The former safe Liberal seat of Menzies,held by first-term MP Keith Wolahan,would become notionally Labor and Deakin,held by frontbencher Michael Sukkar,would become a dead heat. AfterLabor won Aston in a byelection,Menzies and Deakin are the Liberals’ only urban Melbourne electorates. (It holds three peri-urban seats:Casey,Flinders and Latrobe).
“Significant resources will be put into Menzies and Deakin,” one senior Victorian Labor figure said,noting the number of marginal seats held by Labor in Victoria – such as McEwen,Aston and Dunkley – meant the party would also be in a defensive posture in what has become a key progressive state for Labor.
Nicolette Boele (left) and North Sydney MP Kylea Tink.Credit:Social media
However,this masthead’slatest Resolve Political Monitor shows Labor’s primary vote has sunk to its lowest level in three years,hinting at an increasingly competitive race for power that would put some of Labor’s Victorian seats at risk.
In states unaffected by boundary changes,Labor is confident its vote is holding up in Tasmania and believes it could win Braddon,where an incumbent Liberal is retiring. The Liberals will fight hard to defend Sturt in South Australia,hope to win multiple seats from Labor in Western Australia,and think they could win Blair in Queensland.
The proposed NSW electorate redrawrepresents the third phase,after Victoria and WA,of an electoral commission process designed to make sure states have the right number of seats to reflect their population growth.
Raue said last week the overall impact narrowed the margin for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to hold on to power.
Loading
“For Labor to lose their majority,they need to lose two seats on a uniform swing of 0.4 per cent,down from 0.9 per cent on the old boundaries,” he said on his The Tally Room site.
Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor’s seat of Hume would shift much closer to the city,losing the town of Goulburn to the Labor seat of Eden-Monaro. His margin is estimated to drop slightly to about 7 per cent.
Simon Holmes a Court,convenor of the Climate 200 group that partly funded the community teal movement,believes Taylor would be vulnerable to a community independent.
“Hume’s proposed new boundaries make it look a lot like the state seat of Wollondilly,where an independent won 25.9 per cent of the vote a year ago,taking the seat from the Liberals,” he said.
“The redistribution suggests his primary would now be below 40 per cent – well into the ‘death zone’.”
Liberal sources said the proposed seat of Hume would not pick up some of the parts of Wollondilly that were less favourable towards the Liberals and would add some Liberal-voting areas nearer to Sydney.
Cut through the noise of federal politics with news,views and expert analysis.Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.