Labor's Melbourne heartland could flip to One Nation, Guardian reports
The Guardian reports that high costs and unkept promises could flip Melbourne's Labor heartland to One Nation at the Victorian state election on Saturday 28 November. Its focus is Sydenham, a seat in the city's north-west that was once considered part of Labor's stronghold.
The sitting member, Natalie Hutchins, is retiring. Labor's successor candidate is Uros Rasic, who has been campaigning since December.
The seat has been slipping for some time. Labor's primary vote in Sydenham fell by 17.8 per cent at the 2022 election. The primary vote is the share of first-preference votes, and the party's two-party-preferred vote, which measures how the two major parties compare once preferences are counted, dropped below 60 per cent for the first time in three decades.
Sydenham is not the only seat under pressure. Labor MP Natalie Suleyman's primary vote in St Albans fell by 18.4 per cent at the last election. She faces Liberal Rob Dunstan, One Nation's John Cowell and Luan Walker of the West party. In Greenvale, the vote swung almost 15 per cent against Labor on a two-party-preferred basis, and in Yan Yean the swing was 11.3 per cent.
A Lighthouse tracking poll for the election put Labor's primary vote at 22 per cent. It had the Liberal Party on 31 per cent and One Nation on 23 per cent, ahead of Labor. A Roy Morgan survey from October put the Liberal-National Coalition on 56 per cent on a two-party-preferred basis, up one percentage point on its earlier survey of 8 and 9 October. The Guardian reports that if polling holds, One Nation could end up with the balance of power in the lower house.
One Nation's federal leader in the Victorian campaign, James Ashby, has denied that the party is pursuing a preference deal with Labor. Ashby said One Nation wants the Labor government gone and is not interested in such an arrangement. A preference deal is an agreement over where a party's second-choice votes should flow.
Muslim Votes Matter has softened its anti-Labor stance ahead of the election, in a bid to defeat One Nation in at-risk seats. Separately, Labor posted an AI-generated video to its social media accounts depicting opposition leader Jess Wilson trick-or-treating alongside One Nation.
Enrolment for the election closed at 8 pm on Tuesday 3 November. Early voting opens on Wednesday 18 November, ten days before polling day.
