If anyone is as happy as Anthony Albanese right now, it’s Jacinta Allan.
As the federal election results rolled in on Saturday night, one of the biggest surprises came in Victoria – where Labor defied months of grim predictions to strengthen its grip on the state.
Despite relentless commentary about Allan’s unpopularity and the supposed drag she posed on the Labor vote – not just from the Liberals but by her own federal colleagues – the state swung even harder to the party than it did in 2022.
According to Poll Bludger, Labor’s two-party-preferred vote in the state sits at 54.8 to 45.2.
Labor not only held Aston – a seat in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs it won at a 2023 byelection but had written off this campaign, pulling out resources weeks ago – but also won nearby Deakin and Menzies off the Liberals.
Neither were on Labor’s target list. In Menzies, there wasn’t even a field organiser on the ground.
Other suburban seats targeted by the Liberals such as Chisholm, Dunkley and McEwen also swung further to Labor, while talk about strongholds such as Bruce, Hawke and Gorton being under threat proved to be rubbish.
It’s a devastating result for the Coalition in a state they desperately needed to turn around. At best, the Liberal party could emerge with just seven out of 38 across Victoria – as many seats as their Nationals partners.
The Liberals didn’t see this coming – and neither did Labor.
“We were expecting the Luftwaffe to come in and completely decimate us – instead, we got Dutton on a lame pony,” one senior Victorian Labor source said. “Their campaign was an absolute joke.”
State Labor figures had braced for a swing away from the party – expecting a drop of between 1.5% to 2.5% while members of state caucus were questioning whether Allan’s leadership could survive a loss of more than three federal seats. A challenge was seen as inevitable if key seats fell.
Such was the fear internally that Albanese appeared with Allan just once during the campaign. In the final fortnight, she held only two metropolitan press conferences, well away from the campaign trail – one at a Lego Star Wars exhibition, where she posed with Darth Vader, raising a few eyebrows.
The Guardian
