Redbridge polling analyst Kos Samaras said he believes preference distributions from One Nation’s growing supporter base is set to cause a shake up across a string of key seats.
Where to watch: Samaras said polls are showing eastern electorates like Box Hill, Ashwood, Glen Waverley, Ringwood and Bayswater, all of which Labor won in 2022, are “picking up increases in Liberal Party support”.
He said voters who had left Labor for One Nation and then cooled on it were moving to the Liberals, not back to Labor.
“A lot of people that we speak to view the Liberal Party as a moderate alternative to One Nation,” Samaras said.
The Coalition needs 16 more seats to govern in its own right, and Samaras said One Nation's rise changed how it could get there: “They don’t require a large primary to get there because it's all about who is winning the three-way contests.”
In Ringwood, where Independent Will Fowles is not recontesting, Samaras expects One Nation to finish third and its preferences to elect the Liberal ahead of Labor. One Nation has named candidates in Box Hill, Glen Waverley and Bayswater but, as of October 2, not in Ringwood or Ashwood.
Other close battles: The seat of Kew will also be under the microscope on Saturday November 28, with Victorian Liberals leader Jess Wilson hoping to hold off independent candidate Sophie Torney, after she secured 21.1 percent of the first-preference votes in the 2022 race.
Hawthorn is another inner-city seat that the Liberals must retain, with former party leader John Pesutto hoping to hold on after losing the seat in 2018 and regaining it in 2022 with a margin of 1.74 percent.
Croydon is also set to be a close race, with Liberal MP David Hodgett retiring and only holding on with a 1.4 percent margin.
Desperate times, desperate measures: Since Ben Carroll toppled Jacinta Allan from the hot seat to become the Victorian premier in late July, he has made a number of changes to projects hanging over from the Daniel Andrews and Allan governments, including reducing the scope of the Suburban Rail Loop.
Carroll also launched a review into the Western Renewables Link (WRL) – a 190-kilometre overhead high-voltage electricity transmission line distributing energy sourced by wind and solar farms in western Victoria to the state’s high-voltage transmission grid.
When asked why Ben Carroll made the move to announce a review into WRL, Samaras said he believed such a decision came from a place of desperation.
🗣️ “We assume politicians know what they’re doing,” he said. “They’ve got two speeds: arrogance and panic. And they’re in the panic state right now, they’ll never make any rational decisions. They are animated by the algorithms. They’re animated by their email inboxes. That’s Labor, Liberal National Party – that’s how they’re dealing with whatever problem is happening right across the country.”