A pollster and political strategist is tipping a Coalition majority victory against a “deeply unpopular” Labor government in Victoria’s November election.

The huge call from Tony Barry, Director Corporate Affairs and Communications at Redbridge Group, comes as Labor heads into the election with an 11-seat buffer in the lower house, meaning they could drop from 56 to 45 seats and still govern in their own right.

Even that advantage would not be enough for the scandal-plagued government, according to Mr Barry.

“An important factor which didn’t exist in WA or other contests we’ve seen, like South Australia, is the incumbent government is deeply, deeply unpopular,” Mr Barry told news.com.au.

“The electorate want change. Now, One Nation represents change, and the Liberal party is saying they represent change as well.”

Mr Barry said it was very difficult to predict November’s result, due to fragmented voting patterns and an unprecedented surge in popularity for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party.

“We’ve got no historical data on this, because One Nation has never been so competitive.”

However, he was able to identify seats across the state that he expected Labor to lose to the Liberals and One Nation; resulting in a Coalition victory that would make Opposition leader Jess Wilson the Victorian premier.

Labor seats swinging to One Nation, Liberals

Mr Barry said middle class, aspirational suburbs in eastern Melbourne that Labor had picked up in the 2022 election – Bentleigh, Box Hill, Ringwood, Glen Waverley, Bayswater, Ashwood – were turning back to the Coalition.

“Problematically for the Labor Party, a lot of eastern suburbs seats which were traditionally Liberal heartland are all swinging back hard to the Liberal party,” he said.

Furthermore, there were “a bunch of seats that Labor will lose to One Nation, just like we saw in the (WA) by-election”.

Mr Barry said there was a “very strong chance (One Nation) will pick up seats”, increasing their current presence of just one seat in the lower house.

The electorates he expected One Nation to poach from Labor included mostly regional seats like Ripon, Hastings, Bass, Pakenham, Eureka and Yan Yean.

He described the Gippsland region, which contains several lower house seats, as “probably the epicentre of the One Nation vote, (due to) economic insecurity”.

“The Labor government are closing down the coal-fired power stations; they shut down the forestry industry, and they haven’t replaced it with anything,” he said.

The orange wave went far beyond the party’s anti-mass-immigration platform.

“For about 15 per cent of One Nation voters, they self-report immigration as their key consideration. But for most, they’re looking for an anti-establishment party. It’s a rejection of the two-party system,” Mr Barry said.

Labor left reeling after ‘catastrophic week’

Despite One Nation’s rise in Victoria, Mr Barry thought the party would likely end up in the crossbenches, with the Coalition not requiring them to govern.

“I think the Coalition will win majority. I think the chances of Labor holding government are slight,” he said.

“They still can – they’ve got 11 seats and they’re still a majority – but I think as we get closer to the election… fear of Labor sneaking in on preferences will drive a lot of voters to voting one Coalition. And I just think all of the momentum is with the Coalition at the moment. Labor had a catastrophic week last week with the secret tax.”

He was referring to revelations late last month that the party had introduced a secret tax on all public transport users years ago, to bankroll Melbourne’s Suburban Rail Loop.

The state’s new Labor premier, Ben Carroll, scrapped the tax, known as the Rail Improvement Charge, last week after it was exposed by the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office.

The tax had been devised by Daniel Andrews in 2021 and implemented under Jacinta Allan in late 2024, when Mr Carroll was deputy premier.

It would have raised $8 billion by 2062 despite Victorians having no idea they were paying it.

“Things are not going very well for Labor,” Mr Barry said of the scandal.

“They’ve got 89 days. It’s pretty tough to turn momentum around; it can be done, but my sense is the Coalition will scrape enough together to get into majority.”

He said voters were still assessing Mr Carroll, who had made a “deliberate and calculating” attempt to differentiate himself from Mr Andrews and Ms Allan, though he had been “sitting around the cabinet table” when unpopular decisions were taken under those previous leaders.

Opposition leader Jess Wilson said last month the Coalition could win the election without support or a preference deal from One Nation.

“I’m running to form majority government,” Ms Wilson told the ABC.

“I’m running to save this state; it’s a state that’s on its knees and that’s certainly what I hear from Victorians every single day.”

PM vows, ‘we must defeat them’

Mr Barry’s call comes after One Nation won a seat from Labor for the first time with a massive 17.5 per cent swing in the Western Australian state by-election at the weekend.

Speaking after the historic by-election win in the outer Perth state electorate of Secret Harbour, One Nation’s Luke Herdegen said the voters had “sent a message that will send shockwaves around the country”.

“No seat is safe from the orange tsunami… There are no safe Labor seats in this state or in this country anymore.” he said.

After his party’s defeat, Anthony Albanese issued a rallying cry to Labor delegates in Queensland, arguing that Australians “owe it to history” to defeat right-wing populist parties like One Nation.

“Across the world, hard-right populists are on the march,” Mr Albanese said in Brisbane.

“Peddling politics that is dangerous, divisive, and downright dishonest. We simply must defeat them. We owe it to history.”

Senator Hanson returned fire over the Prime Minister’s claim that One Nation was “dangerous,” accusing him of inciting political violence.

Read related topics:MelbournePauline Hanson