Today’s blog post looks at a string of seats in southern Sydney, including East Hills and the three seats of the St George region.
The swings in these seats varied quite a lot – with Labor gaining one of the state’s largest swings in Kogarah, while swings were smaller in the surrounding seats.
Swing data thanks to William Bowe’s estimates of 2019 results by 2023 polling place.
The map covers four seats: Rockdale, Kogarah, Oatley and East Hills. The first three cover the area defined as “St George”.
The map shows very clearly that the swing to Labor in Kogarah is markedly higher than in the surrounding areas, with the swing dropping off right on the border. It’s obvious that the presence of Chris Minns had a big impact on the swing, likely with his personal vote increasing since 2019.
I’ve included Rockdale mostly as a comparison, since the swings there were very small in a safe Labor seat.
Swings were impressive in Oatley, but were not enough to overturn a 7.4% margin.
The relative swings in East Hills were interesting. The seat has had a trend for quite some time where the riverfront suburbs have been favouring the Liberal Party while Labor has been stronger further north. But the southern suburbs swung to Labor while some of the northern parts swung to the Liberals. This may reflect a trend we saw in Heathcote and Holsworthy, where suburbs newly added from safe Labor seats into marginal seats have tended to swing against the statewide trend.
Interesting for me because I grew up in Kingsgrove, but haven’t lived here or in Sydney since 91, so I have no significant insights to offer, apart from the changing demographics of this area since my life here.
Like the rest of Sydney, continual migration has changed the demographics of this area significantly. I happened to be in Sydney on election day and took a drive around the old ‘hood of Kingsgrove and Beverly Hills and both look very runned down and economically depressed (despite real estate prices).
Still the strength of the swing did surprise me. I realise that both suburbs have a strong Chinese population, along with Greeks and other Middle Eastern countries, so I wonder if the Liberals still have a “migrant problem”. The same would apply to those suburbs further south, until you hit the more white bread river side suburbs.
I lived in Panania from the early 60’s to the mid-80’s, from childhood to my early adult years. East Hills (including the southern suburbs) was rock-solid Labor then, as was Oatley. Alan Ashton, who was the local member at one time, was a few years ahead of me at Picnic Point High. Everyone I knew at school was a Labor supporter-there was elation at Picnic Point High in 1972 when Whitlam won. For me personally, the election of Whitlam meant the chance for a working-class kid to go to university-it changed my life.
So what happened to southern Sydney to switch it from strongly Labor to Lib/marginal? I guess house prices in the areas close to the river are a big part of it. Panania is no longer working-class. But in other middle-class areas of Sydney, like Ryde-Eastwood, the long-term trend seems to be going the other way, with Labor getting stronger. Maybe demographic factors are also at work? There are quite a number of people of Middle Eastern heritage in East Hills these days. Does their social conservatism make them more inclined to support the Libs? Or something else? Cook was once Labor-held federally, and Banks was also rock-solid Labor, but hasn’t been Labor-held for a while now. So there is some sort of Georges River effect working against Labor!
I say Beverley Hills area tend to be a working-class Chinese Community unlike the Northern Suburbs. Similar areas to Beverley Hills for Melbourne would be something Forest Hill/Burwood East which also have large lower-income Chinese Community despite expensive house prices.
Newcastle Moderate
I think it is mostly a case of demographic waves working their way through different areas at different paces.
I was staying with my sister and brother-in-law in Oyster Bay when I stayed in Sydney the other week and the over-riding impression that hit me, after being away from Sydney for a number of years was – how old the demography was in “The Shire”, how white it was and how big a change that will happen to “The Shire” in the years to come as these people die out and newer (wealthier and multi-cultural) residents move in. Already this is happening, but it doesn’t show this change “on the street” at present.
As mentioned, I grew up in Kingsgrove and it was at that time (1950-1980) the middelest of middle class suburbs of Sydney and a Liberal stronghold. Post war it was mostly returned servicemen who moved into this suburb, but by the time I went to school already it was a desirable suburb for newly arrived migrants from Italy and Greece. Towards the 1980’s the demography changed again with the more recent waves of migration towards Asian countries. This is the nature of demographic change in suburbs – they tend to find their own, mostly economic but also culturally, equilibrium point. Suburbs like Panania and Kingsgrove will never rise too far economically and will be attractive to certain cohorts, until such time as they don’t. The wealthier suburbs are already under going change and again it is most wealth that is driving that change – it matters not where you come from, but how much money you have to splash out on real estate in these areas. People with money tend to gravitate towards the Liberal Party and that is just the way it is.
I do think many of the middle-eastern migrants and second generation families are socially and religiously conservative. I used to be a member of CBRLFC and I always found it interesting how they attracted this cohort to their fan base, but I did notice they were mainly Lebanese Maronite Catholics. Still I would not put the Middle East cohort automatically into the Liberal camp – like most it is life circumstances that push you one way or the other.
Marh
Wouldn’t disagree with you. In my experience I went to school with a lot of ABC (Australian born Chinese) who were the children of post war migrants who worked in the factories (when we had factories). These ABC kids eventually moved out of these areas to be replaced with the 2nd, 3rd and 4th waves of Asian migrants who found these areas nice enough, but not so economically out of reach that they could get into them.
I did notice that ABC Liberal chap (sorry I can’t remember his name) who occasionally appears on the Drum standing outside the booth in Morgan Street and I thought to myself – he would be hard to beat (not realising he was in Minn’s electorate). He struck me as moderate and would be very appealing to the large Chinese cohort in this electorate. But it appears that the fact he was of Chinese heritage was not a factor in this seat.
Interesting to see blue booths in Condell Park and Georges Hall. They’re both classic working-class migrant suburbs. The Liberals must’ve done really well on postals and prepolls to hold up despite the big swings elsewhere in ordinary votes. The swings away from the Labor in Riverwood (north of the railway line) could be the loss of Jihad Dib’s personal support following redistribution. Areas that didn’t swing much or had swung to the Liberals have more people of Middle-Eastern ancestry. Funnily enough, in Auburn and Bankstown, Labor scored quite big swings in already safe seats.
Suburbs bordering the Georges River from Milperra to Oatley are whiter, more likely to have Australian-born voters and more Christian than average. It’s ironic since suburbs to the west, north and east are multicultural. These suburbs were formerly Labor heartland but trended to the Liberals this century due to suburban gentrification and their appeal of riverside and low-density housing but they’d swung really hard to Labor in 2023.
@Votante
I wonder if the swings from Milperra to Oatley had to do with NSW Labor being more socially conservative compared to the other state and territory branches?
What does the result in Kogarah tell us about that “Chris who?” piece suggesting that Minns’ constituents didn’t know who he is?
@Ian. It could be. Indeed NSW Labor is fairly socially conservative. There were fairly large swings in suburbs that are mainly white and Christian along the Georges River and in the Sutherland Shire.
I wonder whether Christian Middle-eastern immigrants are more likely to support the LNP than Muslim ones. I grew up in Riverwood around twenty years ago and there always appeared to be more Christian Middle Easterners compared with places like Auburn and Lakemba which are predominantly Muslim Middle Eastern. This would make sense as Christians wouldn’t be as animated by issues such as Palestine, Islamophobia and right wing extremism which make Muslims more naturally inclined to the Labor Party.
@ Louis
We actually had a good discussion on the difference between Christian and Muslim Middle Eastern community specifically Lebanese in the Bankstown thread: https://www.tallyroom.com.au/nsw2023/bankstown2023. I do agree that Christian communities from the Middle East and North African Region (MENA) tend to often view themselves as an extension of Western Civilization. Interestingly Peter Khalil and Michael Sukkar are actually more Pro-Israel. I also pointed out the difference in Racial identity in the US with the two communities.
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