The Melbourne electorate of Wills is back in play. Or is it? Bob Hawke’s old inner-northern stomping ground, held since 2016 by Labor’s Peter Khalil, has just undergone a Greens-friendly redistribution. If the Greens do snatch it next year, it will be the party’s first federal gain via a two-candidate-preferred victory over Labor since Adam Bandt entered parliament in 2010.
Each of the three Brisbane stunners in 2022 relied on the Greens candidate facing the Liberal Nats rather than Labor in the two-candidate-preferred count, which meant that LNP voters’ preferences weren’t distributed.
What was different about Bandt’s victory in Melbourne (the seat) fourteen years ago? Long-term local member Lindsay Tanner was retiring; the Greens’ national primary vote leapt to a new high of 11.8 per cent (only beaten by 2022’s 12.3); the Liberal Party was still routinely advising its voters, via how-to-vote cards, to rank Greens ahead of the real enemy, Labor.
But in a stroke of good fortune for the ALP, the Libs turned that strategy on its head in 2013, and have preferenced Labor ahead of the Greens ever since. The strange decision to dump a practice that had just reaped magnificent dividends (imagine how much easier life would have been for the Gillard government without having to strike that deal with the Greens) was driven by a perception that Victorian Liberal leader Ted Ballieu’s decision to relegate the Greens — as a demonstration of political conviction — had got him over the line in that state’s November 2010 election.
Bandt, once in, built a phenomenal personal vote, easily big enough to withstand the Libs’ change of preference policy, and the primary vote has swung to him at every election since. He came second in primary votes in 2010, with 36.2 per cent, but he’s topped the primary vote every time since, and in 2022 received 49.6 per cent. (Fellow 2010 kingmaker Andrew Wilkie, down in Denison, now Clark, also rose from modest beginnings to enjoy massive margins.)
Today, if not for the changed Liberal strategy, the Greens would probably occupy two more House crossbench spots. It certainly made the difference in Batman (now Cooper) in Victoria in 2016, saving Labor’s David Feeney. And it probably rescued none other than Khalil when he first ran in the same year. His Greens opponent eight years ago, as it will be next year, was Samantha Ratnam.
As noted on these pages several months ago, the Victorian seats of Macnamara and Wills will be the most likely Greens gains in 2025. Macnamara, like the Brisbane three, requires a good result from the Liberal candidate. Wills will be a straightforward Labor–Greens contest.
Wills is in contention because of an almost completed redistribution. Election analyst Ben Raue estimates that the 2022 results, applied to the new Wills boundaries, lift Greens primary support from 28.3 to 32.8 per cent and cuts Labor’s from 38.9 to 36.4, with Khalil’s two-candidate-preferred margin against the Greens shrinking from 8.6 to 4.6 per cent.
But there’s a “but.” Notional post-redistribution margins are estimated using booth votes at the previous election and allowing for declaration votes (for which booths can’t be identified), the large majority of which are postal. These estimates can’t take account of disappearing personal votes (when electors suddenly find their old MP is not on the ballot), which are recognised as a real issue when it comes to the major parties, an all-but insurmountable one for independents and probably something in between for the Greens.
The booths moved from Melbourne to Wills by the redistribution comprise deep Greensland, even by Bandt standards. In 2022, Brunswick South East voted 63.3 per cent Greens. Brunswick East took votes for both electorates: the Melbourne Greens vote was 57.6; the Wills Greens managed a less spectacular 48.7 per cent.
Are these new Wills voters Greens supporters or Bandt supporters? Complicating the picture is that Khalil also has his own presence around the city, certainly more than the succession of Labor unknowns the Greens leader has faced over the last decade.
Comparing the swings in old-versus-new Wills after the election will be illuminating. In the meantime, it’s fair to say that Khalil’s notional margin is probably understated by a couple of percentage points.
Working strongly in favour of the Greens is Ratnam, who enjoys a higher profile than in 2016 after a stint in state parliament, including as party leader.
Once again the Greens’ performance across the board will affect all electorates. Will they match 2022’s national vote, or even beat it? Labor’s as well; the ageing state government will likely prove a drag.
Khalil’s appointment as the first “Special Envoy for Social Cohesion” should raise his profile (which was presumably part of the idea) but could carry risks as he attempts to reconcile his government’s Gaza position with demands of constituents.
Might the Liberals’ preference policy revert to pre-2013, perhaps as retribution for Labor preferencing the teals? Unlikely, but not impossible, and it would significantly increase the basket of potential Greens gains.
(The reader tempted to doubt the power of these how-to-vote cards can compare Liberal voters’ 80–20 preference split between Greens and Labor in 2010 with 2013’s 33.7–66.3.)
If polling looks grim for Khalil during the campaign he might be tempted to take a leaf out of his predecessor’s book. Kelvin Thomson was dropped from the frontbench in 2007, just before Labor took office, and soon set himself up as a naysayer to party policy by advocating lower immigration. Voters do like mavericks, and the equation for MPs who publicly buck their party tends to be increased standing in their own electorate at the modest expense of that for their party across the country. It’s obviously not something all candidates can do. For an idea of Thomson’s appeal in Wills, see the collapse of the Labor vote when he retired in 2016.
So if things get desperate, publicly departing from the government on Gaza is an option for Khalil. It might mean leaving the “envoy” position and would blot his copybook with colleagues. But they’d get over it.
And federal preselections in traditional party electorates don’t grow on trees. •
