Labor MPs in Wyndham are expected to retain their seats at Saturday’s state election, a Monash University political expert predicts.
Localities in Wyndham are divided into the Laverton, Point Cook, Werribee and Tarneit electorates.
Senior politics lecturer Dr Zareh Ghazarian said the overall polls indicated Labor was expected to surpass the opposition.
“Over the past few years … the opposition hasn’t been able to make up the ground they need to win the election and that on a two party preferred basis … Labor is still ahead,” he said.
Dr Ghazarian said the new seat of Point Cook is a “growing area” that should be “easily retained” by Labor, with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation election analyst Antony Green predicting a 12.8 per cent margin.
“The margin is such that Labor should be able to hold on. If Labor starts losing seats like Point Cook, then it’s unlikely to win government because that should be a safe seat.
According to Dr Ghazarian, there a multiple factors that could potentially cause Werribee MP Tim Pallas to lose the seat he currently holds with a 13 per cent margin.
“If there is a shift, depending on what that is, it could be a bit of a protest vote, it could be another candidate that comes up that attracts votes away from Labor… if that occurs, it suggests there is some dissatisfaction with the government,” he said.
“And unless there’s dissatisfaction with Mr Pallas as the local representative in the state parliament, I wouldn’t expect there to be much of a shift in that vote.
“Based on the margin, I’d expect Labor to retain this seat.”
Labor’s Sarah Connolly currently holds Tarneit by a margin of 17.9 per cent, however due to a boundary redistribution, Ms Connolly is now vying for the new seat of Laverton.
The Victorian Electoral Commission’s two party preferred analysis predicts Labor will secure the majority of votes in Laverton.
“What happens on election night could be unexpected, but that consistency of polling doesn’t seem to indicate that there’s a real shift against Labor at the moment,” Dr Ghazarian said.
