to ran a campaign on Trans issues. In a better educated seat like Bentleigh more people are engaged so there will be more centrist voters some of whom are concerned about cost blowouts and state debt.
It has very low levels of English and Education so will need much more resouces

Oh I agree, that’s part of why I put Greenvale in the second list rather than the first ‘must-win’ list, and I’d consider it one of the “long shot” seats.

Like both Votante and I said a few comments above, I think the massive red-wall swings in 2022 probably captured most of the voters who would have had potential to swing to the Liberals already, so it basically just captured what would be a two-election swing elsewhere into a single election and will limit how much more they can swing this time. I can’t see any seat swinging more than 20% over the two elections.

I’d apply similar to Sunbury which on paper looks like it should be one of the ‘must-win’ seats with only a 6.4% margin, but it already had an 8.1% swing last time and gets the Metro Tunnel benefit so I’d predict a below-average swing there this time. At a 14.5% total swing required over two elections it’s more winnable than Greenvale, but to me it’s still in that second list rather than the first (but less of a long shot).

Agreed, it is a futile exercise for the Liberals to win in traditional ‘red wall’ Labor seats because voters in these areas do not share common values with the Coalition. Particularly in relation to economic policies and multiculturalism.

I think Greenvale might be like the state seats of Londonderry or Campbelltown in NSW, places that can flip during a landslide/wipeout election but not seen as a long-term asset for the Coalition who should prioritise the more marginal, swing type seats where voters are better educated.