Solid result for socialist candidates in local council by-elections

On the back of strong grassroots campaigns that included many hours of doorknocking and letterboxing and thousands of conversations with voters, Victorian Socialists candidates achieved a solid result in recent by-elections in Darebin and Whittlesea councils in Melbourne’s north.

The by-election for the North West Ward of Darebin City Council was called following the death in April of left-wing independent councillor Gaetano Greco. Greco was first elected to council in 2008 and served as Darebin mayor in 2013-14. He was a strong progressive voice who was a leader of the campaign to save Preston Market from its billionaire owner’s profit-seeking redevelopment plan.

Greco was a popular councillor. In the last state-wide council election in October 2024, he won the North West Ward with a first preference vote of 57.8 percent, ahead of Labor’s Geraldine Wood on 20.1 percent, the Greens’ Patchouli Paterson on 12.3 percent and VS candidate Adam Slater on 9.8 percent.

Seven candidates competed to fill his vacant spot, with all but one of those pitching themselves as (various shades of) progressive. VS candidate Cat Rose—a nurse and long-time community activist who has in recent years been part of the Save the Preston Market campaign along with local organising around Palestine—received 14.5 percent of first preference votes, coming in third, behind progressive independent Angela Villella on 27.4 percent and Labor’s Daniel Scoullar on 17.6 percent.

After the distribution of preferences, however, Rose came out ahead of Labor, finishing second on 42.4 percent behind Villlella on 57.6 percent. Villella was one of two candidates whose pitch to voters centred on their connection with Greco and desire to continue in his footsteps (the other was George Kanjere, who received 7.6 percent of first preference votes).

Rose’s first preference vote represents a swing of 4.7 percent from VS’s North West Ward result in 2024. This is a good outcome in a crowded field of progressive candidates. For comparison, the Greens’ first preference vote was down 4.2 percent from 2024.

The by-election for the Lalor Ward in Whittlesea City Council was called after the 2024 election for that ward was voided by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal due to suspected fraud. During the vote count, which was narrowly won by long-time Labor councillor Stevan Kozmevski, Victorian Electoral Commission staff found that there were a high number of “multiple returns”: numerous postal ballot papers being sent in by a single voter.

Eleven candidates ran in the by-election. VS candidate Omar Hassan—a teacher and long-time Palestine solidarity campaigner who was the party’s candidate for Scullin in the recent federal election—came in second on first preferences with 15.5 percent of the vote, behind Kozmevski on 22.3 percent. They were followed by a group of three candidates who received between 11 and 12 percent. After the distribution of preferences it was the fifth-placed candidate, Michael Labrador, who received just 11.2 percent of first preferences, who jumped ahead to win with 52.4 percent to Kozmevski’s 47.6 percent.

It’s difficult to come to any firm political conclusions from this result. Labrador stood on the far-right of the field of candidates, foregrounding his Christian faith and family values and calling for more “fiscal responsibility” from council. As the third-placed candidate on the ballot, though, he benefited from what VS scrutineers said was a significant donkey vote—where voters, not knowing (or not caring) who they should vote for, simply number the boxes starting with “1” for the top-placed candidate and going down the ballot paper from there.

The results for VS provide further evidence for the existence of a decent-sized audience for socialist politics in these areas. Both Lalor and Reservoir (which Darebin North West Ward covers) are heartlands of Melbourne’s multi-ethnic working class that have traditionally been Labor Party strongholds. In many parts of Australia, workers’ disillusionment with Labor is translating into increasing votes for parties on the far-right fringe. To the extent that VS can win a portion of these people to vote for and identify with socialists instead, that in itself will be a positive intervention into Australian political life.

Our aim, however, should be to do much more than that. There’s no indication that we’re approaching a ceiling for the socialist vote in these areas. Socialist organising in places like Lalor and Reservoir is only just getting started. The biggest barrier we face is the pervasive disillusionment with and disengagement from politics, more than any entrenched commitment to Labor or far-right candidates and parties.

If Victorian Socialists can further establish itself as a genuine, radical alternative to the utterly corrupt and pro-big business politics of both Labor and the Liberals, and to the progressive small ‘l’ liberal but ultimately pro-capitalist politics of the Greens and the Teals, there’s every reason to think that the current upward trajectory of its vote (and its membership) will continue and even accelerate. And with the party’s recent decision to expand across Australia, there’s no reason to think this success can’t be replicated in other states and territories too.

James Plested is the Victorian Socialists communications director.