A big surprise in the Labor big win in the Victorian election was the ALP picking up Glen Waverley – the buckle go the Bible Belt in outer eastern Melbourne. This is in the district where many attendees of large Baptist and Pentecostal churches come from.
It was not a one-off. In a trio of neighbouring seats, Bayswater and Ringwood besides Glen Waverley the Liberals suffered large swings against them. Liberals were down 12.1 points in Ringwood, 15 points in Bayswater and 8.2 points in Glen Waverley. Labor also retained Box Hill with an increased majority and neighbouring Ashwood,
Of course not even in the most Bible of Bible belts are there a majority of churchgoers, so these results do not represent church votes directly.
With the first preference votes for both major parties at record low levels, Labor’s lost vote has a focus. The general pattern is that Greens get hold of the votes Labor has lost, and returns them via second preferences when needed. Progressive voters are strategic with their preferences.
But Antony Green pointed out – not so with the Liberals. Their vote “sprays everywhere’. It is not focussed on any particular party.
Of the further right parties, One Nation may have scored an upper house seat in the Victorian election. But there was no conservative focus. No main right-of-the-coalition target. Given many places to put their vote, Coalition defectors did not give any particular group much above 5 per cent in the lower house, although in some seats the Coalition was down some 15 per cent.
Family First came first among the minors
Lyle Shelton, National Director of Family First claims a win in that they outpolled all the other minor parties – if you add up their lower house votes. Family First scored 2.8 per cent of lower house first preferences outpolling the other smalls parties such as the Freedom Party, DLP but not the vote for independents. (The upper house votes are still being tallied.)
As his party was only registered in Victoria in October, Shelton can be pleased with his first major test since joining the party.
Shelton believes that the Matthew Guy-led Liberals were “Labor lite.”
“The Liberals need to break out of the Labor, Green, Teal quad on energy and social policy.
“Peter Dutton should embrace his conservative instincts and begin to argue a new vision to millennials,” Shelton writes.
“Voters are sticking with Labor because there is no contest for ideas. They never hear an alternative.
“If Dutton would argue the truth about energy and gender – two iconic litmus test public policy issues – voters could be won over.”
Shelton brackets support for “baseload power” and opposition to the Victorian government’s transgender policies as issues he believes conservatives would have rallied around.
What vax vote?
The “‘”Angry” vote that some commentators expected, of voters protesting against Melbourne’s extended lockdown was hard to find. The Freedom Party which aimed to reap votes from angry voters scored 1.7 per cent of lower house first preferences.
If anger was a factor it would have been in the Western Suburbs of Melbourne where the Labor margins in safe seats were cut drastically. But not so that Labor lost any of their “red wall.”
In the seats the Liberals needed, such as the seats they lost in 2018 (such as Box Hill) in the East, there was no queue of voters seeking to punish Dan Andrews. With or without a baseball bat.
In the churchy parts of Melbourne the “freedom vote” simply did not materialise.
This should establish that the idea of a widespread “freedom” movement of Christians aggrieved at covid measures was likely a myth.