With less than week until election day and early voting already well under way, the focus on the election is narrowing, as are chances of a Peter Dutton prime ministership – if you believethe polls. A campaign that from the start zeroed in on Australia’s mortgage belt will be decided on the streets of outer Melbourne and Sydney, in regional Victoria and New South Wales.
Labor and the Coalition are likely to win seats from each other in the mortgage belt, but the X-factor in deciding who wins government will be whether the Greens pinch seats from Labor, and if Climate 200-backed independents grab a few more long-held Coalition seats.
Coalition members shrug off the polls. They point to the 2019 numbers showing a likely Labor win that turned into Scott Morrison’s “miracle” victory, and they cite internal research showing the race in key seats is much closer than the national figures suggest. TheCoalitionexpect to pick up a few seats in outer Melbourne.
Labor, Greens and crossbench sources remain optimistic about holding or winning seats across the board, with the unpredictability of a growing third-party vote and the explosion in early voting being wildcards. The terms “toss-up” and “down to the wire” are common cliches uttered by political players across the parliament in numerous conversations we had this week for this article.
The topline: Labor and the Liberals are downplaying the prospects of much shifting outside the mortgage belt seats in NSW and Victoria, where a number of seats are still up for grabs.
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But senior Labor sources claim there is a very real chance the party will retain majority government, even whispering about a potential increased majority. Labor believes Dutton is a less popular Liberal leader than Scott Morrison.
Labor is confident of holding all its seats in Western Australia and the Northern Territory, and sources believe the party has stemmed some of the bleeding in Sydney.
The Liberal focus on Victoria, where the Coalition earlier talked up its chances of a decent haul, has narrowed to a handful of seats: Aston, Chisholm, McEwen, and at longer odds,Hawkeor Gorton. Labor sources are resigned to losing a few Victorian seats, conceding there are tough challenges especially in Aston and McEwen, which Dutton has visited many times during the campaign.
The Coalition is adamant its internal research paints a rosier picture of marginal seats than that indicated by published polls. Labor is not talking up chances of grabbing Victoria’s ultra-marginal seats of Menzies or Deakin from the Liberals.
“It is closer than the national polls are suggesting,” one Coalition source said. Another stressed they believe it will be tighter than most people expect and downplayed the prospect of a Labor majority. A final blitz, including last minute ad spending, could affect a few more seats, they say.
Liberal strategists are also quietly confident of gaining the NSW seats ofBennelong, Gilmore and Paterson and possiblyBullwinkel, Tangney andCurtinin WA; there are whispers aboutWhitlam. Sources point to a last-minute Labor ad blitz in their seats of Boothby,Paterson and Robertson, and Albanese’s decision to hold recent events with Labor MPs in Bruce and Chisholm, as signs of Labor concern about those seats.
Labor, conversely, believes it is on track to hold Tangney, and win the new seat of Bullwinkel. ALP sources are also confident of hanging onto all the Hunter region seats, formerly high targets for the Coalition.
Sources close to the Climate 200 movement admitted the race to win Curtin was proving tough. Held by teal independent Kate Chaney, it is thought the first-term MP has her “nose in front”.
The Liberals have relished stumbles from teal independent Monique Ryan in Kooyong, but one source admits winning back the seat after one term is a tough ask. They’d also love their candidate Tim Wilson to win back Goldstein from the independent Zoe Daniel.
Climate 200 sources believe the fight to win all the seats won by teal independents in the 2022 election will be a tough one, but they believe they can hold them all against Liberal challengers, with Allegra Spender’s seat of Wentworth in Sydney considered safest.
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The independents are facingattacks from third-party campaignerssuch as Advance and Australians for Prosperity. But Climate 200 says the candidates it has backed in the Coalition-held seat of Cowper, Bradfield andWannonare doing well and may spring surprises on election night. The marginal seat of Forrest in Western Australia, long held by the Liberals, may also be an interesting race, with a new teal candidate facing off against a new Liberal candidate.
Labor and the Liberals believe they stand a chance of winningBrisbane, and sources in the Greens – who hold that seat via first-term MP Stephen Bates – admit it will be hard work to hold on to it.
The Greens are more confident about holding on to the neighbouring seat of Griffith, held by Max Chandler-Mather, and they are increasingly positive about retaining Ryan in Brisbane’s western suburbs. Chandler-Mather, the outspoken housing spokesperson, has helped transform the Greens into a self-described “party for renters” – but Labor is desperate to dislodge him.
The Greens remain confident of taking Labor’s Victorian seat of Wills, held by Peter Khalil, with their candidate Samantha Ratnam, the former state Greens leader. Labor believes it will hang on to Wills, but the Greens believe there’s a groundswell of anger in north Melbourne about Labor’s position on the Gaza war and the cost of living that could push voters to the smaller party.
There’s anotherthree-cornered contest in Macnamara, held by Labor’s Josh Burns. The Middle-East conflict is also important to many voters in the Melbourne Port-side seat, which has a large Jewish community. The 2022 vote count between Labor, Liberals and the Greens was so close it took several days to finalise.
The Greens are quietly confident of taking Richmond, centred on Byron Bay, from Labor’s Justine Elliott. The seat has a high proportion of renters, high house prices and several Greens sit on the local council. Adam Bandt visited the seat on Saturday with candidate Mandy Nolan to launch a plan to raise the aged pension.
Labor believes it could win in Leichhardt, the north Queensland seat held by retiring Liberal MP Warren Entsch. Anthony Albanese’s recent visit to the seat with candidate Matt Smith generated some of the more interesting photos of the campaign, with the former pro basketball player towering over the prime minister.
Now for the wildcard: Labor has been throwing resources at Dickson, Dutton’s seat in Brisbane. Albanese visited Dickson on the first morning of the campaign and the party has dispatched a conga line of senior ministers to campaign there with candidate Ali France. Albanese told Guardian Australia last week that Labor genuinely wanted to unseat Dutton, noting that Dickson was Queensland’s most marginal seat on 1.7%.
Dutton has laughed off the challenge, saying he has always held on in tight contests. But one senior Labor source said that although the party wouldn’t bank its win just yet, internal polling showed the race was very tight.
Albanese’s path to majority government seems tough but Dutton’s is nearly invisible. A Labor minority is still considered by many as the most likely outcome. But with so many marginal seats and several electoral X-factors mudding the water, it would be a brave soul who would say what the final numbers will be.