What are we to make of the results in the two state by-elections in Victoria on the weekend?
The Liberal Party won a traditionally Liberal inner city seat back from the Greens, while Labor looks set to narrowly win in what is supposed to be a safe Labor heartland seat, albeit after suffering a nearly 17 per cent fall in its primary vote.
Both major parties will no doubt spin the state by-election results to suit their narratives. That’s politics 101!
Labor will try and justify why the poor showing isn’t a reflection on federal Labor.
State and federal differences will be cited, so too the longevity of the state Labor government – in power for more than 10 years – as a reason for the protest vote.
And of course expect federal Labor to point out that by-elections always see large swings against incumbents, therefore you can’t automatically translate the results to a federal general election.
These are all fair points, but they don’t change the fact that Labor strategists should be worried about what transpired on Saturday evening.
Even if just a fraction of these results were to be replicated federally across the country, Labor would lose its majority and possibly lose the election too.
If the result in Werribee was replicated on a federal level, Anthony Albanese’s Labor would lose its majority – and the election
And the poor showing is a clear reflection of just how on the nose the Labor brand is in Victoria, a traditional stronghold for the party at state and federal elections in recent decades.
Liberals will certainly see Saturday night’s results as further evidence the next election is winnable.
Dissatisfaction with Labor is high and rising, and if an unpopular, divided and poor performing state Liberal opposition like the one in Victoria can do this well, surely the federal opposition can match that performance.
Perhaps, but Liberal strategists will also see the areas of concern in these (albeit generally positive) results.
While the Labor primary vote collapsed, on a two party basis most of it went to the crossbench not the opposition.
Labor’s primary vote fell by 16.7 per cent in the Werribee by-election but the Liberals primary support only increased by four per cent.
And much of the primary vote that went directly to crossbench parties (over 40 per cent of it) indirectly came back to Labor on the two party vote as preferences were distributed.
This should be concerning for the federal opposition. Throw in that the state Labor government is into its second decade, whereas the federal Labor government is only in its first term, and the degree of difficulty for Peter Dutton to emulate anything like Saturday’s by-election results at the next federal election only rises.
Peter Dutton and wife Kirilly at a Lunar New Year event earlier this month
That said, the Labor primary vote of 28.7 per cent in Werribee on the weekend roughly correlates with where Anthony Albanese’s primary vote is languishing federally for Labor, according to recent opinion polls.
Winning the inner-city seat of Prahran from the Greens superficially suggests perhaps federally the crossbench needs to watch out for a surging Liberal vote come the federal poll. However, that is to overstate the results from Saturday.
The by-election in Prahran was necessary because of a scandal involving the state Greens MP who resigned after admitting having a consensual relationship with a staffer. Federally, no such issues are currently in play for crossbench MPs.
While state Labor clearly does have a brand problem in Victoria, and it’s hard to not see at least some contagion federally when voters go to the polls, the fact is that most of the Labor held seats in Victoria are on sizeable margins.
The three most marginal Labor held seats are Chisholm (3.3 per cent), Aston (3.6 per cent) and McEwen (3.8 per cent). Aston was won off the Liberals at a by-election shortly after the 2022 election defeat when disgraced former minister Alan Tudge retired.
After that, picking seats up off Labor becomes much harder, with margins rising to five per cent and beyond.
In 1990, the last time federal Labor suffered a major swing against it in Victoria (and state Labor was simultaneously on the nose), there was a 4.9 per cent swing to the Liberals and they picked up eight seats.
Andrew Peacock (a Victorian) was the federal opposition leader, no doubt helping the Liberal vote rise in his home state.
Such a swing this year in Victoria would only deliver the three seats mentioned. To win eight again in Victoria, like happened in 1990, the Liberals would need a swing of eight per cent.
That seems like a bridge too far for the Peter Dutton-led federal opposition, notwithstanding all the problems Labor has in Victoria.
Nevertheless, Victoria is just one state Labor needs to worry about when the federal election happens. NSW is a second problematic state and even though Labor’s support is holding up in WA the government should still lose some seats.
Because Labor’s majority is already only wafer thin, all of the above suggests the most likely outcome of the next federal election remains a hung parliament: whether Labor ekes out a minority victory (my prediction) or the Coalition finds a way to dethrone a one term government for the first time since 1931.
