Today’s post covers two maps: one of Penrith, and another of a cluster of seats in north-western Sydney.
There are some interesting swing trends on both maps – with the swing to Labor much lower in Winston Hills than in neighbouring seats.
Swing data thanks to William Bowe’s estimates of 2019 results by 2023 polling place.
This first map shows four electorates: Riverstone, Winston Hills, Castle Hill and Kellyville. Riverstone and Winston Hills were key Liberal marginal seats. Labor gained Riverstone but fell short in Winston Hills. Castle Hill and Kellyville were some of the safest Liberal seats prior to the election, but saw big swings towards Labor. Both are now held with a margin of about 11%, after swings of about 12%.
When you look at the swing map, Winston Hills stands out from the other seats. Some parts of the seat swung to the Liberal Party – those areas had been moved into the seat from Blacktown, and matches the trend where a number of areas moved from safe Labor seats into marginal Liberal seats shifted against the trend – also see Casula and northern Wollongong. The rest of the seat had much smaller swings than its northern neighbours.
Meanwhile most booths in Riverstone had swings over 10%, as did those in Castle Hill and Kellyville.
Local retirements were clearly a factor in these areas. There was a Liberal sitting MP defending Winston Hills, but the local member in Riverstone retired. Meanwhile the Liberals had a total mess in the two Hills-area seats. The former seats of Castle Hill and Baulkham Hills had been reshuffled into new seats of Kellyville and Castle Hill, with Ray Williams moving with a majority of his constituents from Castle Hill to Kellyville. Former Baulkham Hills MP David Elliot was prevented from doing the same in moving to Castle Hill.
Williams’ former seat covered the northern parts of the Hills area, and his new seat covers the western parts – yet there’s no evidence that the swing to Labor was smaller in the north-west where his personal vote was maintained – this is around the suburbs of Kellyville and North Kellyville.
The next map shows the seat of Penrith on the outer western edge of Sydney.
Again there’s a small area in the south-eastern corner of the seat which was moved into Penrith from Londonderry and bucked the trend, but more generally the swings were stronger in the south-west than in the east of the seat.
There were some double-digit swings but generally Penrith didn’t produce the swings seen in many other marginal Liberal seats.
I can personally see Castle Hill becoming marginal territory down the track, perhaps in the next twenty or thirty years. while this area has generally been solidly liberal leaning due to its high incomes and expensive real estate, class is increasingly becoming less of an indication of voting pattern as opposed to other factors such as age, education, multiculturalism etc. the castle hill area has a large number of professional families from CALD backgrounds, a demographic which may become receptive to labor’s increasingly fiscal conservatism and moderate to left leaning social views.
winston hills probably had less of a swing to labor as it is generally more established with less young families residing in the electorate. penrith also has demographics which are not particularly favourable to labor, however, i can see a situation where a significant number of new apartments around the penrith cbd area could drive up the labor vote and eventually force the seat to become more consolidated around the penrith cbd area and surrounds. similar suburbs which are increasingly densifying with new apartments appeared to generally have above average swings to labor (i.e., carlingford).
I was on prepolls in St Marys and handed out for *a party* in Cranebrook, the Libs flew in volunteers from QLD to help in the Penrith prepolls and flooded the electorate with signage, Teachers Union was handing out generic anti-Lib stuff as well.
It’s interesting to note that the more bogan-bits of Penrith gave Legalize Cannabis the almost the same vote as The Greens, and Animal Justice did well too, that’s ~13% left minor vote (and ~9.5% right minor vote), be interesting to see how much they exhaust, especially given ONP didn’t give prefs to LIB, and LIB put up “one nation looking” signs asking ONP voters to put LIB 2
It’s interesting to see that Labor actually had a somewhat higher 2CP in the quite affluent new suburbs in areas like Kellyville Ridge and Tallawong, than they did in the low income working-class districts like Lalor Park, Toongabbie and Pendle Hill. along the Parramatta to Blacktown railway. That would have been quite unthinkable not that many years ago. Is the correlation between the socio-economic status of an area, and it’s tendency to support Labor or LNP, breaking down? I guess candidate factors are more important now than in the past, with tribal loyalties to parties not as strong. Or are there other factors at play-socially conservative working-class voters are now more inclined to vote LNP, while socially progressive middle class voters are turned off by the current version of the Liberals?
As a resident of the Hills area I can see Castle Hill eventually becoming a marginal seat, however I can’t see the ALP winning except by relying heavily on preferences. On the other hand, over the past several elections there has been a steady rise in the vote in that electorate for both independents and the Greens and given the demographic in much of the electorate is somewhat similar to the eastern suburbs, if and when the Liberals lose the seat, I suspect it will be to an independent or the Greens rather than to the ALP.
The Riverstone electorate is home to a lot of new housing developments, some are typical upper-middle Hills areas, so Liberal leaning, but the areas to the north of the electorate are more working class, which, along with the established working class areas in Quakers Hill helped flip the seat.
@ Newcastle moderate, that is a good question. There is a couple of caveats i would say. Riverstone is a fast growing mortgage belt area so it does have the potential to swing violently. While affluent suburbs these are not settled yet. With respect to Toongabbie, Pendle Hill these suburbs have the same ethnic/religious demographics as the newer affluent areas in Riverstone as they mainly South Asians so i am not sure if social attitudes are that different on LGBT matters etc. Also the NSW 2023 election was more bread and butter than social. Chris Minns is quite socially conservative for a Labor leader and the NSW Libs did not try to emulate the Federal libs on culture wars. Also look parts of Pendle Hill, Toongabbie, Wentworthville and Westmead which are in the seats of Granville and Prospect which had a significant swing to Labor such as the Hills Sports High booth. Lalor Park was moved into Winston Hills if it remained in Blacktown it would have been Ruby Red like neighboring Kings Park and Marayong. I would say Mark Taylor was a strong candidate and did campaign in areas that were demographically hostile.
My reading of the first results map is that what happened in Winston Hills district isn’t really about “established” versus “new” – it’s socioeconomics.
Lalor Park is very socioeconomically disadvantaged. The area around Toongabbie is close to the median for Greater Sydney. Everywhere else on the map is well above the median. Winston Hills (the suburb) and Kings Langley recorded double-digit swings to Labor despite being “established” areas. Socioeconomics is what sets them apart from the southern parts of Winston Hills district.
Many of the largest swings were in growth areas. In Camden and parts of Leppington, there were solid swings to Labor too. There were also double-digit swings in areas that grew ‘upwards’ e.g. Castle Hill. At the federal election in 2022, there were double-digit swings to Labor in Greenway and Mitchell, both of which correspond with north-western Sydney’s newest housing estates.
Middle to upper-class mortgage belt areas were more sensitive to issues relating to costs of living, especially tolls and utilities, as well as infrastructure. Chris Minns is relatively fiscally and socially conservative and made bread and butter issues the main focus.
Suburbs in western Sydney that had swung to the Liberals tended to be quite religious and have low socio-economic scores e.g. Lalor Park, Liverpool, Lurnea.
@ Votante, agree with your analysis although i will just add one caveat that some very low SES suburbs that are religious also had swings to Labor such as Airds, Macqurie Fields, Wiley Park-Lakemba, Auburn, suburbs in Granville and Mount Druitt these areas include large Muslim and Pacific Islander communities. If Lalor Park was in the Blacktown district i doubt it would have had a swing to the Libs.
Nimalan and Votante, would that imply it is mostly those voters who are of Christian background that are more likely to back the Coalition, with those who are agnostic or from other religious backgrounds preferring to support Labor.
l am presuming that many devoted Christians, especially low socioeconomic ones, would find someone like Perrottet or Morrison very appealing hence the large swings
Excellent point Yoh an, Agree with you. I have always wanted to see if we could find differences within ethnic communities when we adjusted for Religion for example between Vietnamese Buddhist versus Vietnamese Catholics. In the past Fred Nile used to target Middle Eastern Christians such as Assyrians, Copts and Maronites while often arguing against Muslim immigration. We say some of the same rhetoric applied by the right-wing during the Syrian refugee crisis.
“As a resident of the Hills area I can see Castle Hill eventually becoming a marginal seat, however I can’t see the ALP winning except by relying heavily on preferences. On the other hand, over the past several elections there has been a steady rise in the vote in that electorate for both independents and the Greens and given the demographic in much of the electorate is somewhat similar to the eastern suburbs, if and when the Liberals lose the seat, I suspect it will be to an independent or the Greens rather than to the ALP.”
I will be *very surprised* if the Greens won a Hills District seat before the ALP. An independent before the ALP, certainly a possibility. The Liberals should still be more worried about their lower North Shore and Northern Beaches seats than the Hills though IMO.
Interesting that Windsor Road still appears to be a significant electoral boundary. To the west, you get more marginal/ALP leaning territory. To the east, still relatively safe Liberal territory despite the big swings in some locales this election.
SP, I wasn’t commenting on the likelihood of the libs losing Castle Hill, rather that if they did lose it, it is far more likely to be to an independent or a minor party than to the ALP. As for the Greens, wishful thinking no doubt, but most of the seats the Greens have won have come from the Libs and the Green vote has been steadily rising in the Hills. Most likely the libs will eventually be reduced to needing preferences to hold the seat. The only real chance they have of losing it is if a high profile local candidate stood as an independent and was able to pick up almost all of the preferences to overtake the Libs, as well as bringing the Libs primary vote below 50%. The demographic in the Hills would have to change a heck of a lot before the ALP had the proverbial snowflake’s chance in hell. Having said that, I grew up in the Hills area and I remember in my teens it did one snow there.
That aside, despite the views on many in the Liberal party, both state & federal, as to what constitutes the party’s ‘core demographic’, the Hills remains the party’s heartland in NSW.
Not great to have a “heartland” with margins barely into the double digits.
At the moment the libs will take anything they can get, as per the old saying beggars can’t be choosers.
@Yoh An it would be interesting to see the correlation between percentage of electors identifying as non-Christians and likelihood of the electorate voting labor. i expect this correlation would be even stronger than income as (anecdotally) it appears labor’s safest seats are both those with high proportions of atheists/agnostics (think grayndler, sydney, kingsford smith, copper etc.) as well as seats with high numbers of minority religions (watson, blaxland and calwell with its high percentage of muslims; greenway with its high percentage of hindus; macnamara with it high percentage of jews). electorates with a large jewish percentage buck this general trend as they are traditionally higher income earners and thus more inclined to the liberals and teals compared with muslims, hindus, and buddhists.
it would be interesting to see how orthodox christian’s vote as they are often more socially conservative than christian’s as a whole but are generally working class and often come from CALD backgrounds. does anyone know what electorate/s have the highest percentages of orthodox christian’s?
@ Louis
Some seats with high percentage of Orthodox Christians would be Menzies, Hotham, Barton, Cook, Adelaide, Hindmarsh, Banks, Scullin, Cooper even parts of Kingsford Smith around Maroubra.
A couple of other seats with high Jewish communities include Wentworth, Kingsford Smith, Goldstein and Higgins, also parts of Bradfield around St Ives.
@Nimalan thanks, i’m kinda unfamiliar with sydney demographics because i haven’t lived their for twenty years now. do you know of any online graphs that show the correlation between christian % and liberal/labor votes, i couldn’t seem to find any…
@ Louis, i havent been able to find one but interestingly even if you compare areas that are socio-economically simmilar you can find differences in religion. For example Wollahara has a significant Jewish community but Mosman and areas such as Clontarf, Fairlight and Seaforth virtually have none. Mosman tends to be very Anglican while Hunters Hill quite Catholic. You can see the same in many parts of Melbourne.
I’d be interested in seeing the correlations at the denominational level too. For example, I’d expect Pentecostals would overwhelmingly favour the Liberals, Anglicans only somewhat, while the United Church would skew towards Labor.
The intersection of religion and age would be interesting too. If you only consider the younger generations, I’d expect the correlation between religiosity and Coalition vote would be much stronger.
Nicholas,
Australian used to have a Protestant / Catholic divide – Protestants were the ruling class who voted for the Liberal / Country Party and Catholics were the workers who voted Labor.
Pentecostals are unlikely to be much more than 1% of the population anywhere in Australia.
The NSW Parliamentary Library has a tool to view and sort NSW State electorates by various census data, including religion.
https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/researchpapers/Pages/electorates.aspx
Click on the button that says: ‘Explore 2021 Census Data’.
When it comes to discourse about religion and politics (in the media, on this site, and so), Pentecostals (and their views) are magnified, despite being only a very small fraction of Christians in Australia.
@ Nicholas
Totally agreed with you analysis. The Uniting Church is quite progressive and when the the discourse is about religion and politics in Australia we often forget there is also the Christian Left/Christian Socialist people who founded the Wayside Chapel, Advocate for refugee and indigenous rights etc. Anglicans are typically over represented in upper class areas, rural areas as well as less diverse peri-urban areas such as Wollondilly, Southern Highlands and Mornington Peninsula. I do agree that Pentecostals seems to have their views magnified they do make about 1% of Australia’s population. The Far right blamed Pesutto and his approach to Moira Deeming for the loss of Aston as they describe it as Bible Belt. A inconvenient truth for the Libs is that Pentecostals only represent 1.8% of Aston’s populaiton and there are actually more Hindus and Buddhists in the seat. In the case of Buddhists the % is actually is higher than than the Greater Melbourne average. Even in Mitchell the classic Bible Belt seat the % of Hindus is far higher than Pentecostals.
@watson watch
Do you know if Victoria has census data for state electorates? I would be interested if they did.
@Ian yes they do, if you google (electorate name) electorate census 2021 it should come up
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