Bennelong – Australia 2022

Bennelong will be a marginal liberal seat.

Kennedy may not deserve the seat and Laxale is more dedicated to the area but I can’t see Laxale getting up.

The indirect donkey vote (about 1%) favors Kennedy. Laxale has alienated the local paper (TWT) before he was bounced as Ryde Mayor. The TWT is giving blanket coverage to Kennedy while Laxale’s coverage is his link to Covid-19 (because he was with Albo before he tested positive).

With Kennedy getting support at 3 levels of government and the local paper Kennedy is in the box seat.

If Kennedy was preselected earlier and his vaccination mandate stance well known earlier, I believe Labor would’ve chosen a better candidate than Laxale since Laxale has some baggage.

Spent a few hours here today through Gladesville, Ryde, West Ryde and Eastwood. Only Labor signs at businesses and houses – in the single digits but the Liberals are clearly sandbagging this hard. Simon Kennedy signs are everywhere, on the side of Victoria Road, all over Eastwood hung up on tables, next to trees and on several Eastwood businesses.

I think Bennelong will definitely fall back into the marginal category, the question is how much the swing will be. I predict a swing of about 3-4% given Simon Kennedy’s candidacy hasn’t got off to a good start, giving a final result of about 52-53% 2PP.

Hard to win for Labor. my guess was Alexander would have been less popular then he was…… but I was wrong this implies he had a personal vote. 7 % margin and if Alexander had a personal vote of 3 to 4 % then thios will be close. Also this effectively a Ryde based seat which votes fairly evenly. this area can swing up to !0% look at the equivalent state seat of Ryde on occasions John Watkins had a margin of 14 % in a 55/45% 2pp state enviroment,

Apparently a Liberal internal has Labor winning 55-45 which makes little sense considering that would be a 11.9% swing, unlikely in a seat like this. If the Liberals are confident of holding Chisholm as reported then why would this seat be so far out? I think it’ll be a narrow Liberal retain.

Given the unfavourable national polling to the Coalition, the retirement of what was probably a reasonably popular MP, the previously reported souring among Chinese voters to the government over attacks on China and the Liberal candidate’s flirtation with anti-vax groups to cross the floor over mandates in a seat like this, a 12% swing would be surprising but not entirely unexpected. It’s worth noting that of recent elections, only 2010 and 2019 failed to have a single seat swing over 10%, while 2007 (which current polling indicates could be a similar national swing) had six seats do so.

The more likely outcome is still a narrow retain or gain, but the ingredients for a big backlash are there.

Clarification to the above – no seats in 2010 and 2019 changed hands with swings of over 10%. Capricornia and Dawson both swung by over 10% but were LNP retains. Similarly, in 2007 the six seats are specifically those which changed hands and swung by over 10%

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/bennelong-liberal-candidate-removes-anti-vax-volunteers-from-campaign-20220512-p5akrc.html

Of course Simon Kennedy’s flirtation with anti-vax nutjobs has led to some of them volunteering for him. That appears to be the gift that keeps on giving.

Still think Liberals will hold based on their heavy sandbagging here

Just because they are sandabgging doesn’t mean they will definitively hold.

@John Smith Polls in this part of Sydney regularly underestimate the Liberals, polling in the Bennelong by-election in 2017 underestimated the Liberal primary vote by between 3-6% and underestimated the Liberal 2PP vote between 2-5% so I’d take polls with a grain of salt. Another example of a poll in this part of Sydney underestimating in Liberals was Ryde in 2019, where the Liberal primary vote was underestimated by 7% and the 2PP vote by 6%. Simon Kennedy’s campaign team have worked hard to hand out flyers and has put up many, many signs around the electorate. By personal observation, I saw 50+ Simon Kennedy signs and only around 7 Jerome Laxale signs. The Liberals are putting in much more effort and this seat is naturally Liberal leaning, so I think marginal Liberal hold

When was the last time this was an open seat? And John Howard clearly knows nothing about elections if he thinks the coalition are favoured to win the election. He is just saying that to rile up his parties supporters. He is completely irrelevant now and should stay in the sidelines.

This will be close but if I see it I believe it. I expect Labor to pick this up sometime in the next 5-10 years so the liberal candidate won’t be around too long.

The swings in this seat in Eastwood and Epping (their traditional strongholds) are absolutely crazy – double digit swings in Eastwood. If the Liberals lose this it’ll be due to their China stance and nothing more. Dominic Perrottet may start to get worried in Epping.

@ Ben also look at the huge swings in Carlingford in Parramatta which is demographically similar to Bennelong.

@Ben Even with other seats, the areas with the strongest Chinese Australian populations swung the most to the ALP. Menzies which no one expected to fall or be knife-edge has a very large Chinese Australian population as well. Seats like Chisholm and Reid and maybe even Bennelong won’t be gained by Libs anytime soon since the only ones left are the hawks like Dutton, Hastie etc.
As for Dominic Perrottet, he will probably try to switch seats again but since the NSW state Liberals aren’t nearly as hawkish towards China as the federal Liberals, the swings won’t be as large. For example, Reid covers much more Liberal friendly territory than the state Strathfield seat yet Sally Sitou has a TPP margin that’s essentially the same as what Jason Yat Sen Li got in the by-election.

What would the margin in Perrottet’s seat be on federal results? There are double-digit swings all across it.

Ethnic Chinese voters were very influential this election. In Bennelong, Reid, Banks, Chisholm and even in safe Labor seats with large Chinese communities (e.g. Barton, Kingsford Smith), there were huge swings away from the Liberals and to Labor.

This swing was more pronounced in areas with more ethnic Chinese and commercial centres like Eastwood, Burwood, Strathfield, Hurstville etc.

Antony Green has offically declared this seat a Labor gain. With Dutton being the heir apparent as Liberal leader, I can’t see them regaining this seat or Reid or Chisholm. He’s most likely going to double down on the rhetoric.

Hopefully this will be the last we will hear from Simon Kennedy, truly a dud candidate. There’s plenty of more reasonable candidates who contested the preselection to run here in 2025.

The biggest problem that Simon Kennedy had was that he was only selected just before the election was called. He had no time to establish himself as a candidate – he wouldn’t even been Simon Who? just Who? Flirting with the anti-vaxxers was probably the fatal mistake.

I have asked before but go no answer – what did ever happen with Jerome Laxale’s referal to ICAC?

I don’t think anything particularly serious came out of the ICAC investigation since otherwise the Libs would be bringing it up non-stop during the campaign especially since they were clearly worried about the seat in the final weeks of the campaign.

Three of the last four Liberal Prime Ministers’ seats are held by non-Liberals. The last Labor Prime Minister’s seat is held by a Green.
This must be some sort of a record!

More precisely, the seats of every post-WW2 Liberal prime minister are now held by non-Liberals. Only Fraser’s remains.

Adda, Scott Morrison retained Cook. He is a post WW2 Liberal PM.

^And Morrison’s of course.

This electorate was a surprise, wonder if Labor holds it for just one term or it stays?

If Labor holds it next time it will be historic as it will be the first time that Labor has been re-elected here. However, Dutton rhetoric against China will not help the Libs win back this seat.

The nude photos scandal surrounding the newly elected ALP MP won’t help. Entirely undermines the narrative of the ALP being good for women’s rights.

@Entrepreneur I don’t think that would impact a lot, it’s barely mentioned in the media and the ALP is currently in its honeymoon period, meaning this is the best time for such scandals to come out and there’s plenty of time for the public to forget about it before the next election. Dutton certainly doesn’t seem too keen on toning down the rhetoric and has promoted a lot of similarly hawkish MPs like Hastie and Paterson into key shadow ministry roles, suggesting to me they are going to double down on the rhetoric and stance. They’ve probably decided to give up on winning the Chinese Australian vote since basically the only Lib MPs left are the hawks.

Not a single media outlet other than Daily Telegraph, Sky News and Daily Mail even bothered giving the “scandal” a run.

And 2GB, I should add. But in any case, it’s a swing and a miss from the right wing shock jock outlets.

I’ve estimated that if the federal results played out at the state level, Dominic Perrottet would have a margin of around 0.5%.

(Methodology: Aggregated 2CP polling place data from all on-the-day polling booths within the boundaries of Epping district. The result is virtually a tie. On-the-day votes favoured the Liberals by around 0.5%.)

There’s talk of Gisele Kapterian contesting one of the new teal seats (Warringah, North Sydney, Bradfield) in the next election or replacing Marise Payne in the senate, leaving this seat clear for Craig Chung to contest in 2025 which is probably one of the first wise decisions the NSW Libs have made in a long time especially given the circumstances that led to this seat falling to Labor. Of course this won’t even be relevant until 2025 and even then NSW is headed for a redistribution which could radically change the boundaries of this seat. Also if Dutton remains as leader then and does not tone down the party’s rhetoric on China, both of which seem very likely at this stage, the Libs won’t retake this seat for quite some time.

@Dan M, you mean contesting in Mackeller? Bradfield is a Liberal seat. It’ll be at least two years before either of the Liberal candidiates will think about Bennelong or the senate. Marise Payne has just been reelected to the senate. Bennelong will be one of Dutton’s targets for the next 3 years for sure. It’s not a teal/green seat and the new margin is very small.

There’s a possibility that Scott Morrison will vacate Cook. There’s also the state election coming, though I don’t know of any state Liberal MPs in metropolitan Sydney who’ll retire in 2023.

@Votante yes I meant Mackellar not Bradfield

@DanM @Adda the fact it didn’t receive much publicity doesn’t make the behaviour acceptable. Exploiting female campaign volunteers is an abuse of power and reflection of poor character.

No one is saying it’s acceptable. The thing is that there’s barely any publicity on it and if the voters aren’t aware of it, he can’t be punished in the ballot box for it.

will become notionally liberal after redistribution. whihc would explain why tink has moved here. without a sitting lnp member she would probly win though i dont think she will have the right voter base ALP v TINK v LIB could be interesting

as others have said…..a marginal seat between alp and liberals is not a good place for a teal to run
most likely they will be placed 3rd.

Kylea Tink lives in Lane Cove, still in her electorate. There’s no chance she’ll run in Bennelong. North Sydney, or whatever it will be called, will most likely take up parts of Bradfield.

I agree with Mick – it’s difficult for teal to win a marginal seat as it creates a three horse race.

A teal running in a marginal seat only helps the Liberals as in Hawthorn in Victoria 2022.

@ Adam
I would also add Caulfield in 2022 as well

@votante in my estimates lane cover will go to bennelong. as north sydney will most likely be the one to get chopped as it will already be eaten in by an additional 25% from warringah. i think the libs would win anyway because it wont be upper class north shore residnets this time it will working class immigrants (asians) etc that will determine the winner

yes 2 teals wont run against each other…….. Looks like one seat will be abolished here…. so North Sydney and Bradfield may be amalgamated. There Will be another seat created in The Camden Campbelltown area. So some where another seat needs to be abolished…… Where?

@mick it would be in central sydney. im abolishing Barton Cunningham and North Sydney and creating 1 seat in the north east and one in the south east. im dragging hughes further south which is why cunnigham is also abolished

Bennelong is different now……Mr Alexander had a personal vote of up to 5% which is lost to the liberals

Scott Yung has been preselected here. He’s seen as an extremely strong candidate, much more so than Simon Kennedy so Jerome Laxale will have to work really hard if he wants to retain the seat for Labor. The redistribution could also push this seat to being notionally Lib.

@dan m if north sydney is abolished this shoud be an easy pickup for libs.