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Labor is campaigning to regain inner-city Melbourne seats from the Greens, highlighting public housing redevelopment and policies such as allowing dogs in pubs and extending trading hours.
Victorian Labor is taking the fight to the Greens in inner Melbourne ahead of the November state election, targeting seats it sees as ripe for regaining despite backlash over public housing redevelopment.
Labor Targets Inner Melbourne
The government sees an opportunity to regain ground in the city after the 2025 federal election, where the Greens failed to capture target electorates and leader Adam Bandt lost his seat. Pauline, a 76-year-old resident of North Richmond's high-rise public housing towers, faces relocation after a letter told her to leave 139 Highett Street, the first unit in her block slated for demolition.
Part of the Chinese Hakka minority targeted during Indonesia's invasion of Timor-Leste, she traveled to Jakarta and Portugal before reaching Australia. She has lived in the towers for more than 30 years. She felt pressured to move into another high-rise on the block, also slated for demolition, or risk removal from the housing waitlist. I don't like it here but I had to pick it.
I'm waiting and hoping I can move into a new one, she said through a translator. Twelve of the 44 public housing towers to be redeveloped are in Richmond, held by Greens MP Gabrielle de Vietri. She said the towers have become an emblem of the government turning its back on things it once championed. I've got staunch Labor voters who, in a five-minute conversation, will reconsider their vote.
They're really on the nose, de Vietri said. Monash University senior lecturer in politics Zareh Ghazarian said the federal result defied the sense of inevitability that Labor would continue to cede seats to the Greens in the inner city. Labor is on the offensive, emboldened and they think these seats are ripe for regaining, he said. There's a lot riding on the inner city for them because it could be the difference between holding on to or losing government.
Greens Defend Inner City Gains
For more than a decade, the Greens have made major advances against Labor in inner-city electorates once considered strongholds. The Greens hold Melbourne, Richmond and Brunswick and have repeatedly attempted to reclaim Northcote, making it the most marginal electorate in the state. They are seeking to win back Prahran after losing it to the Liberals at a 2025 byelection and are targeting Labor-held Footscray, Pascoe Vale, Preston and Albert Park.
Across the nine electorates, the party says it has knocked on more than 70,000 doors and spoken to 24,000 voters. Ben Carroll took over the Labor leadership from Jacinta Allan, making the Greens genuinely competitive in seats we've never held before. The party says polling backs its confidence, with Demos tracking the Greens at 14%, up from 11.5% in 2022. YouGov and Roy Morgan's September federal polls put their Victorian primary vote at 18% and 16%, respectively.
The political landscape has changed so much since the federal election and in Victoria, Sandell said. To be frank, Labor are more likely to go even further backwards here because of the poor decisions they've made over the last few years. The Victorian Socialists argue the Greens are part of the problem. Jordan van den Lamb, known online as purplepingers, is running against Sandell in Melbourne after a federal Senate bid in 2025.
He argues the Greens have become a professional-class party, made up of landlords and CEOs of NGOs rather than working-class people, and are more focused on negotiating than fighting inequity. The Greens have held every single level of government in my area and nothing's changed, he said. He says the socialists are running easily our biggest campaign yet with a candidate in every lower and upper house seat. Ultimately, they will preference the Greens above Labor.
Ghazarian said the Liberals' preferences will also be a major factor in who wins the inner city. In 2022, the Liberals' decision to preference the Greens above Labor helped de Vietri in Richmond. But after criticising the minor party's response to Israel's war in Gaza, the Liberals preferenced Labor ahead of the Greens in 2025. Labor isn't ceding the inner city.
Public Housing Shapes The Campaign
The Victorian premier, Ben Carroll, made a string of announcements this month targeting the seats, including a commitment to overturn a ban on drinking. Labor has also been tactical in its candidate selection, choosing councillors with established profiles to run in Melbourne, Richmond and Prahran. Its Richmond candidate, Sarah McKenzie, a City of Yarra councillor, has consistently supported the government's plan for the public housing towers. People here are really switched on, she says.
They have come to expect a knock on the door at election time. McKenzie supports the government's plan for the towers, saying she visited Highett Street with the council and saw serious issues with the building's condition. But she says others might have another 20 to 30 years before they require redevelopment.
She is also definitive about the need to increase public housing in the process, saying the best way she can advocate for that is to make the case inside a Labor caucus, guided by residents. De Vietri says the government has been ploughing ahead with no thought for residents. She points to a recent state government briefing to the City of Yarra, which showed plans to quadruple the Highett Street site from 200 to 800 homes.
Just 150 are earmarked for social housing, not public housing. The government has also targeted the seats with policies such as allowing dogs in pubs and extending trading hours.
Public Housing Towers Greens Labor Contest Inner Melbourne Seats Richmond Electorate
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