With the dust settled on the Werribee by-election, attention has turned to what the result means.
For Emeritus Professor of Politics at Monash University, Paul Strangio, there’s one obvious takeaway.
“Clear disaffection with the Allan Labor government,” Professor Strangio said.
“There’s a powerful ‘it’s time’ factor.”
Yet, voters in Werribee didn’t think it was time for the opposition Liberal Party either, with their candidate, Steve Murphy, attracting just four per cent of the 17 per cent swing away from Labor.
Professor Strangio said this indicated that voter anger extended beyond just the Labor government.
“The second big takeaway is disenchantment with all of the established parties and by that I mean Labor, Liberal and the Greens,” he said, noting that while Werribee was not a Greens stronghold, their vote stagnated.
“It was most disappointing for Labor, but it’s not a great result for the Liberals and it was a poor result for the Greens so the voters were saying a pox on all your houses.”
Professor Strangio said this wasn’t a new trend, with the last federal election providing a precursor.
“If you go back to the 2022 federal election and you look at the western suburbs, the outer western and outer northern suburbs, there was a very similar pattern. Labor’s primary vote came off in a lot of its safest seats in those suburbs by about 10 per cent or so,” he said, adding that few of those primary votes shifted to the Liberals.
Professor Strangio said population growth and mortgage stress made the political environment in Melbourne’s north-west especially volatile, but that the trend away from the established parties wasn’t unique to Labor heartland.
“We’re seeing these patterns pretty well everywhere,” he said pointing to the success of the Teal movement in winning Liberal heartland seats as an example.
In Werribee, independent Paul Hopper performed strongly, capturing 15 per cent of the vote and plans to run candidates in all 11 western suburbs seats at the next year’s state election under the banner of the West Party.
Professor Strangio said it was still too early to predict how Mr Hopper’s party or anyone else would go at the November 2026 poll, but that it would ultimately hinge on whether voters had faith in the Liberals to do a better job than Labor.
“Will they believe they’re a viable alternative government, that remains a big question mark.”
