Written by Gordon Meredith
If the weekend’s Victorian by-elections were State and Federal Labor’s ‘canary in the coalmine’ moment, both incumbent governments may be quite concerned about what the sentinel seats of Werribee and Prahran foretell.
A former Labor heartland seat, Werribee is now (still) too close to call, after a chaotic Saturday of voting and counting. With 75% of the votes counted, Labor has suffered a 17% swing against its primary vote within the western suburbs seat, reflecting current sentiment of the performance of the Allan government in Victoria.
The result is not as simple as support flowing back to the Liberal party however, with the Liberal primary vote only increasing by 3.7%, and neither of the two major parties being able to poll greater than 30% of the primary vote (28.7% as of last count).
Source: VEC
Labor’s slender lead in two-party-preferred voting can be accounted to preferences flowing from a left-progressive block of the Greens / Victorian Socialists / Legalise Cannabis parties who collectively won 20.3% of the primary vote. The significant ‘progressive’ primary vote coupled with Labor’s negative swing suggests that former Labor voters are hungry for more progressive policies from the current Allan government, not necessarily a change of government altogether.
Campaigns for the Werribee by-election centred around the typical triumvirate of topics that are circulating state and federal politics at the moment; cost of living, infrastructure commitments, and crime.
While cost of living and public safety policies have, and will continue to, play out on the broader state and federal policy development stage, it would be safe to predict an increase in the major parties’ interest of the infrastructure developments in the western growth belt of Victoria, in the federal seats of Corio, Hawke and Lalor ahead of the 2025 Federal election, and the seat of Werribee for the 2026 Victorian State election.
Across the bay, change was just as abrupt in the seat of Prahran, which was won by the Liberal party, ending a decade of Greens representation for the inner-city area.
Source: VEC
Again, the results do not depict a clear flow of votes from one party to another, with both the Liberals modestly growing (36.2%, up 4.8%) and Greens maintaining (36.2%, down 0.6%) their primary vote counts. Instead, it was preference flow from (former Labor member for Prahran, now independent) Tony Lupton, whose 12.8% of the vote was enough to hand the Liberal party victory by Sunday afternoon.
The Greens, Liberals and Labor have all claimed moral victories in announcements and concessions over the weekend, but little change to the primary vote counts suggests the shift in Greens preferences has more to do with the party’s popularity in Government, than with its popularity within the inner-city suburbs of Melbourne.
The policies introduced during the Prahran by-election campaign were again similar to those put forward in Werribee, but with an intensified focus on a “local’s first” approach.
New Member for Prahran, Rachel Westaway has lived in the area for two decades, is a volunteer at Prahran Junior Football Club and Toorak Prahran Cricket Club, is president of the Thai Australian Chamber, and until recently was a senior member of the Commonwealth’s Administrative Appeals Tribunal. She credits her win, in part, to “being a 20-year local.”
Contrastingly, Greens candidate Angelica Di Camillo was subject of an attack-campaign that challenged the authenticity of ‘locality’ due to her candidacy in elections for Rowville (2022), Aston (2023) and Higgins (2024). Di Camillo is currently based within the Prahran electorate and Greens state leader Ellen Sandell rejects any claims that the “attack ads” had any impact on their primary vote.
An example of the leaflets distributed in Prahran in opposition to Di Camillo.
Despite claims of effectiveness, these types of campaigns confirm a continued ‘localisation’ of both state and federal politics, where electorates have an increasing appetite for authentic local representation.Looking forward, and before the yet to be called federal election, is the Western Australian state election on March 8th where Premier Roger Cook will look to defend his commanding 53-6 seat lead in the Legislative Assembly.
And while Premier Cook is quietly confident ahead of his election campaign – “Western Australia is a very different place to Victoria” – incumbency has proven to be a poisoned chalice for political parties in the post-COVID paradigm. As such, political parties nation-wide, and organisations too, will be preparing for change, however great or small, come the result of the federal election.
If your organisation would like assistance in how best to communicate your message during an election window, please reach out to us.
