Labor’s decision not to contest the Prahran by-election has been called cowardly by some, but in the hard scrabble of politics you sometimes need to pick your battles. Since 2014, when the Greens got ahead of Labor by a mere 30 votes in a 3-corner contest (the election is literally in the Wikipedia article about preferential voting), the seat has become safe territory for the Greens who won it with a two-party preferred vote of 60% in 2022. The ALP clearly think it’s a lost cause, even with the Green incumbent Sam Hibbins resigning in disgrace.
The Greens unsurprisingly chose an accomplished professional woman, Angelica Di Camilo, the ertstwhile Higgins candidate, to represent them. Are they in any danger? With a nod to Betteridge’s Law, I say no, and predict a comfortable Green retain. For the Greens to lose, a few things need to happen:
- Labor’s share of the primary vote in 2022 was 26.6%. Their preferences went 83% to the Greens. With the Greens primary of 36.4%, just the Labor preferences put Sam comfortably over 50%. So, we need a significant drop in the nominal Labor vote, and quite a few to prefer the Liberals over the Greens on their ballot papers.
- With a primary vote last time of 31%, the Liberals would need a huge surge to be back in the game. Even 50% of erstwhile Labor voters would not be enough.
- A progressive independent with significant star power would probably need to run.
Let’s say the Liberals are doing well and their primary vote increases by 5%. The disgraced Greens only pick up 50% of the previous Labor voters, and lose 5% of their old voters to the Liberals. That puts their primary at 44%. Independents and micro-parties only get 11%, and break for the Greens 50/50 over the Libs. In this scenario – quite a bad outcome for the Greens – they still squeak by and win with a TPP vote of 50.5%.
What if we have a star independent? A household name, Labor-aligned but not a member. Only a third of Labor votes put “1” Greens; the Lib primary holds steady, the Greens lose 10 points of their old voters to the independent. In this scenario, the independent pulls in 28% of the vote and comes third; 60% of their preferences, let’s say, come back to the Greens (Prahran is a very progressive seat). In this scenario, the Greens win with a 2PP of 55%.
Therefore in my view, something pretty radical would need to happen to tip this progressive enclave back into the conservative camp – unlikely – or into the hands of an independent, who would not have a lot of time to build up a profile and get well clear of the Green or Liberal primary vote and get into the final two, getting up on Liberal preferences. How many of the 63% combined ALP+Green vote from 2022 can be peeled away?
You can have a play around with the assumptions here.