Shortland – Australia 2022

Liberal gain, This is the Hartlepool of Australia, working class traditional left-leaning town getting sick and tired of Labor deserting the working class, The coalition may not be popular here but politics is mostly about ”Lesser of the 2 evils” nowadays. Albanese is a poor fit for this region and the union movement is turning against Labor by the minute.

If Labor does hold it will be because of Pat Conroy. Some see him as a future leader as he is only 42, If Labor doesn’t start appealing to the working-man more then I only expect this seat to be held by them when they are in Gov meaning this could become a bellwether seat.

One to watch as long as Albo is at the top.

I think Labor’s pitch to hold on to coal voters will fail spectacularly – they won’t win any regional QLD seats back and they’ll lose Hunter as the regional areas that used to have a strong Labor contingent turn into more conventional Nat voting areas. However the fundamentals for Labor here are good and as a “suburban” seat they can hang on here longer term.

Both Central Coast seats are in play and Labor will need to rely on that part of the seat more to hang on here. If Labor lose Dobell and fall even further in Robertson then they’re at risk here, but I think the Central Coast being caught up in the Sydney lockdown will leave a bad taste in their mouth for Liberals (note that Lake Macquarie was not locked down).

John
I’m sure you are underestimating Pat Conroy’s ( “”ABILITY sic!””) to LOSE votes. This bloke is the “Trent Zimmerman” of the labor party. All he seems to have done (since turning Shortland into a marginal seating 2019) is spend the last 3 years arguing with Fitzy in Hunter, about the policy direction, that might actually HELP labor !!. This moron is actually THE proverbial “turkey voting for Xmas !!!. Talk about stupid.
With a little “luck” Conroy could create a lib victory . Certainly telling Fitzy to “SHUT UP” was a golden moment. A REAL ” WD award contender” !

I won’t even go into DANIEL’s assertion/prediction that Conroy will be a leadership contender !!!!!!!!!!!!! FFS. Talk about an alternate reality, or UNIVERSE !!!

Surprised One Nation didn’t run a candidate in here, again the ALP are in serious trouble here.

One Nation may well run a candidate at this election, given their result in neighbouring Hunter last time.

The Coalition won`t win this seat in the current political environment.

Starting to think Labor hold. No swing

I am still hearing about the Liberals thinking they can gain three Hinter region seats. I am told Shortland is one of them (along with Paterson and either Hunter or Dobell – though that is a loose definition of the region). Shortland seems very optimistic to me.

Labor will win it by up to 10%.

Paul Mateo, I think you are being very generous with your prediction. I see shortland as a Labor hold but the swing won’t be that much, maybe 1-2% as it is an industrial type area where Labor is losing support overall.

Labor could even lose votes as the liberal challenger Nell McGill is seeking a rematch and may already have some existing name recognition and ground campaign support from her previous run.

This seat is marginal, as is Paterson, but for the Liberals to win them federally they’d surely need to gain more territory on the state level in Newcastle. Although the seat of Newcastle itself won’t fall to the Liberals ever, but Paterson is certainly possible. But to do that the Liberals would need to win back Port Stephens on the state level (that may take two or three elections but the NSW Liberals would need to make it marginal again). With Shortland it’s even harder but I think a southern Newcastle seat like maybe Swansea would be able to elect a Liberal candidate if they find a base there (which is possible given that it’s upper-middle class, in fact ethnic background doesn’t really matter to be honest, but in major cities it’s safe to say that inner-city seats and working-class seats with high rates of union membership are Labor territory). Though I guess one factor contributing to all this is that the state seat of Lake Macquarie (located in Hunter and Shortland) is held by an independent, and while Labor still finishes second and ahead of the Liberals on TCP, the margin isn’t huge (in 2023, Greg Piper got 74.1% TCP while Labor got 62.8% TPP, with the primaries at 57.5% for Piper, 19.8% for Labor and 10.1% for the Liberals; but in 2019, Greg Piper got 72.1% TCP while Labor got 57.4% TPP, with the primaries at 55.3% for Piper, 21.4% for Labor and 15.5% for the Liberals). So if Greg Piper retires or resigns and doesn’t endorse a successor, both Labor and the Liberals would need to heavily target Lake Macquarie.

This brings the question though: while neither Labor nor the Liberals will be able to unseat Greg Piper until he retires/resigns, is it possible for the Liberals to potentially finish ahead of Labor on TPP and/or potentially make the TCP count? I think if the Liberals campaign really strong in Lake Macquarie they could potentially finish second on primaries and eventually o make the TCP count. I’m not sure where Greg Piper’s preferences go, however; he seems like a centrist independent, having given confidence and supply to Dominic Perrottet’s Coalition minority government before the last election and to Chris Minns’ Labor minority government after the election, though in both cases only one party would’ve realistically been able to form government.

I personally feel for the Coalition to regain government they will need to win back seats lost in 2023, Wagga Wagga, Orange, Barwon, Murray, Strathfield, Bega, Gosford and The Entrance. If they want to win seats in the Hunter Region it is Port Stephens and Maitland more likely they have a longer history of being held by the Coalition not Swansea. Shortland is only marginal at a federal level due to climate wars which is not the case at a state level. Same with Lake Macquarie it is very working class. Most of the wealthy liberal friendly suburbs are in Newcastle electorate itself such as Merewether and Bar Beach

@nether with Paterson. Likelytoshedlabor voting g Cessnock nd likely gain coalition voting maitland lga in the northit should return to pre 2016 boundaries(close) Paterson should return to the coalition

Paterson will be in play in 2025 and its Labor margin will be trimmed down.

Shortland will remain Labor unless there’s a landslide election coupled with a retiring or controversial local member.

@Nimalan I think it’s possible in a couple of elections that Maitland and Port Stephens will fall should the Liberals campaign there.

Barwon, Gosford, Kiama, Murray, Orange, Strathfield and Wagga Wagga may not be needed. The Coalition only needs nine seats to form a majority government in 2027 (Labor needs two): they could instead win seats like Bega, Camden, Coogee, East Hills, Heathcote, Monaro, Parramatta, Penrith, Riverstone, South Coast, The Entrance, etc.

@ Nether Portal
I agree with you regarding Maitland and Port Stephens. WIth respect to other seats you mentioned i especially agree with you regarding East Hills i feel that seat is becoming stronger for the Libs. While the Libs lost it in 2023, it actually voted more Liberal than the state as a whole for the first time so i think it will be one of the first seats to fall. I agree with you on the other seats you mentioned although i feel Coogee is harder important to remember that even in 2011 the Combined Labor/Green primary exceeded exceeded the Liberal Primary so while it can be won i think it is a bit harder. I mentioned Gosford because in 2015 the Libs only lost it by 0.2% and i made some comments on the Gosford thread yesterday. I do agree that The Entrance is an easier to win though and if the Libs are campaigning in the Central Coast to retain Terrigal and gain The Entrance they can make a play for Gosford while they are there. I mentioned Strathfield as well as the Libs only lost by 1.8% in 2015 and demographically it includes some very strong Liberal areas as well.

Greg Piper appears to take a lot of Liberal votes and Labor votes in Lake Macquarie. Therefore I think when he retires, Lake Macquarie should look a bit more like Hunter and Shortland.

Coalition TPP in Coal Point:
2019 state: 53.14%
2019 federal: 51.19%
2022 federal: 52.38%
2023 state: 46.91%

That’s just one example.

Anyway, as promised, my full analysis of Newcastle suburbs that voted Liberal or Nationals (over Labor), excluding Port Stephens suburbs:

2019 state (TCP/TPP): Coal Point, Eleebana, Lakelands, Rathmines
2019 federal (TPP): Coal Point, Eleebana, Floraville, Merewether Heights, Merewether South, Valentine, Valentine West
2022 federal (TPP): Coal Point, Valentine West

Suburbs like Valentine and Warners Bay were quite close in 2019 on the state level. The Liberals had a small swing to them on notional TPP in Warners Bay in 2023 and they beat Labor on primaries (second to Greg Piper) but didn’t win the notional TPP, but it was close.

Earlier in this thread, Shortland was compared to Hartepool. Interestingly, today the UK became the first G7 country to be free from Coal. The UK was the birthplace of the industrial revolution and was London was where the very first Coal fired power plant was built. This year Slovakia and Alberta, Canada also became Coal free. I think Shortland is much less likely than Paterson or Hunter to fall to Coalition it has no rural areas and is not really socially conservative either. Newcastle, itself is very progressive and much of this seat is a spillover of Newcastle.

I wouldn’t put shortland out of reach in a good year for the libs and if the sitting member were to retire. Obviously 2025 is out of the question but I think it could be onl the hitlist in 2028. Conroy received a neglible swing 2022 in a year when Labor swung to power nationally. Compare that with a 5.5% swing 2007. Since 2007 the 2pp has declined by 9.11% overall. I think it’s a matter of time before the libs win here. The only seat safe Labor is gonna be newcastle all the other seats look like the libs have a real good shot at holding in good years. Though I imagine the would flip back when Labor returns to power each time.

Labor has still not recovered from the 2019 disaster, much of the swing in 2022 outside of WA was concentrated in areas with Chinese Australian communities or small L liberal seats (Inner Brisbane, Boothby, Higgins). Robertson was the only traditional bellwether that changed hands. Labor actually holds Robertson and Dobell by higher margins than in 2007.

I reckon Newcastle might be the only Labor held seat north of Sydney come 2028 with their northern most seat other then that being chifley

I wouldn’t be surprised if we see the end of that bellwether in 2025 after Robertson the next bellwether is Reid which is only since 2007

This seat is now about 5% more Labor than NSW as a whole so Libs would probably need about 55% statewide to win this seat. At a state level, State Labor way overperformed here. Can someone calculate Shortland on State results?

Well leave that for Np I think. I reckon 2028 they are a real chance. If you look at previous swings a 2 election swing to the coalition coming from opposition would be more then the current margin. In 1996 they got 9.18% in one election then 7.53% between 2010 and 2013. And Labor barely moved the needle back and did not recover the votes lost in 2019 even if you include their 2016 gains. I can see them holding this in 2025 but have doubts they could in 2028

The other factor which comes into play here is offshore wind turbines. That is likely to cause problems both here and in Whitlam another seat I think the coalition can win and has been trending the same way as Hunter and shortland

@Nimalan It’ll still be at least another decade or maybe two until Australia phases out coal.

@scarr even if we do the Hunter seats derive huge amounts of jobs out of the coal export business which we wouldn’t be stopping.and that’s another factor. Alos it looks as though even though they won’t admit it Labor and looking at capital gains tax and negative gearing and we know how that turned out last time they lost 2 elections over it and if they want another fight over those they will lose in 2025. Too many people derive benefits from it and it’s not just concentrated in one electorate it’s all over the country and that’s why they can’t win because it’s not just coalition voters who get benefits it’s across the political divide and anyone who supports the changes is probably voting Labor and green anyway

@ Scart
Australia will not phase out Coal burning until maybe 2035. Many are scheduled to close in the next few years. I think 2035 is a good date to target.

Further to my point above, @Scart that was only about Coal for the domestic market. The position of the Labor party is there is no end date for Coal export for as long as there is a market they will export it.

@nimalan there are some forces in Labor who want to end coal but the reality is they depend on it to keep the books balanced

@Nimalan @John hello, I’m here. I’m leaving for Thailand tomorrow but when I get back I’ll do my best to calculate it.

My estimate for TPP would be about 63% Labor based on the TPP in Lake Macquarie and Swansea. The Liberals do well in places like Warners Bay, Valentine, Eleebana, Coal Point and Catherine Hill Bay as they are more middle or upper-class. They do okay in Belmont too. I went to uni in Newcastle, it’s not as progressive as parts of Sydney are but it’s not as conservative as parts of Sydney are either. Places like Merewether and Bar Beach are small-l-liberal areas in the CBD, similar to Pyrmont and Millers Point in Sydney, Docklands in Melbourne and Sandy Bay in Hobart.

I still think the Liberals could win Lake Macquarie on the state level when Greg Piper retires. He’s a centrist independent so he attracts Labor and Liberal voters. I expect Lake Macquarie to get better for the Liberals as Labor starts to become more progressive. They may also start to do better in seats like Charlestown and Swansea. Overall Newcastle is an area the state Liberals need to pay lots of attention too. I love Newcastle, I lived here in uni and it was one of the best places I ever lived and I think one day at least parts might turn blue. And I still barrack for the Newcastle Knights to this very day and sometimes go to games.

Catherine Hill Bay (which is at the southeastern end of Lake Macquarie near Nords Wharf on the Central Coast) is likely the most Liberal suburb of Newcastle, while it doesn’t have a booth it’s a coastal area right on the beach, feels a bit like a coastal town and the houses there are quite expensive, which is unfortunate because it’s a beautiful suburb and I would move there as soon as I could if I could afford it.

Maybe Pat Conroy isn’t too popular here and that’s part of the reason they underperform in Shortland. He’s from the Left faction and is thus more progressive than most locals. But the working-class vibe of Newcastle is what keeps it voting Labor.

@Scart I agree, to fully phase out coal we need at least 10 years.

@ Nether Portal
Cool, have a safe and fun trip to Thailand 🙂
@ John/Nether Portal and Scart
I think it is really the Labor MPs that are under threat from the Greens that want to phase out Coal exports rather the majority of the party room. My personal position is that i support ending Coal fired power stations in Australia by 2035 (any shortfall which Renewable energy cannot fill can be replaced by Natural Gas in the interim) but it should be exported as long as there is a willing buyer. Gas is cleaner burning than Coal so should partially replace Coal.

@nimalsn and nuclear is even cleaner enegery. Renewable energy cannot sustain a country like Australia we need baseload cheap reliable and efficient power. I’m predicting Hunter dobell and shortland to flip in 2028 . Paterson and maybe Robertson to flip in 2025.

@John Robertson won’t flip until the Coalition wins back government.

As I said before, I expect Lake Macquarie to get better for the Liberals in five, 10, 15, 20 years time.

Times are changing. If you look at polling it’s now mostly Nationals voters who describe themselves as working-class, the white and Asian working-class vote is split between Labor and the Coalition. It’s mostly the ethnic working-class vote that stuck solely with Labor (ethnic minus people from East Asian countries like China, Japan, Thailand, Korea, Taiwan, etc).

NP, what seats would you say Labor don’t hold now that they could win in 15-20 years time even while in opposition? (excluding Green seats)

@np bellwether can be unreliable when the result is so close. Take the traditional bellwether of Eden monaro which flipped despite Labor losing. Then there is 2010 all those bellwether would have been rendered moot had the independents followed the will of their constituents.

@John Robertson has been consistent though.

@Daniel T an expansion of Parliament and redistribution will help Labor. I think they have a big problem in Queensland, so they would need to gain a few seats there. Bonner, Dickson, Longman and Petrie are possibilities.

Labor really underperforms federally in Moreton Bay. I should note that Petrie won’t flip until Luke Howarth retires or if it’s a landslide for Labor because he’s a popular local MP who is very active in his electorate and on social media. He goes to Dolphins games, talks about local issues, etc.

@ Daniel T
Nether Portal is correct it is Queensland namely the Moreton Bay Region where Labor is underperforming and need to make gains for a stable majority. I would also add Forde to that list. Even if Higgins was resurrected i dont believe Labor can win it in 15-20 years and it will be a LIB V GRN seat by then as will Macnamara. Nor do i think Labor will win any of the Teal seats. Two other seats are Bass and Lindsay (once NP is back from Thailand i will ask him to calculate Lindsay based on state figures).

@yes so are all bellwhethers until they aren’t. Until trump came along Ohio was the state that always voted for the winner.

15-20 is a bit hard to predict since there will be an expansion to the house by then.

And ultimately it was dumb luck that the bellwhethers survived 2010. Robertson is one of the seats labor is concerned about losing due to its renewable energy and offshore wind farms policies

Shortland contains
1. 100% of Charlestown
2. 100 % of Swansea
3. 4% of Wallsend
4. 15% of Lake Macquarie

Booths/suburbs
1. Adamstown Heights
2. Belmont
3. Blacksmiths
4. Budgewoi
5. Buff Point
6. Cardiff
7. Cardiff Heights
8.Caves Beach
9. Chain Valley Bay
10. Charlestown
11. Dudley
12. Eleebena
13. Floraville
14. Garden Suburb
15. Gateshead
16. Gwandalan
17. Hillsborough
18. Jewells
19. Kahibah
20. Lake Munmorah
21. Mannering Park
22. Marks Point
23. Mount Hutton
24. Nords Wharf
25. Redhead
26. San Remo
27. Speers Point
29. Summerland Point
30. Swansea
31. Valentine
32. Warners Bay
33. Whitesbridge
34. Windale

@Nimalan What I find fascinating is that the state electorates within Shortland are all very safe Labor seats with margins in excess of 10-20% (and in the case of Wallsend, 30%), yet on a federal level it’s a marginal Labor seat at best. It seems like voters in those areas prefer NSW Labor but Federal Liberals in some parts.

@ tommo9
I think it is the climate wars. Ironically, while NSW State Labor are often socially conservative they are actually more progressive on climate a 50% 2030 versus 43% at a Federal level. However, as state Coalition has the same policy it is not really debated at a state level. Roughly i think Shortland is around 18% Labor TPP on state figures. There maybe some truth in their claim if that if they are more moderate then they will be less competitive in seats such as Hunter, Paterson and Shortland. However, they will be much stronger in the Teal seats, Ryan, Brisbane, Griffith, Sturt, Boothby Bradfield and Macnamara so it is really a cost benefit analysis. They will also be stronger if Higgins is resurrected if they moderate on climate so this is a choice the Libs have to make.

@Nimalan if the federal Liberals were more moderate they could still win this because NSW Labor poll well here and Labor are always to the left of the Liberals, even in NSW where both are moderate.

@Tommo9 Pat Conroy is a member of the Left faction which doesn’t help in a seat like this, while lots of the Newcastle MPs (e.g Katie Washington in Port Stephens and Tim Crakanthorp in Newcastle). Controversial Police Minister Yasmin Catley (no relation to the much-less controversial Steph Catley) is the most at-risk, especially if it loses Budgewoi. It is one of the few areas where the NSW Coalition could do better eventually in another election than in 2011 (another example is Kogarah when Chris Minns retires). Charlestown was the safest Liberal seat in Newcastle in 2011 and given the margin was 9.6% it’s safe to say they could still win it back one day.

When Greg Piper retires, I expect Lake Macquarie to become a competitive, Labor-leaning swing seat. One day I see it becoming like Gaven: a seat that stands out in a city where the other party is traditionally stronger (Gaven is the only Labor seat on the Gold Coast, a conservative city).

Terrigal and maybe even The Entrance will swing back to the Liberals in 2027 (though it’s early to pick), regardless of the result. While the Minns government is popular Terrigal is a blue ribbon seat and Adam Crouch has been very active in his electorate, which is visible by his frequent activity on Instagram. There will also be a big swing against Labor in seats like Kiama, Port Stephens and Wyong presuming the Liberals find a good candidate and campaign there instead of doing everything last minute. Potentially, if COL is bad then, Labor might also suffer swings against them in Newcastle seats though not enough to win any of them unless Greg Piper retires or becomes plagued by a scandal.

It’s actually not a bad idea for the Liberals to try and build a base in suburban Newcastle. While it is working-class and now seems unwinnable except in landslides, we once thought that the Liberals would never win a seat like Drummoyne or Penrith or Riverstone outside of a big landslide, yet they held those for nearly 12 years (and still currently hold Drummoyne).

Also, before I calculate the results, I would like to reply to one other thing:

@Tommo9 yes, state Labor usually do better than federal Labor in Newcastle by a fair bit (same as Moreton Bay in Brisbane), but I would point out that at Warners Bay High School (which is the federal booth of Warners Bay in Shortland, note that the NSWEC doesn’t name booths) state Labor only did 0.2% better than federal Labor on the notional TPP (though that’s in the seat of Lake Macquarie where it’s independent vs Labor, so I’m looking at the Labor vs Liberal notional TPP). Warners Bay is usually one of the more Liberal suburbs of Newcastle.

@ Nether Portal
Drummoyne is much better for the Libs for two reasons
1. Gentrification given that is waterfront and a rise in incomes and home values.
2. The Italian community becoming better integrated and increasingly third generation voters.
East Hills is also better for Libs these days due to gentrification it is not as working class as it once was.
Riverstone is better for the Libs these days because of all the new estates bringing in an Aspirational demographic.

@Nimalan I agree, but my point is the Liberals did something they never did before, anywhere in Australia: built a base among middle-class ethnic voters in Sydney. And it worked. Now I think they should try and win back at least one seat in Newcastle (plus Port Stephens and potentially Maitland in the future). Again, the easiest would be Swansea given it only had a 60.5% TPP in 2019 but Charlestown was on a 9.6% margin in 2011, so without the scandals that plagued lots of the Newcastle and Central Coast MPs they could’ve retained Charlestown (the statewide swing in 2015 was –9.9% against the Coalition on TPP, so lineball).

@ Nether Portal
I do agree building a base among Middle Class ethnic voters is something Libs can do. In Middle Class ethnic areas such as Ryde, The Hills, Strathfield etc race relations are generally good and people often support right wing economic policy. This is different to poor ethnic areas like Bankstown etc where there is often high crime and community tension and these people are economically left wing. I personally thing the statewide swing would have been greater in the Hunter region even without scandal due to the electricity privatization policy not being popular in that demographic. I say this as someone who supported that policy that Mike Baird took to the 2015 election.

Anyway, here is the state level TPP here in 2023:

* Labor: 68.4%
* Liberal: 31.6%

Labor did a whopping 12.6% better on the state level here. This can be explained by three factors:

* Despite having a popular incumbent government (though a 12-year-old one) and a popular opposition, the statewide swing in NSW was to Labor, whereas in Queensland (where the opposition was popular but the Labor government fluctuated under Steven Miles) it was to the LNP (so the 8% differences in Moreton Bay would’ve been more in 2020; similarly in 2019 the close to 13% difference would’ve been smaller especially since Labor underperformed in Lake Macquarie and Swansea)
* The personal votes of MPs, or perhaps the lack of an overly progressive figure like Pat Conroy or Anthony Albanese
* The fact that NSW state politics is more moderate (small-l-liberals often want to vote Liberal because of their economic policy but vote teal on the federal level because of social policy but Liberal on the state level on economic grounds due to a more moderate social policy; similarly, the working-class often want to vote Labor on economic grounds but think federal Labor are too focused on social issues and are out of touch so they vote Liberal even if they disagree with the federal Liberals being more conservative).

So it’s really not the Liberals’ fault Labor does better on the state level here, especially given that they still do well in the areas they do best in on both levels. It’s because they want a Labor Party who doesn’t focus on issues that don’t appeal to them, considering they’re their old base. If they were really reverse teals they would vote DLP instead.

Labor overperformed the most in working-class suburbs, whereas as I said about more middle-class suburbs like Warners Bay and Valentine they barely overperformed (again Labor only did 0.2% better in Warners Bay in Lake Macquarie in 2023 than in Shortland in 2022, note that that is the notional TPP in Lake Macquarie).