With a diverse votership possibly twice as large as last election, McEwen will be an important seat to watch. Out of Melbourne’s east and south-east suburbs it’s a tight race again, mixed around by redistribution. Election analyst Antony Green unpacks more.
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00:00McEwan's always been a bits and pieces electorate. It's tended to go with government and it's
00:07always been the one on the edge of the metropolitan area that extends into rural areas. So it's
00:11always got that balance of outer suburban and regional, of Labor voting areas and Liberal
00:16voting areas. So it's always a marginal seat which you're watching at an election. And
00:22so that's why it's important. It's the one outer suburban seat which the Liberals have
00:28the best chance of winning. The oddity of seats like McEwan is that they've got the edge of
00:33the growth parts of Melbourne. And while we look at results polling place by polling place
00:38on the night to predict, what often happens in that electorate in particular is that the
00:43last booths to come in are the big growing booths on the edge of the city. And there may be twice
00:48as many votes there as they were at the last election. And it often significantly weights
00:53the results as they come in on the evening.
00:56Let's zoom out from McEwan now and look more broadly at Victoria. What are the other seats
01:02in play this election?
01:03Well, there'll be a lot of action in Melbourne's East. It's got four marginal seats, all adjacent
01:09to each other, all sort of mixed around by the redistribution. You've got the Labor held
01:13seat at Chisholm. You've got Aston, which was one of the by-election two years ago. And
01:17Menzies and Deakin, which are very marginal Liberal seats. So they're all in play. And it would
01:23only take a small swing either way to change those seats. Out of South East Melbourne, you've
01:27got Bruce and Holt, which was a lot of talk of before the election, but they seem to have
01:33faded from conversation a bit. You've got Goldstein and Kuyong, also in the eastern suburbs.
01:39The Teal seats versus Independents versus the Liberal Party. And then there's a couple
01:44of seats where the Greens could be doing well. Wills, which is the margin has been cut in
01:49in Northern Melbourne. Labor's got a real battle there with a margin now under 5%. And then
01:54there's McNamara, which is a true three-cornered contest. At the last election, there was almost
01:58a dead heat between Labor, Liberal and Greens. And whoever finishes third there, their preferences
02:04determine the outcome. If the Greens finish third, Labor wins. If the Liberals finish third,
02:09Labor wins. But if Labor finishes third, they've issued an open how-to-vote card. Will that
02:15be enough to allow the Greens to get preferences and win? Or will it open up an opportunity for
02:20the Liberal Party?