Rowville – Victoria 2026

Liberal hold, I don’t see Labor pealing this off especially after two back to back landslides.

Labor has not won a Southern Knox seat since they lost Wantirna (the preceding seat) in 1992. This area is now more established and wealthier than the 1980. However, Labor has a better chance to win this than Kew, Brighton, Sandringham or Morwell.

Rowville has been trending Labor after 2010. Rowville’s predecessors Scoresby and Wantirna used to be solidly Liberal. The last time Kim Wells had a margin <4% was as a result of the 2002 Labor landslide.

In 2002 much of this area was still housing estates and young families so the 2022 results was pretty good for Labor. Wantirna was held during the Cain/Kirner years by Labor so was not solid liberal at that time.

If the Liberal were in trouble here then something would have seriously gone wrong.

Kim Wells has got to go. The Libs need new talent in a seat like this.

Agree entirely with Dan M. He is 67, been in parliament since 1992, dead wood. Time to be given the tap on the shoulder.

Probably best to wait for a good year.

Kim Wells is calling it quits and won’t recontest the next election.

Libs have a great opportunity to pick good quality candidates with so many older members retiring. Benambra, Croydon, Malvern now Rowville. All should be women .

Kim Wells retirement is about time. The Libs do need to pick good candidates as they have to hold all of these seats. They need to look at candidates with ministerial potential as they are desperately short of talent. They might not need all be women but at least two should be.
When are they going to give Bev Macarthur the shove?

Will be interesting to see what personal vote Kim Wells has here and if Labor will run the same candidate here again.

I believe on federal numbers Labor would narrowly hold this as well, again I still think that its extremely unlikely Labor would pick this up.

I know it is still early but so far, 5 MPs have announcement their retirement and all of them are Lib or Nat MPs. There needs to be some generational change.

This seat is increasingly becoming what nearby Glen Waverley looks like right now in terms of demographics, affluence and voting patterns.

I agree Dan M it is become more educated and Diverse sometimes i feel it is a cheaper version of Manningham. I still think it is a strech for Labor to win at a good election like 2018/2022 but easier to win than Morwell which is a rust belt seat.

Max Williams the former vice president for the Victorian Liberals is to replace Kim Wells. I am personally surprised as I would’ve thought they would preselect someone more high profile.

@SpaceFish Maybe if this seat was up for grabs, but I don’t think there’s any way the Liberals don’t win it

It’s managed to stay in Liberal hands despite two consecutive bad elections for them.

While having a high profile is a must, the Liberals ought to hope Williams has ministerial potential. Not really much of a point in handing a safe-ish seat to a complacent backbencher.

^isn’t a must

I’m suggesting Labor has a remote shot of winning here at all, I just thought that such a historically reliably Liberal seat would put someone who could be a minster or future leader.

not”

Rowville will likely fall the next time Labor gets a 54%+ 2PP result IMO, so maybe they Liberals should be looking elsewhere for a generational aspirant type candidate

@ SpaceFish
I think it is probably the case that Knox reached peak Liberal back in the 2010s as the area was ageing and more homes were being paid off. After the 2019 election, Peta Credlin said that future leaders would come from seats like Aston not Kooyong. Obviously that now hard when Labor as a sitting MP in Aston. I will concede Rowville is harder to win than Aston as it has the strongest Liberal parts of Knox. I think Labor can win in future but will be hard maybe more than 58% TPP so 2002/2018 type result. I think the diversification of the area mean it is increasingly like Glen Waverley in terms of demographics albeit without PT. I think Evelyn is now a stronger seat and better suited for a leadership seat. Apart from that i think it will either rural seats or more affluent seats for Liberal leaders. Even Berwick is not super strong and could fall to Labor when they get another landslide like 2002/2018.

While I think Labor has a chance of holding onto Bayswater I still think this seat is still too far out of reach for Labor with a lot of the seat very established and not seeing significant amount of development in comparison to Bayswater. I think for the immediate term Liberals should be able to hold on here and Labor might get close but that’s as good as they’ll get for now unless there is another disastrous election outcome and Labor somehow increases its majority.

@ SpaceFish
I dont think any one posting here on this thread seriously think that Rowville will fall to Labor in 2026. I dont think that is the point. I also accept your point that Rowville being safeish means that it is usually reserved for people with talent who can join the Front bench. I think what Maxim, Dan M and myself are alluding to is that it probably is not going to be the next Brighton, Malvern or Kew as many people including myself may have thought in 2019, some would have said Rowville is a new Cronulla 6 years ago, it is probably going to resembe a seat like Glen Waverley a Liberal leaning seat but not like the Inner East etc. It does not need to snow in Hell before Labor wins Rowvile. Also i think the culture of the Liberal party if that many of the leaders will come from either affluent upper class seats or rural seats and less likely from Middle Australia seats. It is possible that a seat like Narracan/Benembra may produce a Liberal leader.

Max Williams is a longterm local and well known in the Rowville community. Certainly has ministerial potential. Not a woman but still a decent choice for the Blue Ribbon seat.

Given the sort of demographics and this being an open race One Nation could be a serious threat here.

@ SpaceFish
This area is increasingly CALD i would say Sunbury is probably best example of an area in Greater Melbourne where ONP will do well along with Anglo Tradie suburbs.
As Dan M pointed out this is more like Glen Waverley or a cheaper version of the Hills District so i think longer term this is a left-trending seat as it becomes more diverse.

Something I wanted to add that is definitely worth considering is in the western part of this electorate particularly through Wantirna South a high amount of house holds own electric cars, have solar on their roofs and batteries as well.

@ SpaceFish that is what i have been trying to say along with Dan M. Wantirna South is better educated than the Victorian and Australian average. It has fewer % born in Australia and has a higher % of people who speak a non English language at home. When i was a child in the 90s i remember visiting this area to meet relatives and family friends it was full of display homes and new house and lack packgages. Labor lost this area in the early 90s at both levels of government due to the state bank collapse, high interest rates and the recession. Fast Forward to today it has more homes owned outright and fewer homes under mortgage than victorian and national avaerage evidence of it being settled. This is why interest rates and COL are less of an issue here than it was even in 2004.

*Furthermore median age in Wantirna South is 44 much higher than state and national average.

Will be interesting to track those types of suburbs to see if the Chinese vote remains wedded to Labor across other demographic factors – prior to the rise of ON some of the Redbridge surveys of VIC state showed the Coalition winning the non-english speaking vote. Whilst more pressing COL issues might not resonate for the right here, perhaps there might be issues around Labor’s land tax hikes and potentially if Chalmers is aggressive on the upcoming budget there might also be exploitable Federal concerns around how Labor view asset owners or higher income households.

Of course the Feds (Coalition) lost Victoria 56-44 and state polling has them at least on parity which makes it look very tough for Labor to pick this one up, but it does seem Tudge’s personal vote in Aston was worth something and it could be similar for Kim Wells – perhaps the margin is a little undermined by the presence of an IND running 3rd last time too. Demos Au have ON winning Aston with ON well ahead in the national primary vote, Liberal hold on a similar margin for mine

@Maxim, I do agree Chinese Australians overdue for a correction vote however I don’t expect the Liberals to do as well like they did in the 2016 and 2019 Federal Elections since:
– The Baby Boomers and Gen X Chinese Australians that tend to make much of the property speculations and small business owners have diluted in their voting share with Australian-born and newer citizens (the ones with fewer assets) have increased in voting share.
– Albanese reengagement with Australian-Chinese relations.
– To my knowledge, Labor placed very little effort in campaigning in the Chinese Community for the 2016 and 2019 Elections

I also think polling non-English speaking voters would have a huge margin of errors which is one major factor for Albanese overperforming results compared to the opinion polls.

@ Marh
I agree the Chinese Australian vote is due for a correction. On a state level i would say in 2018 there probably was already movement as the State Libs made an issue about BRI. I personally dont think it will even come back to 2014 levels however, i think the libs will be satisfield if the Chinese Australian vote are somewhere between the 2014 to 2018 result. 2022 was even worse. The Libs maybe able to form government without Box Hill is they win a a seat like Sydenham instead however they need all others. Interestingly, Kos Samaras said Libs actually did better among the Chinese community between 2013-2019 period than they did during the Howard years. During the Howard years they underperfomed as they were changed to family reunion visas and a perception of being soft on Hanson. I would say there improved performance in Banks, Chisholm, Reid/Lowe during that period compared to Howard years are evidence of that. Also Re NESB votes i do agree with huge margin of errors especially with refugee communities. I think one reason that MRP polling was so wrong on Bruce was it undersampled Afghan community with low English skills who were never going to vote Liberal even when Dutton was doing relatively well in polling.

https://www.tallyroom.com.au/archive/aus2022/bruce2022#comment-821014