Werribee speaks, Labor shudders: The swing that can’t be ignored
While voters in Werribee were, no doubt, expressing their displeasure with the Allan government and while it is true that voters distinguish between state and federal governments, the concern within federal Labor ranks is that that crankiness will extend on into the federal election, which is due no later than May.
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Peter Dutton made a point of saying in 2022, that when he became opposition leader, he planned to target the outer suburbs and the regions and worry less about the inner seats (most of which his party had just lost to the teal independents).
He has stayed true to his word throughout this term of the federal parliament and it’s seats like Lalor – not to mention other outer suburban seats like McEwen and Hawke in Melbourne, and Parramatta and Werriwa in Sydney – that are firmly in his sights.
Albanese will go to the next election with 24 seats to defend in Victoria after just about sweeping the state capital in 2022, while the Liberals have only six in hand.
Of those six Liberal seats, only Menzies is genuinely suburban. Four others – Flinders, Casey, Deakin and La Trobe – are on Melbourne’s urban fringes.
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Victorians loathed Scott Morrison and the “prime minister for Sydney” moniker hurt him badly. Albanese has been much more careful to tend to Victoria’s requests for economic assistance.
But since that strong result in 2022, talk of Labor winning any more Victorian seats has since died down and the party is in a “what we have, we hold” defensive crouch now.
Voters’ anger with the Allan government, frustration over the high cost of living, slow wages growth and the simple fact that after three years, the sheen has come off Albanese, mean that Victoria will be tougher for federal Labor than it had hoped for or planned.
If nothing else, the huge swing away from state Labor in Werribee is a pointed reminder not to take Victorian voters’ support for granted.
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