LIB 16.6%
Incumbent MP
Paul Fletcher, since 2009.
Geography
Northern Sydney. Bradfield covers the Ku-ring-gai council area, as well as small parts of Hornsby and North Sydney council areas. Key suburbs include Hornsby, Wahroonga, St Ives, Pymble, Turramurra, Killara, Lindfield, Gordon, Roseville, Castle Cove and parts of Chatswood.
History
The seat was created for the 1949 election, and has always been held by the Liberal Party.
It was first won by former Prime Minister Billy Hughes in 1949. Hughes had been an MP since he won election to the NSW colonial parliament in 1894, and had then held the federal seats of West Sydney, Bendigo and North Sydney. He had originally served as a Labor prime minister before leaving the party over the issue of conscription and leading the new Nationalist party. He eventually ended up in Robert Menzies’ Liberal Party and was the last remaining member of the first federal Parliameent to hold a seat.
Hughes died in office in 1952, and the ensuing by-election was won by state Liberal MP Harry Turner.
Turner held the seat for the next twenty-two years, and never rose to a ministerial role during twenty years of Coalition government. He retired at the 1974 election, and was succeeded by David Connolly.
Connolly also held Bradfield for twenty-two years, and was expected to take on a ministerial role after the 1996 election, but lost preselection to Brendan Nelson, former president of the Australian Medical Association.
Nelson won Bradfield in 1996 and quickly rose through the ranks of the Liberal government, joining the cabinet following the 2001 election and serving first as Minister for Education and then Minister for Defence.
Following the defeat of the Howard government in 2007, Brendan Nelson was elected Leader of the Opposition, narrowly defeating Malcolm Turnbull in the party room. His leadership was troubled by low poll ratings and being undermined by Turnbull and his supporters, and Nelson lost a leadership spill in September 2008. Nelson resigned from Parliament in 2009, triggering a by-election in Bradfield.
The 2009 Bradfield by-election was held in December, and was a contest between the Liberal Party and the Greens, with the ALP declining to stand a candidate, along with a field of twenty other candidates, including nine candidates for the Christian Democratic Party. While the Greens substantially increased their vote, Liberal candidate Paul Fletcher comfortably retained the seat. Fletcher has been re-elected four times.
- Nicolette Boele (Independent)
- David Brigden (Labor)
- Martin Cousins (Greens)
- Janine Kitson (Independent)
- Rob Fletcher (United Australia)
- Paul Fletcher (Liberal)
- Michael Lowe (One Nation)
Assessment
Bradfield is a safe Liberal seat.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Paul Fletcher | Liberal | 58,007 | 60.3 | -0.8 |
| Chris Haviland | Labor | 20,361 | 21.2 | +4.2 |
| Tony Adams | Greens | 13,177 | 13.7 | +2.0 |
| Stephen Molloy | Sustainable Australia | 2,826 | 2.9 | +2.9 |
| Marcus Versace | United Australia Party | 1,772 | 1.8 | +1.8 |
| Informal | 4,056 | 4.0 | +0.5 |
2019 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Paul Fletcher | Liberal | 63,997 | 66.6 | -4.5 |
| Chris Haviland | Labor | 32,146 | 33.4 | +4.5 |
Booths have been split into four areas. Those polling places in Hornsby Shire have been grouped together. Those in Willoughby and Ku-ring-gai council areas have been grouped together as Chatswood, and the remainder of the Ku-ring-gai council area has been split into North Ku-ring-gai and South Ku-ring-gai.
The Liberal Party won a majority of the primary vote in all four areas, ranging from 56.1% in Hornsby to 68.6% in northern Ku-ring-gai.
The Greens primary vote ranged from 13.5% in northern Ku-ring-gai to 15.7% in Hornsby.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | LIB 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| North Ku-ring-gai | 13.5 | 68.6 | 28,142 | 29.3 |
| South Ku-ring-gai | 15.0 | 63.8 | 16,735 | 17.4 |
| Hornsby | 15.7 | 56.1 | 7,518 | 7.8 |
| Chatswood | 14.9 | 64.5 | 7,318 | 7.6 |
| Pre-poll | 12.4 | 68.4 | 23,187 | 24.1 |
| Other votes | 13.0 | 69.6 | 13,243 | 13.8 |
Election results in Bradfield at the 2019 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, Labor and the Greens.
Voices of Bradfield has announced that Nicolette Boele will be running as an independent with their endorsement.
Paul Fletcher is one of those members of parliament that you basically never here about, I didn’t realise how long he has been around for. This should be a easy liberal hold.
Nicolette Boels’s followers were out and about in force on Tuesday.
All candidates are to the left of Labor with the exception of the two Fletchers and Clarke.
It will be a struggle for Paul Fletcher to win on first preferences this time-it appears he agrees given his frequent appearances in the electorate
I wouldn’t read too much into the fact he’s doing more than nothing. Even the laziest, safest MPs put in a token effort during election season.
Besides Nicolette Boele there are two other indies with very similar policies. Will they cannibalise each other? Though they might not have the benefit of Simon Holmes a Courts deep pockets……
Good point Sabena about where the candidates lie. It could be a preference snowball from a very low figure, and a low place, that gets one of the Indies into 2nd – though they won’t get close I don’t think. I’m not sure you can really cannibalise each other too much in compulsory preferential – some leakage, I acknowledge.
A very high profile, right of centre, IND could win this seat but you cant get that profile in a single election campaign, certainly not in an urban area.
Its actually my seat – for this election at least.
High Street, from your last point and from other comments on this site, I can infer that you live in the southern end of the district around Roseville/Chatswood.
After the next nsw redistribution (which would be completed just after this election), the Roseville/Chatswood area may well be shifted into North Sydney, and you would fall into the same district as some other regulars on this site (most notably Winediamond).
@Ben Raue
The new liberals have changed their name to “TNL” (the new liberals) presumably due to the changes in the electoral act around using the same name as another party……
Also there is now no candiate listed on the TNL website for Bradfield:
https://tnl.net.au/candidates/
Cheers,
Pollster
I’m aware of the name change. For now I’m happy to keep calling them the full name.
It sounds like they’ve lost a few candidates, I’m not sure if I’ll do another candidate update before nominations close.
If you look at their policies “the new liberals” are anything but.
Examples:
Modern Monetary Theory(which is Keynesianism in extreme form)
Animal welfare
Republic and Australia Day
Preferring government to private schools(if anything is illiberal it is forcing where your child should go to school)
Continental defence and move to a foreign policy less dependent on US
Making corporations pay their fair share of tax(suggesting they do not understand what the difference between turnover and profit is)
No dams
What brain thought of the New Liberals name? Didn’t obviously see the irony in a variation of Neo Liberal and the negative connotations associated with that nomenclature- unfettered crony capitalism, foreign incursion, etc..
Am I wrong in thinking David Brigden is running for labor in Bradfield?
I too have read the “New Liberals” policies and thought them basically the same as the Greens. Hence, my previous comment that it is basically a vanity project for Victor Kline as he could not or would not put in the hard yards working his way through the Greens or any other political organisation.
they never had any chance and then they changed their name.
If Victor keeps his deposit I’ll send him some flowers.
Shane, no your not wrong. He is the Labor candidate and was campaigning this morning at Gordon railway station.
He is on the Labor right, so there is little to distinguish him in actual fact from Paul Fletcher.
Ballot draw for Bradfield Confirmed:
1. Nicolette Boele (IND)
2. David Gordon Brigden (LAB)
3. Martin Cousins (Greens)
4. Janine Kitson (Independent)
5. Rob Fletcher (UAP)
6. Paul Fletcher (Liberal)
7. Michael Lowe (???)
Couple of Observations
1. I think TNL may not have got their applications completed in time.
2. This is a really bad draw for Paul Fletcher
Frankly, hard to see Paul Fletcher being seriously worried …
Fletcher is a dark horse for Liberal leadership (pending loss of government) if Frydenberg falls and mods don’t back Dutton
Labor makes the 2CP in the MRP analysis in The Australian and down 58-42 in the 2PP. Would be quite a large swing. But caveats apply for these projections.
@Jarrod, is there a list of these results available outside of a paywall somewhere?
@SEQ Observer I’m quoting the numbers from Kevin Bonham’s Twitter thread. I don’t believe so. However it’s likely that all the results in full will be in Thursday’s paper.
Very hard to believe a 2pp in single figures.
Hornsby itself is swingy and not uncommon for LAB to win some, if not most, of the booths especially in good years and a number of the booths around Chatswood could be relatively close but in between is some of the bluest of blue ribbon LIB turf in the country.
Granted, its not out of the question that there may be a segment of the Bradfield LIB vote that could conceivably investigate a “teal” vote but there is not a sufficient non-LIB base vote as an anchor point and whilst Fletcher is the definitive “empty suit”; he hasn’t created the negative profile for himself that others have.
Looking to vote tactically as a Greens voter in this seat. Wanting Fletcher to lose – know it’s not likely. Are we picking Boele for the best run against him?
OPaul Fletcher previously worked for Optus and recommended that the connection to the node for the NBN could be Copper. The Government recently spent $50.million dollars to allow the fibre to link node to be included. Thanks Paul , 50M could feed a lot of starving people or improve hospital.conditions. You don’t get my vote
Put the major last. They’ve got us into this hole and forced experimental medical treatments on us. Do we really want a repeat of that?
That said though, it looks like an easy win for Fletcher. What a douchebag, but he’s waaaay better than Labour, Greens or the ultra left independents.
1. LOWE, Michael (One Nation)
2. FLETCHER, Rob (United Australia Party)
3. KITSON, Janine (Independent)
4. BOELE, Nicolette (independent)
5. FLETCHER, Paul (LIBERAL)
6. COUSINS, M (Greens)
7. BRIGDEN, David (Labour)
No one had been talking about this seat. Boele has 47.3% of the 2CP vote.
The 2 party votes are a tad odd as they are counting pre poll centres first. The Hornsby PPVC just looks wrong with Paul Fletcher on 72% – it almost looks like a Lib vs ALP by mistake – or the leakage rate from the ALP and Greens is incredibly high. The leakage rate looks high in other places but the overall 2pp is conceivable.
Looks a near certain input error with Hornsby pre-poll 2PP. LIB primary for this booth is only 43.09% (a negative swing of 14% from 2019). Looking at other booths and other pre-polls in the electorate; the preference flow from LAB/GRN is at least 70%.
Whilst Bradfield will not be lost, the results are actually a very clear illustration of what happened to the Lib vote north of the harbour. There are double figure negative swings in the Lib primary vote in EVERY booth and EVERY pre-poll; the majority >15%. Along the central railway/highway corridor south of Hornsby down to Chatswood; the Lib primary vote only exceeded 50% in 3 booths. It was marginally better along the eastern arterial corridor from St Ives south but similar size swings.
2PP remains in limbo but whilst Fletcher has survived; he’s received a bushwhacking. He’s lost the Hornsby end, which is no surprise given its marginal turf. He’ll carry the eastern corridor but with a major haircut. It’s the central corridor which is the main story. He’ll probably carry most boots but he’s already lost a few and those he’s carried so far are low 50s.
UComms poll referred to by Niki Saava in her SMH/Age piece yesterday makes interesting reading – even without full primary votes disclosed. Looks like this was a poll commissioned by the 2022 IND but its been sat on for 6 weeks due to them not being overly excited by the results.
Makes you wonder how close the Liberal’s are to losing this seat to Labor.
It is a very odd poll as the voting proportions are similar to 2022. Both have come down by 20% yet somehow Nicolette Boele wins. There is so little detail that the whole thing reeks of a mischeivous set up. No details of how, when or sample size. Simon Holmes a Court is in my ‘put up or shut up’ category – run for parliament yourself rather just trying to manipulate from outside. That or turn Climate 200 into a bone fide poltical party and see where that goes. For what its worth Peta Credlin and GetUp are also in my ‘put up or shut up’ category.
Nicolette Boele “wins” off ALP and GRN preferences, the primary votes of which are omitted from the article. There’s 48% of PV not mentioned, and circa 40% must be residing with a combo of ALP /GRN. The question is how does Boele hope to reach 2nd in the 3CP and therefore not get excluded, of <17% primary, especially with the Liberal primary so low?
@Redistributed – I'm not buying into your Simon Holmes a Court rant here.
Redistributed and High Street, I wonder if the figures in that poll are based on what a revised Bradfield district would look like post redistribution, in that it shifts south losing all suburbs around Hornsby and gaining most of the Lower North Shore stretching from Chatswood to North Sydney.
That would make sense given that the new boundaries would not be favorable for either Fletcher or Boele, with the loss of strongly Liberal voting suburbs and Boele’s home territory. Instead, the new seat will gain large swathes of territory that are more favorable for Labor given the stronger ALP vote in Lane Cove and North Sydney councils.
In fact, if a North Sydney/Bradfield amalgamation does come to pass as a result of the NSW redistribution – then the individual best placed to win that new seat may well be current North Sydney MP Kylea Tink (she would be running on home soil).
If the teal and Liberal primary votes are both down, and thus others are up, then that’s good for the teal, because she gets a lot more preferences.
This is of course completely hypothetical because Bradfield is going to look very different in a month.
Good grief – I think you are all missing the point.
@Yoh An. No, I very highly doubt it. I was called for this poll but no one in the North Sydney electorate areas (and I know many) mentioned they got polled when I raised it. I have never heard of a polling company pre-empting the AEC and polling a future hypothetical seat – perhaps others have. I do wonder why you immediately thought that such a poll result could not have been produced on the current Bradfield boundaries.
@Ben Raue – I know for certain that you understand the concept of 3CP, so I find it oddly disconcerting that you could state:
“If the teal and Liberal primary votes are both down, and thus others are up, then that’s good for the teal….”, without including the qualification that if they are so far down that Labor gets into 2nd and then stays in 2nd, then that is VERY BAD for the teal. It may also be fatal for the Liberal. Conservative candidates often lose to Labor from a 36% primary.
And yes, it is all likely to be rather moot in a month, but depending on the new boundaries, it could be slightly better for the IND brigade but slightly worse for the Liberals
Well sure, I’m assuming that isn’t going to happen.
There’s a first time for everything. Just ask Sam Lim.
High Street, I doubt that Labor can gain so much ground especially at a time when their vote appears to be weakening. Unless vote patterns in this area have changed substantially and are out of whack with wider nationwide trends.
How on Earth would Labor win this?
@Yoh An – there’s no such thing as a uniform swing.
@Nether – and everyone else. My main point is not that Labor might/would win this seat, but that there is a poll out there that was commissioned, then sat on for 6 weeks, selectively shown to a journalist who has partially revealed it, and the whole time it probably shows someone more likely to win than the person the journalist has stated. The public is being deliberately mislead, by Climate200 most likely.
UComms should be called upon to reveal all the poll result details or run out of the polling community.
@High Street I understand and I agree that Climate200 misled people and should have released the poll results as soon as possible, but still, Labor won’t win this.
Labor can’t win here if Labor finish second it’s a coalition win due the small l liberals voting liberal over Labor I doubt they will anyway boele will probably win this due to moving into teal territory though I don’t know what would happen if tink runs here as well. They cant poll a hypothetical seat because they have no way of know what the aec will do. And if albo goes before the redistribution is completed tr seat stays as is. The poll shows 53-47 to boele.
This seat got a lot more interesting as North Sydney will reportedly will be abolished. And will split in half between the neighboring Liberal seat of Bradfield and Labor seat of Bennelong. The commonsense move for Teal North Sydney MP Kylea Tink to contest Bradfield. Not so fast, because previous teal candidate Nicolette Boele is planning to recontest, and has already been chosen by her local supporters to run again.
Obviously unlike the major parties Tink is not prevented from running and doesn’t need to win a preselection to do it. But will split the Teal vote if she does it. There was mixed reports as James Campbell seems to think she will likely run. While the insiders panel suggested she may not and could instead focus a run in the senate.
The Insiders panel also suggested Paul Fletcher is in trouble in this seat. And Peter Dutton indicating scraping Labor’s legislated target to cut emissions by 43% by 2030 is likely cause more angst with voters receptive to a teal campaign. So much so there are reports of some debate in the Liberal party getting moderate former state treasurer Matt Kean to replace Fletcher as the candidate. Fletcher has already been preselected and the Liberals would have to re-open the preselection to accommodate Kean with this. Kean weighing up to run against Fletcher it was reported.