Cabramatta – NSW 2015

ALP 1.9%

Incumbent MP
Nick Lalich, since 2008.

Geography
South-western Sydney. Cabramatta covers southeastern parts of the City of Fairfield, including Cabramatta, Mount Pritchard, Bonnyrigg, Bonnyrigg Heights, Edensor Park and Lansvale.

Map of Cabramatta's 2011 and 2015 boundaries. 2011 boundaries marked as red lines, 2015 boundaries marked as white area. Click to enlarge.
Map of Cabramatta’s 2011 and 2015 boundaries. 2011 boundaries marked as red lines, 2015 boundaries marked as white area. Click to enlarge.

Redistribution
Cabramatta shifted west, gaining Edensor Park and Greenfield Park from Smithfield and Bonnyrigg Heights from Liverpool. In exchange, Cabramatta lost Canley Heights, Canley Vale and Wakeley to Fairfield. These changes cut the margin for Labor from 2.1% to 1.9%.

History
The electoral district of Cabramatta has existed since 1981. It has been held by four MPs, all members of the Labor Party.

The seat was first won in 1981 by Eric Bedford, who had held Fairfield since 1968. He served as a minister in the Wran government from 1976 until his retirement in 1985.

The 1986 by-election was won by Fairfield deputy mayor John Newman. He held the seat until his death in 1994. Phuong Ngo, a former independent candidate for Cabramatta, was convicted of Newman’s murder.

The 1994 by-election was won by Reba Meagher. She was appointed to the Labor government’s ministry following the 2003 election. She served in the ministry until 2008, when she was removed from the ministry as part of events which saw the downfall of NSW Premier Morris Iemma. Her final portfolio was as Health Minister after the 2007 state election.

The 2008 Cabramatta by-election saw a massive 21.8% swing against the ALP. The seat was won by Fairfield mayor Nick Lalich. He was challenged by Liberal candidate Dai Le. The swing was one of the biggest in NSW history. It would have been a record prior to the by-election, but was surpassed by a 23.1% swing in the seat of Ryde, which held a by-election on the same day. Both seats’ records were beaten at the 2010 Penrith by-election.

Nick Lalich was re-elected in 2011. Nick Lalich continued to serve as Mayor of Fairfield while sitting in Parliament, until he stepped down at the 2012 council election.

Candidates

Assessment
Cabramatta was traditionally considered to be a very safe Labor seat, but after a big swing to the Liberal Party at the 2008 by-election the seat was hotly contested in 2011 and the ALP came close to losing. Despite this recent history, it seems likely that Cabramatta will revert to form in 2015 and be easily retained by the ALP.

2011 election result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Nick Lalich Labor 20,924 46.7 -22.3 43.9
Dai Le Liberal 18,990 42.4 +26.1 43.4
Daniel Griffiths Greens 3,385 7.6 +0.7 7.7
Peter Tadros Christian Democrats 1,467 3.3 +3.3 4.4
Others 0.7

2011 two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Nick Lalich Labor 21,702 52.1 -26.9 51.9
Dai Le Liberal 19,934 47.9 +26.9 48.1
Polling places in Cabramatta at the 2011 NSW state election. Bonnyrigg in green, Cabramatta in red, Mount Pritchard in blue, St Johns Park in yellow. Click to enlarge.
Polling places in Cabramatta at the 2011 NSW state election. Bonnyrigg in green, Cabramatta in red, Mount Pritchard in blue, St Johns Park in yellow. Click to enlarge.

Booth breakdown
Booths in Cabramatta have been split into four areas based on key suburbs: Cabramatta in the east, Mount Pritchard in the centre, St Johns Park in the north-west and Bonnyrigg in the south-west.

The ALP won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in three out of four areas, ranging from 50.4% in St Johns Park to 59.4% in Bonnyrigg. The Liberal Party won 51.1% of the two-party vote in Mount Pritchard.

Voter group ALP 2PP % GRN % Total votes % of votes
St Johns Park 50.4 8.7 9,896 21.6
Cabramatta 53.4 6.8 8,665 18.9
Mount Pritchard 48.9 7.3 6,706 14.6
Bonnyrigg 59.4 6.1 6,202 13.5
Other votes 50.6 8.5 14,356 31.3
Two-party-preferred votes in Cabramatta at the 2011 NSW state election.
Two-party-preferred votes in Cabramatta at the 2011 NSW state election.

13 COMMENTS

  2. Nick Lalich fronts up for another election. Lalich, who is now 70, might be contesting his last election. Lalich, who was elected in 2008, needed to contest, and win this election to ensure his state superannuation. I had heard rumours that Lalich was in trouble for his preselection this time around, but this did not come to pass.

    Lalich would have been the member for Cabramatta, as long ago as 1994, had Reba Meagher not been parachuted into the seat, following the assassination of John Newman. Lalich is popular in the western end of the electorate, whilst having never quite earnt the affections of the Cabramatta crowd,

    At the last election, the Labor Party were extremely lucky to win this seat. Dai Le, won votes in areas that the Liberal Party needed to improve from the 2008 by-election. Where Lalich won the election was in Cabramatta, with a smear campaign against Dai Le paying dividends with Labor’s vote holding steady, and outpolling the Liberals where Le was expected to be at her strongest.

    Dai Le is not running this time around, and was unlucky not to be preselected for Charlie Lynn’s Legislative Council seat, due to factional rumblings. The preselection of Maria Diep, who is of the right ethnic origin for this seat and has a local profile through being involved with the Cabramatta Business Association is an interesting move by the Liberal Party. On the face of it, they look to be taking the seat seriously. However, when you look further, given that Diep appears to be Cabramatta-centric in her background, this will not give the Liberal Party any traction in the west of the electorate where the votes need to be won. Diep, is also at 62, hardly the type of candidate that comes up as a threat to Lalich. Dai Le did as well as what she did over two elections, mainly because she offered an alternative to the old-style Fairfield Labor politics of Lalich. In hindsight, it would have been interesting to see Diep go up against Reba Meagher in, say, the 1999 or 2003 election, when younger, and most importantly, had far more of a local profile than Meagher ever did.

  3. It’s a shame that Dai didn’t get up, especially with the aforementioned smear campaign by Nick Lalich. The problem with this seat is the ethnic divide in this seat, with an asian-centric eastern section and a European-centric western side.

  4. Agreed, Hawkeye. Having driven through Cabramatta overnight, the Liberals are taking this seriously. Although they are unlikely to win, there are signs everywhere for Diep. Lalich has a lot of signs, however in a different colour to their targeted seats, which suggests they are very confident of winning the seat. The Christian Democratic Party, in an area (Fairfield/Liverpool), where they are about as strong as the Greens are running a very, very aggressive campaign, especially for Fred Nile’s seat in the Legislative Council.

  5. The Libs are making a mistake if they think running a Vietnamese candidate will automatically win them votes in Cabramatta. In fact the Vietnamese community seems to be reluctant to vote for Vietnamese candidates – Andrew Nguyen came a terrible cropper in Fowler in 2013. Or maybe it’s just Vietnamese Liberal candidates – I don’t recall Labor ever running one, despite the loyalty of the Vietnamese to Labor. We did have a Vietnamese state upper house Labor member in Victoria at one time.

  6. I would say Nguyen’s poor showing was more down to age, I can understand why people would be reluctant to vote for a first time candidate who is already in their seventies.

  9. When I lived in Cabramatta Lalich used to grumble that Newman was too friendly with the Vietnamese. This socially should be a very strong Labor seat very few % uni grads & high % labourers, probably the most old-style working class seat in Sydney.

  10. As I’ve said before, Diep should have been a candidate, ten to fifteen years ago up against Reba Meagher. From that perspective, the Liberals have made a mistake running her this time.

    With Andrew Nguyen, the problem was that he way past his political prime when he ran for Fowler. He did a creditable job in the Fairfield Council Mayoral Election in 2004, scoring 38% against an ascendant Lalich, and a much stronger local Labor Party. Also, he was a councillor prior to, and after that. He wasn’t a political novice, but not someone who you would put up in Fowler.

    The Vietnamese were schmoozed by both John Newman and Phoung Ngo, someone who was closely linked with Lalich. The Liberal Party were 10-15 years behind in the methodology required to persuade Vietnamese voters, but I would say that when Dai Le came on the scene, they made permanent inroads in the Cabramatta vote that the ALP will never win back. Yes, the ALP will always be the party of choice in Cabramatta, but the Liberals have made up ground.

  11. Ben, for some reason, when I made my comment on Cabramatta, it’s coming up with a green avatar, rather than a purple one. And it’s coming up with the wrong email address. I have to delete part of it , to get my normal purple avatar back. Is there a problem?

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