Melbourne’s West stretches from inner suburbs along the Maribyrnong River like Footscray and Williamstown through to recently developed areas bordering on farmland. In less than a week, alongside other Victorians, its residents will go to the polls to elect a new state government.

Although the eleven electoral districts in Melbourne’s West are known as the Victorian Labor Party’s “red wall,” the last eight years under Labor premier Daniel Andrews have not served locals well. Indeed, although Labor has governed Victoria for nineteen of the last twenty-three years, the area has some of the city’s worst access to social infrastructure like schools, public transport, and hospitals. The population of the region has grown rapidly in recent years, yet thanks to developers, housing prices are going up. A history of heavy industry and manufacturing has left many areas dangerously polluted.

Melbourne’s West is also not likely to cave to the Right. The Liberals command just a single seat in the five-seat Western Metropolitan Region. And during the May federal election, seeds spread by a number of hard-right micro-parties failed to germinate, despite record advertising expenditure financed by mining billionaire Clive Palmer.