The Race for Spring Street

Advoc8’s Louise Crossman and Sean Sammon, Founding Partner of York Park Group, unpacked the battlegrounds shaping Victoria’s 28 November election. If you missed it, or want the highlights on hand, here’s what stood out.

The numbers behind the mood:

• 69% say Victoria is heading in the wrong direction. That figure sat under 60% before Labor’s last win, and every party in government above that line since polling began has gone on to lose.
• 72% want a leader with genuine conviction.
• 8% trust business leaders to help rebuild Victoria.

Key takeaways:

• Labor’s grip on the west and the regions is loosening. Seats like Ripon, just outside Ballarat, look increasingly likely to flip, and the contest is spreading further into the Wyndham corridor and Melbourne’s outer west. Sean also flagged regional Victoria as effectively gone for Labor this cycle. The open question is whether that support consolidates behind the Coalition or splinters to One Nation.
• A resurgent One Nation has scrambled the maths. Recent polling has had One Nation running close to, and in some seats ahead of, Labor on primary vote, a genuine three-way race with no reliable read on where preferences will land. With several seats drawing large candidate fields, don’t expect a clear result on election night.
• Voters are rewarding conviction over polish. Warren Pickering’s frank press conference and Jess Wilson’s more relatable turn on social media were both read as points in their favour, even without fully worked-through policy behind them. By contrast, Ben Carroll’s shifting position on the Western Renewables Link, announced hours after his own energy minister spoke in its favour, was cited as exactly the kind of inconsistency voters are punishing.
• Formal coalition is unlikely, informal deals aren’t. Sean sees little appetite for a formal Liberal and One Nation coalition, given the political cost of the Gillard-Oakeshott precedent. More plausible if the Coalition falls just short: peeling off one or two One Nation members with a committee spot or the Speakership, rather than a signed agreement.
• For your GR strategy: get on the radar early, but hold your asks. Any incoming government will spend its first six to twelve months finding its feet and delivering election commitments, not taking new meetings. Introduce yourself early, then be patient, and when you do make an ask, frame it in the government’s own election language rather than industry terms. The 8% figure above is also the real opportunity: Victoria’s rebuild will need closer public-private partnership than the state has had in years, and business voices that show up with ideas, not just objections, are best placed to shape it.

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