The Real Reason Why Melbourne Voters Gave Adam Bandt the Brush-Off | Federal Election 2025

As Adam Bandt sweats on the outcome of what's apparently been a disastrous re-election bid in the seat of Melbourne, there are some results in the booth-by-booth breakdown which point very strongly to the primary cause for his potential political demise.

In short, the Greens have been completely smashed in the vast majority of booths within the City of Yarra Local Government Area.

Correlation is not causality, but it is very hard not to interpret this as brand damage associated with the woeful performance of Australia's first and to date only Greens-majority local council from 2020-24.

THE YARRA FACTOR

The following is a summary of where the Greens have lost votes vs 2022 (correct at time of writing but subject to change).

When the booths are broken down into 4 categories - namely City of Yarra, City of Melbourne, the new booths from City of Stonnington acquired following the redistribution and the Prepoll booths, a clear picture emerges.

These new booths are represented by the "gained" area indicated below. It's clear to see how the new 2025 boundaries have made the seat more marginal, but remember that these changes are NOT applicable to any of the swings we are about to look at, which are like-for-like booth-for-booth.

The results are stark.

	GRN Net Primary Votes Lost	GRN % Swing Against (Primaries)	% OF Total Vote
STONNINGTON	16	0.58%	12.23%
MELBOURNE	41	0.55%	22.72%
YARRA	345	4.66%	23.38%
PREPOLL	802	6.72%	41.67%
	1204

So the average swing against the Greens in the City of Yarra booths is NINE TIMES HIGHER than those in the City of Melbourne or the new Stonnington booths. It was mostly net business as usual in those places (although a fair bit of churn beneath the headline numbers - Carlton was up by 8% and East Melbourne down over 6%, go figure).

So it's very hard not to intepret those numbers as a resounding DISendorsement of the performance of the local Council.

Booth	Swing to GRN Primary
Richmond Central	-10.40%
Cremorne	-12.40%
Richmond South	-11.80%
Richmond	-6.90%
Fitzroy	-5.40%
Burnley	-3.60%
Collingwood North	-4.10%
Abbotsford	-2.10%
Fitzroy Central	-0.90%
Abbotsford South	-0.70%
Collingwood	1.30%
Richmond West	5.70%

Richmond/Cremorne was the epicentre of the backlash, excepting that one of the area's 5 booths - West Richmond recorded the highest swing TO the Greens in the entire electorate, so whatever went on at that booth bears more investigation.

Greens Postal votes were also down 12%

And you can add to that that the Greens clearly ran a very poor pre-poll game.

It's impossible to guage whether Yarra voters may be under or over-representated in the poor pre-poll and postal numbers, but they represent around 1 in 4 of the elctorate.

But the Greens lost more votes in total from the pre-poll Abbotsford booth than anywhere else in the electorate, with a 9.5% swing against them on primaries.

So if we include pre-poll, Bandt suffered a swing in 11/13 booths within the City of Yarra (85%). 5/7 (71%) in Stonnington, but on average mostly small drops, and in only 7/17 (41%) booths in City of Melbourne.

Whichever way you care to dice it, Yarra is the outlier.

One other point of note is that in spite of the overall performance in the City of Melbourne booths, the largest % swing against Bandt on primaries came in Docklands, which does tend to suggest that the wealthier end of their Boomer/retiree support has peeled away somewhat.

But it's difficult to make too many demographic assumptions about where the lost vote in Yarra has come from - as the catchment of the Richmond booths in question straddles a very disaparate mix of public housing tenants, renters and much wealthier homeowners.

WHERE TO FOR THE GREENS

In a contest which will now likely be decided by hundreds rather than thousands of votes, it seems safe to say that absent the evidenced brand damage in the City of Yarra, Adam Bandt would have already have delared victory by now in Melbourne, albeit on a reduced margin.

On the ground, you get the sense that they were caught napping, and had little idea that a result like this was on the cards. Which is suggestive of both a certain level of amateurism and a degree of hubris.

The Greens would be well advised to take a more active organisational interest in the performance of their elected Councillors, as it is very clear that any local-level brand damage can carry across to even a Federal level.

And you simply cannot afford to take pre-polling for granted, where it now represents over 4 in 10 voters.

The ALP should now be confident about their chances of returning the state seat of Richmond to the Labor fold in 2026, especially as they'll be up against the former Yarra Mayor who was in the seat for most of the chaos.

There has been some discussion already around whether the Greens should simply focus their resources on maintaining their position in the Senate, but that seems deeply misguided to me.

For one, very few people set out to specifically cast a Senate vote - not having a ground game at a local level, and not having local level campaigns isn't going to help your Senate vote overall.

Secondly, as I discussed yesterday, a future swing against the ALP (provided the party is positioned to capitalise on it) puts fully 5 lower house seats not just in play, but a highly realistic prospect.

But they need to counteract the brand damage they've taken - there needs to be a much greater sense of their being a party that negotiates with Labor to deliver results. 

For a lot of potenial greens voters this time, I don't the issue was the ideology or their agenda, I think the sense was that they were counterproductively blocking positive change, and making far too much noise about themselves in the process.

Like the Liberals, Bandt still seems somewhat in denial about the scope of the challenge.

The added Mulsim votes have seen their overall primary hold up, but you have to question - if by some miracle peace came to the middle east in the next 4 years (and after the ALP has recognised a Palestinian state in this term), whether they are going to be capable of holding on to those votes.

We're already hearing lots of noise about Muslims who DIDN'T shift their vote because of concerns about the Greens' policies vis a vis faith based schools.

There are some tough choices facing the Greens in deciding who their base strategically ought to consist of, and what sorts of policies are required to pitch effectively to them.

Because all the idntity-based stuff is an absolute dead end for them - they've already captured that market and mostly what they've inherited from them is a wellspring of internal strife related to trans issues.

Becoming the "party of renters" was an absolutely brilliant pitch.

But they balls-ed it by aiming only at the stars, when more than emough people would have tuned in for a moon landing.

And I'm sorry, but we HAVE seen this movie before.

WHERE TO IN GENERAL?

Frankly, what I think the political landscape needs is something that takes the Left of the ALP that's crapped off over AUKUS and Gaza, melds it with the competent bits of the Greens, does away with the single issue party branding, and becomes a genuine democratic socialist party for the new milennium.

A thing with a political conscience that's actually capable of winning elections, that won't trip itself up in culture wars of its own making in the process.

Yes, alright. Back to my knitting ...

Melbourne Story - Labor Very Nearly Runs Third in its Former Bailwick at 2016 Federal Election

I've thought long and hard about this. I want to initiate this discussion, and I want all the people who might benefit from to see some of this mapped out spatially, although that's a complete tautology. Whatever.

But I don't want to have this discussion online, or at least not publicly online. There's a lot going on here, and the dust is still settling. But the reality is that the warning I sounded to the few poor souls whose throats I forced my 25,000 word essay down has essentially come to pass, and even sooner than I feared. We have all but run third in 2016 in the seat where in 2001 Lindsay Tanner secured a 48% primary vote.

So I'm not risking putting any more grist in our opponents' mill by putting any more of our ideas in the public arena. Here's the raw data. I'm extremely eager to hear anyone's spin on it, to know whether anyone can see a way forward here. Or does this essentially advise us "it's cooked, move on"?

None of the demographic trends at work show any sign of reversing, nor do they seem like the sorts of things election campaigns can really much impact. The only booths we won at the last poll were Housing Commission booths - and we still managed to lose half of those, or booths where a high Liberal vote got us over the 2PP line. Does this feel terminal, or what?

I've reproduced the images from my earlier blog post here also to help give some more historical context/trend. You'll note I've changed my methodology. Working with the area-based "lozenges" was a bit more visually engaging but an absolute pain in the digital arse. Especially when particular booths come and go from poll to poll.

These 2016 numbers of course exclude absentee and declaration votes, but the reality is those are obviously NOT going to alter the more demonstrable trends.

Anyway, I'll let the data speak for itself, and hopefully you, dear reader, may also be moved to do similarly. You know where to find me.

Melbourne FEA Booths by 2PP vote %, 2016 Federal Poll

Bright Green = GRN 50-60%, Deep Green = GRN 60%+
Orange = ALP 50-60%, Red = ALP 60%+

Melbourne FEA Booths by ALP Primary Vote %, 2016 Federal Poll

Pink = 10-20%, Light Orange = 20-30%, Deep Orange = 30-40%, Red = 40-50%

Melbourne FEA Booths by GRN Primary Vote %, 2016 Federal Poll

Pale Green = 30-40%, Bright Green = 40-50%, Deep Green = 50-60%

Melbourne FEA Booths by 2PP Swing %, 2016 Federal Poll

Pale Green = GRN+0-1%, Bright Green = GRN+1-5%, Deep Green = GRN+5%+
Orange = ALP+0-1%, Red = ALP+1-5%
Hotham Hill booth is the outlier, swinging 12% GRN

Melbourne FEA Booths by ALP Primary Swing %, 2016 Federal Poll

Pale Green = -0-1%, Bright Green = -1-5%, Deep Green = -5%+
Light Orange = +0-1%, Dark Orange = +1-5%, Red = +1-5%+

And frankly, I think this next one is one of the most interesting charts of all. And this is basically where I'm coming from when I forecast that the entire inner city is just going to be one massive three way contest in the not too distant future.

Melbourne FEA Booths where highest 1st pref swing was to the LIBERALS, 2016 Federal Poll

The remaining older charts show primary voting patterns (no 2PP) for Federal Elections 2013 and 2010 plus Melbourne State District Byelection 2012. State electoral boundaries are shown in yellow. Lighter red = lower ALP vote %. Lighter green = lower GRN vote %. Colours are consistent in their % representation across all images.

ALP Primary Vote, 2010 Federal Poll

ALP Primary Vote, 2013 Federal Poll

Indicating the huge decline in ALP votes in central, north and eastern parts of the electorate

ALP Primary Vote, 2012 State Byelection

ALP Primary Vote, 2010 Federal Poll, overlaid with State Byelection 2012

showing little shift in ALP primary vote between these polls in booths within the State District boundaries

ALP Primary Vote, 2013 Federal Poll, overlaid with State Byelection 2012

showing a huge decline in ALP primary vote between these polls in booths within the State District boundaries

GRN Primary Vote, 2010 Federal Poll

GRN Primary Vote, 2013 Federal Poll

showing significant increase in GRN primaries across Northern-Central portion of electorate

GRN Primary Vote, 2013 Federal Poll, overlaid with State Byelection 2012

showing a significant rise in GRN primary vote in the inner norrh portion of the electorate between the two polls - Carlton, Fitzroy, Fitzroy North, Parkville

The Battle for Inner Melbourne - By Colours

OK. So, about a week out from the State Election, I had this ready to roll off the presses. And then I thought about potential succour to the enemy, and I'm sure that's some sort of Federal offence now, although maybe not retrospectively, and goodness me where did I put my spectacles, and so forth  ... !! (keeping up?)

It's all based around this here analytics I've done using Google Earth, kind of geospatial representations of the ALP/Greens vote based on booths at Federal and State elections. And now I really am building up rather a useful volume of such material over successive polls, and no, you cannot have any.

The question I wanted to ask prior to the election was whether an extrapolation of Federal voting trends in Melbourne FEA was already evident in the trend figures at the State level, and if so what was the likely State result?

You can see this below in pretty pictures. The regions are based on estimated likely voter catchments for each of the state and federal polling booths. The shades are based on each party's PRIMARY vote as a % of the total # of votes cast.

 ALP 2012 VIC BY-ELECTION

ALP 2010 FEDERAL ELECTION

ALP 2010 w 2012 OVERLAY

So, the first thing we see is that the ALP's primary vote at the by-election was a very close match in profile to that it obtained at the 2010 Federal poll, implying voters largely stayed with Labor across the two polls.

 ALP 2013

ALP 2013 w 2012 OVERLAY

The picture is very different relative to the 2013 poll, in fact the decline in Labor vote between the two Federal polls appears to have been almost cruelly centred on booths within the new geographic boundaries of the state seat. This should have been the first warning to the ALP that Jen Kanis in particular was in trouble. Our worst booths at our worst result ever, Federally, now comprised the core of the State District of Melbourne. Jen won 2012 mightily against expectations at a by-election that drew a record low voter turnout and without any Liberal candidate on the ballot.

It seems clear now looking at the above alongside the result of the 2014 election, that Labor effectively likely started from a point of needing a sizeable swing in order to hold the seat.

Green 2010

Green 2010 w 2012 Overlay

Looking at it from the Greesparty's end of the tube, once again, we see very little divergence between the two maps -the Green vote was largely constant from 2010 to the state byelection. Where I have effectively made the assumption above that of those voters who failed to turn out at the by-election, a majority are likely to be Greens, perhaps this actually indicates it was just the Liberal voters who stayed away, a finding that does make some intuitive sense.

Green 2013

Green2013 w 2012 overlay

And this image would likely give more cheer to the Greens' position, as a repeat of the 2013 vote would see the virtual northern half of the state seat (and the smaller cells there indicate that's where a large majority of the voters reside) swing strongly Green.

So. What really happened, then?

Well, all the new lot of pretty pictures that ought to be here are currently ontologically situated somewhere between my crashed hard dive and oblivion. Waaaaaaaa. Nonetheless, let me resort to baggage-laden, un-net-friendly words and reveal everything....

The results in both cases read almost exactly as if halfway between the 2013 actual and the 2013 with 2012 overlay. What's that mean in plain language? We see in evidence an enduring swing TO the Greens and AWAY from the ALP since the 2010 federal election, but that swing has been significantly mitigated since then. Nonetheless the ALP's core vote remains at losing levels (assuming Liberal preference flows were to stay constant) in the state boundary. Would the addition of Labor-held Richmond and parts of Essendon be enough to tip the scales and say "it's neck and neck in Melbourne"? Unlikely on sheer weight of numbers. The state districts of Melbourne and Richmond are 90% of the Federal FEA, and Richmond was a near enough run thing itself.

But we've established State vote is a reasonably good proxy for Federal vote in this seat, if not to much time has elapsed between, there is real grounds to say the process of the rehabilitation of the Labor brand in inner Melbourne is at least SOMEWHAT underway.

So there is much work yet to be done, but plenty more lessons to take away from this. Lessons I'm not inclined to cast afore the swine of the internet at large. The nub end of my analytics if for comrades alone, shoot me a message, prove your membership creds, and we might continue this conversation over your beverage of choosing ...