No candidate was able to secure 30 per cent of primary votes in the byelection. It’s a warning sign for Labor and the Liberals of what experts tip will happen more and more.
School teacher and CFA volunteer John Lister says the message from Werribee voters has been heard “loud and clear”.
Latest counting has extended school teacher John Lister’s lead in the formerly safe Labor seat despite a huge swing against the Allan government.
There is limited room in the state budget to respond to voter frustrations in the west after Labor’s primary vote collapsed 16.7 per cent in the Werribee byelection.
The count in a seat the Liberal Party has not held for 46 years has upended the established order of Victorian politics and delivered a potent message to the Allan government.
If the Greens were a party with serious aspirations to govern,they would be mortified by the message from the Prahran byelection.
The Victorian Electoral Commission ordered one of its own officials to leave a polling place after they were overheard telling people to vote Liberal.
The Greens blamed preference deals and low voter turnout for their failure to hold the inner-Melbourne seat.
Significant swings away from state Labor in Werribee will put Anthony Albanese and his federal colleagues on notice that they can’t take Victoria for granted.
Western suburbs voters have hammered the Allan government in Werribee – though they didn’t fully embrace the Liberal Party – while the Greens conceded Prahran was “on a knife’s edge”.