The unofficial election campaign is mounting in Victoria, and according to political scientist Dr Nick Economou, it's likely to be a tight year.
“Victoria is a fascinating state, it's probably going to be important in this federal election in ways that it hasn't been, in the past,” Dr Economou told SBS News.
“In the past, there just weren't enough marginal seats in Victoria, and so Federal campaigns tended to bypass us.”
Victoria has traditionally been a Labor state.
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While in the regions, the Coalition has the majority of lower house seats, closer to Melbourne it’s more evenly split and in metropolitan Melbourne, Labor has 13 seats to the Coalition’s seven, and the Greens have one.
But there is movement in the ranks, some of which has been prompted by the retirement of long-standing MPs such as the ALP’s Anna Burke in the eastern Melbourne seat of Chisholm, and the Liberal Party’s Bruce Bilson in Dunkley and Andrew Robb in the bayside division of Goldstein.
“Whenever there’s a retirement, the theory goes that it makes the seat more marginal,” Dr Economou said.
The inner north seat of Wills is also being vacated through the retirement of Labor MP Kelvin Thomson, who has held the seat since 1996.
One of the most multicultural seats in the country, Wills boasts a population where about 40 per cent of households are bilingual.
Long held by Labor, Wills was former prime minister Bob Hawke's seat. The ALP only lost it once – in 1993, to Independent Phil Cleary.
But now former SBS executive and former international security adviser to Kevin Rudd, Peter Khalil, carries the hopes of Labor.
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Though his preselection was a closely contested one, Mr Khalil told SBS News his migrant origins would help him win the support of constituents, even though he’s not from the area.
He said the impact of manufacturing losses will be a big focus.
“Many of these jobs are going off-shore, and we're losing engineering skills, technical skills and know-how and many people will become unemployed, so we need to provide support services for those people,” he said.
But the ALP may face stiff competition from the Greens, who are looking to pick up at least their second lower house seat in Victoria.
Their candidate, local councillor Samantha Ratnam, is confident she can address employment and affordable housing.
“One of the reasons I am running is because I love my own community, so much," she said.
"There's so much work to do. We've got a city that's transforming - it's looking for leadership.”
Marginal seats
One of Victoria's most marginal seats is Deakin in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs.
It has moved between the ALP and Coalition for decades, and in 2013, Liberal Michael Sukkar won it over Labor with a 3.2 per cent margin.
He told SBS News he wanted to enter politics to give back to the community.
“In Australia, if you work hard, you can really make a fist of it and have a great life here,” he said.
“I saw that through my father. He came here as an 18 year old, not speaking English.”
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Mr Sukkar’s campaign will focus on economic growth and infrastructure - issues he believes are important to his constituents, who were left frustrated after the state Labor government scrapped the planned East West Link road project.
More broadly, there’ll be other seats to watch too, Dr Economou said.
“The seat of Bendigo also figures as a potentially marginal seat, Labor has four or five of these quite marginal seats, the Coalition’s got three or four,” he said.
He also expects a battle in Indi, with Liberal Sophie Mirabella fighting to regain the seat she lost to Independent Cathy McGowan in 2013 – one of the Coalition’s shock losses.
Victoria should also be prepared for a few more visits by the Prime Minister he said.
“Because the victory for the Coalition in the last federal election was a landslide, it’s inevitable that the Coalition is going to lose seats. Its margin is going to be diminished,” Dr Ecnomou said.
“In order to buttress his authority as leader, Malcolm Turnbull really needs to win some seats somewhere, or do well somewhere, to offset what I think are going to be losses in Queensland, New South Wales and Tasmania.
"And Victoria is the obvious place.”
