Niddrie – Victoria 2026

This seat is quite vulnerable as well and if the Liberals were smart they would run a high profile candidate here.

I agree i have called this out many times before especially delays to Airport Rail as there is a planned station in East Keilor.

It’s starting to look like Ben Carroll is going to topple Allan, he seems to be much more popular but its not going to be a good look knifing a female leader and accusing the Liberals that they have a female problem.

In response to @Upthehawks,
It’s highly likely and this is the sort of seat the Liberals need to win if they want to form a majority especially if the sandbelt seats and some of the claywall seats are out of reach.

Ben Carroll has a significant personal vote, looking at the upper house result you find
ALP: 33.3
LIB: 31.6
GRN: 6.3
With a decent vote for the DLP also

Compared with the primary votes in the LA here of
ALP: 44
LIB: 34
GRN 7.4

The Liberals need to either counter with a strong pick of their own or Carrol’s personal vote needs to be detached from him by a sagging party brand – something we saw happen to several strong Liberal MPs last year

@SpaceFish I think the sandbelt seats are out of reach for the Liberals this year. As for the Eastern suburbs marginals, there have been poor candidate selections which I think will hurt them. Is there a possibility that the Liberals win Niddrie or Yan Yean but Bayswater and Ashwood stay with Labor?

@Upthehawks,
That’s how I see it Liberals win seats like Niddrie, Yan Yean and Sunbury but hold onto sandbelt and claywall seats such as Ringwood, Ashwood and Box Hill possibly Bayswater as it is an open race with a very high profile local member retiring so difficult to say.

I think that is high risk strategy
If we assume the Libs dont win the 4 Sandbelt seats. The need to win 4 seats that they did not win in 2010
The 4 most likely
1. Yan Yean
2. Niddrie
3. Sunbury
4. Melton

that seems plusiable
of the Claywall seats
1. Box Hill
2. Monbulk are probably the most likely Labor can retain but they are must wins for Libs they need both

To offset this they may need to win a seat like Bendigo East or Sydnenham
so 2 can be offset but not guaranteed and the latter has never been won before

I think Greenvale will likely swing back to Labor due to reversal of lockdown swing and the Muslim population so they will need to win another seat perhaps South Barwon which is logical

This assume Libs will win Ripon which is logical
So if Libs dont win Ringwood or Ashwood, then they need to win 2 more elsewhere maybe Point Cook, Werribee again not guaranteed and these seats are actually more ethnic than Ringwood or Bayswater.

Now if they dont win Bayswater they need to win another seat maybe Wendouree at 11.9%
so i agree they probably dont need the 4 sandbelt seats this time but they need pretty much all of the Claywall as otherwise they are relying on huge swings elsewhere.

Eltham, Bellarine and Macedon are actually more socially progressive than most of the Eastern Suburbs are highly sucular so if they are not winning the East as it is claimed i dont see why they will win those 3.

I think Labor will retain this seat, but others on this thread have mentioned Yan Yean. I think it is almost a foregone conclusion now that Labor will lose that seat (as well as Ripon, and likely Melton). Sunbury will probably be more of a target in the northwest than Niddrie.
Bayswater, Ringwood and Glen Waverley should be won by the Liberals. Hard to see the voters of Box Hill and Ashwood voting to live tunnel boring machines stuck underground.
Yes, the SRL goes through Glen Waverley too, but the margin there is probably too tight for Labor to hang on to.

A lot of commentary 6 months ago was focussed on how Labor would benefit from infrastructure delivery due to the Westgate tunnel and Metro tunnel, neither seems to have panned out at all which makes me think big infrastructure is not the winning ticket it was in 2014/18/22.

Maxim
The gloss has probably gone off infrastructure because of all the corruption issues that have come to light and still seem to be coming on a regular basis. Hard to campaign on infrastructure when corruption and mismanagement of major works have possibly added up to $15 billion of extra cost to the taxpayer.

I think Labor will retain though the Liberals will see this as a target as part of their strategy to win majority government. I believe the Sandbelt seats are harder to flip. Niddrie and other seats in the west like Melton would be heavily targeted.

I’m not so bullish on the Liberals in the west because of wildcard factors like One Nation, The West Party, independents and even Vic Socialists. They could split the non-Labor or protest vote and ironically, help Labor retain similar to the Werribee by-election.

The infrastructure narrative of Labor could limit losses but it won’t help them win votes like in 2014, 2018 and 2022. The “it’s time” factor and the unpopular Labor brand and baggage are more overwhelming.

@ Votante
I would say this seat is quite different from the rest of the West. It is older, home-owning, middle income, not ethnically diverse except Italian Catholics and it more middle ring suburbia. It has been marginal before and came close to being won by the Liberals which is why i say it is a top tier target for Libs along with delays to Airport Rail Link will hurt Libs here. In fact this was the weakest seat for Vic Socialists in the West metro which makes sense. I think the infrastucre narrative maybe to mitigate the loss of votes especially if the seats between 6-10% for example it may save some of the vote in Sydenham, Point Cook, Cranbourne and Werribee to hang on narrowly rather than a good result.

Samantha Byrne, who has served as the Councillor for the Moonee Valley City Council for 16 years, including as both Mayor and Deputy Mayor of the Council, has been endorsed as the Liberal candidate for Niddrie. It seems that she has been given special dispensation against the 12-month membership requirement to run for the seat, considering she only joined the party around 2 months ago in May.

Yeah good pick for the Liberals, lots of older Italians and Greeks here with a pretty high rate of outright home ownership (40%+) and this area is much more white collar than other parts of the west, big test of Carrol’s personal vote here

@Joseph, I agree Samantha Byrne is one of the better picks that the Liberals could make here. She’s been on Moonee Valley Council for just short of 10 years (not 16) and in my direct experience is reasonably approachable on local issues. She has practised as a podiatrist both locally with community health provider CoHealth (retirees and health care card holders in Airport West and Niddrie being major allied health patients of hers) and now Northern Health. She may poll even better in the Keilor Village, Aberfeldie and western Essendon booths. This will be close.

With rumours of a leadership spill, would Carroll really be any more popular than Allan? Surely being education minister at a time when we’ve just had a major school strike and protracted EBA negotiations will give him a bit of baggage.

ABC reported today that a group of Labor MPs are urging Jacinta Allan to step down. Ben Carroll intends to run as a candidate in the event of a leadership spill. One issue for Carroll is that his seat of Niddrie isn’t really that safe.

Its got to a point whereby it doesn’t matter who Labor chooses they’re going to lose, changing leader might give them a short term sugar hit but I don’t see it giving them another term.

I feel Niddrie is a very possible loss no matter who the leader is. I think delay in Airport rail which included a station in East Keilor and focus on SRL hurts Labor here and this caanot be changed no matter who the leader is. As mentioned above Niddrie is demographically favourable for Libs compared to most other seats in the NW Melbourne

Ben Carroll announced that SRL will proceed with a small cut on some of its scope. The Labor probably got the memo that SRL East is unpopular in Much of NW melbourne where there are competing priorities such as Airport Rail Link, Melton and Wyndham Vale rail electrification and Somerton link. I dont think this annoucment will do much but it is likely the case that Labor will not emphasis SRL in their campaigning except for maybe Bentleigh, Mordiallic and Box Hill. I think Glen Waverley is gone and written off so no point and i think Ashwood maybe close to a lost cause as well.

Carroll has really done quite a bit to shift perceptions of the SRL from being a legacy Labor project to one he seems quite annoyed about having on the books and is keen to try and strip it down as much as possible. The optics are shocking, far from convincing voters in his own backyard that he’s on their side it’s just revealing what a poor project it has been from the start and that it now sits there like a noose around Carroll’s and the wider Victorian taxpayers necks.

I was personally never convinced that changing the leader was going to work and it appears that it hasn’t as they still seem to appear to be heading for 1992 style defeat. Carroll’s chopping and changing looks desperate rather than a strong decisive leader and I am staring to think Labor’s change to him could hurt them more than just sticking with Allan.

I think the question should is SRL leading to the Downfall of this governemnt. In an Alternative history had they never commited to this project and focused on Airport rail would they be able to win Sunbury and Niddrie where they fools to sacrifice their heartland to pamper the sandbelt?

Would’ve, could’ve, should’ve, it’s all irrelevant. The story for Victoria Labor is being complacent and being use to an ineffective opposition rather than tackling the difficult decisions. Nothing Labor does now between the election is really going to move the dial too much, the only hope Labor has got is that public tie the Victorian Liberals and One Nation with Trump like their federal counter parts did or for the Liberals and One Nation too shot themselves in the foot.

I actually think it is very relevant the debate since 2022 Federal election has been about the realignment theory the notion that Working class areas moving right and affluent areas moving left and there is nothing parties could do to prevent this. Important to remember that Liberals are never going to offer people of the Western Suburbs higher spending/left wing economic policy, they can offer social conservatism but once ace they may have was to redirect spending such as SRL. No Liberal party will cut funding to Scotch College (Hawthorn electorate) to offer more funding to St Albans Secondary college not even once led by Moira Deeming. So in a scenario where there is no SRL East but priority is on Airport Rail, the Liberals will need to appeal only to social conservatism to win Red wall seats.

@Nimalan I think the Liberals is effectively trying adopt a two pronged strategy that within the Tealish Eastern/South Eastern Suburb Voters they portray themselves as Socially Moderate and not hostile towards multiculturalism but elsewhere (where ONP is likely going to be strong and/or are politically active), they tend to portray themselves more of a reactionary in being hostile with policies associated from left-wing politics .

@ Marh
I agree and i think in those areas they are trying to appeal to fiscal conservatives. The Liberals for example will never be Pro-Palestine to win Greenvale or the Federal electorate of Werriwa nor does One Nation support cutting funding to Geelong Grammer to fund public schools in deprived areas such as in the seat of Lara. One Nation maybe Economic nationalist but they certainly not interested in economic redistribution or reducing wealth and income inequality.

The rise of ONP has significantly fast-forwarded realignment theory to a degree that was probably not even possible in a straight 2-party system

The politics of SRL has been poisoned by Carroll, despite everything being thrown at them, state Labor were a government that had big vision and big ideas. All Carroll is doing is stripping them of that one trump card they had to try and soften the impact of what’s gone wrong under Andrews/Allan

I would also say rise of ONP may have driven a wedge through the working class and divided it by ethnic/religious background so it is much harder now for the right to win for example Muslim voters. However, i accept that ONP can appeal to White working class voters in places like Spence much more than the Liberals ever could.

I think that switching leaders was going to be a last-minute gamble and last-ditch attempt to minimise losses. There was no hope of saving the government under Jacinta Allan. Add to that, prior to her resignation, Allan also had the insurmountable task of saving her own seat whilst sandbagging others.

Ben Carroll might’ve come in too late. He has little time to reconnect and set his own agenda and path. He called a royal commission into the CFMEU and the Big Build. However, there is still guilt by association since he was a minister under Jacinta Allan and Dan Andrews and also thanks to the politics of the SRL.