IND 7.2% vs LIB
Incumbent MP
Zali Steggall, since 2019.
Geography
Northern Sydney. Warringah covers parts of the Northern Beaches and Lower North Shore of Sydney, including Manly, Mosman and parts of Neutral Bay, Allambie Heights, Brookvale and Curl Curl. The seat covers the entirety of Manly and Mosman council areas, as well as parts of North Sydney and Warringah. The largest proportion of the population lives in Warringah.
History
Warringah was first created at the 1922 election, and has never elected a Labor candidate, electing a conservative candidate at almost every election. The first exception was in 1937 when an independent was elected, who proceeded to join the United Australia Party shortly after his election and went on to serve as a minister in a number of conservative governments. The second exception was in 2019.
The seat was first won by Granville Ryrie in 1922. Ryrie had been Member for North Sydney since a 1911 by-election and was elected to Warringah unopposed. The ALP challenged him in 1925 but he managed over 80% of the vote.
Ryrie was appointed High Commissioner to London in 1927 and the by-election was won by Archdale Parkhill, in a race where the two Labor candidates polled barely 18% between them.
Parkhill had been the Lynton Crosby of early 20th Century Australian politics, coordinating many campaigns for the early Liberal Party and Nationalists over two decades. Parkhill served as a minister in the Lyons government from 1932 until 1937, serving as Minister for Defence during Lyons’ second term.
Parkhill was defeated at the 1937 election by conservative independent Percy Spender, who won the seat in a close race on preferences after falling 15% behind on primary votes. Spender went on to join the UAP shortly after his victory. Spender served in the wartime governments of Robert Menzies and Arthur Fadden and served as Minister for External Affairs until 1951, when he retired at the election before being appointed Ambassador to the United States. Spender went on to serve as Australia’s first representative on the International Court of Justice at The Hague.
Spender was succeeded in 1951 by Francis Bland, who held the seat for ten years with massive majorities, polling over 70% on two occasions and being elected unopposed on a third. He retired without ever taking a ministerial role.
Bland was succeeded in 1961 by John Cockle, who held the seat until his death shortly before the 1966 election.
Cockle was succeeded by prominent Edward St John in 1966. St John caused controversy in 1969 attacking Prime Minister John Gorton, which led him to resign from the Liberal Party, and he was defeated at the 1969 election by Liberal candidate Michael MacKellar.
MacKellar served as a minister in the Fraser government until 1982, when a scandal involving the importation of a colour television saw him resign from the ministry.
MacKellar resigned from Parliament in 1994, and the ensuing by-election was won by Tony Abbott. Abbott went on to serve as a minister for the entirety of the Howard government from 1996 to 2007, becoming a senior member of Cabinet in the last two terms of the government.
Abbott had always held Warringah by large margins over the ALP, and the first serious threat to his hold on the seat came in 2001, when Peter Macdonald, former independent member for the state seat of Manly, challenged Abbott. Macdonald polled 27% of the primary vote and came within 6% of defeating Abbott.
Abbott served as Shadow Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs following the Howard government’s defeat in November 2007, serving in the role under leaders Brendan Nelson and Malcolm Turnbull.
Abbott resigned from the frontbench in November 2009 in protest at Malcolm Turnbull’s support for the Emissions Trading Scheme, which triggered the collapse of Turnbull’s leadership. Abbott won a slim majority in a party room ballot against Turnbull in December 2009 and was elected Leader of the Liberal Party.
Abbott led the Coalition into the 2010 election. The Labor government lost its majority, but managed to piece together a majority with the support of crossbench MPs. Abbott led the Coalition through the next term, before winning the 2013 election. Tony Abbott served as Prime Minister until he was defeated for the Liberal leadership in September 2015. Abbott was re-elected in 2016, but in 2019 was defeated by independent Zali Steggall.
Assessment
Steggall is a first-term MP and will likely benefit from a new personal vote. There is a long history of first-term independents increasing their margin. But a lot of the swing in 2019 would have been motivated by a dislike for Tony Abbott, who won’t be running again.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Zali Steggall | Independent | 40,034 | 43.5 | +43.5 |
| Tony Abbott | Liberal | 35,935 | 39.0 | -12.6 |
| Dean Harris | Labor | 6,091 | 6.6 | -8.2 |
| Kristyn Glanville | Greens | 5,647 | 6.1 | -6.1 |
| Heather Barnes | Animal Justice | 1,291 | 1.4 | +1.4 |
| Susan Moylan | Independent | 1,111 | 1.2 | +1.2 |
| Emanuele Paletto | Sustainable Australia | 678 | 0.7 | +0.7 |
| Suellen Marree Wrightson | United Australia Party | 625 | 0.7 | +0.7 |
| Jason Blaiklock | Christian Democratic Party | 461 | 0.5 | -0.7 |
| Brian Clare | Conservative National Party | 250 | 0.3 | +0.3 |
| Informal | 4,897 | 5.0 | -1.0 |
2019 two-candidate-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Zali Steggall | Independent | 52,728 | 57.2 | |
| Tony Abbott | Liberal | 39,395 | 42.8 |
2019 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Tony Abbott | Liberal | 48,011 | 52.1 | -9.0 |
| Dean Harris | Labor | 44,112 | 47.9 | +9.0 |
Warringah has been split into three areas: Manly, Mosman and Warringah. Polling places in the Mosman and North Sydney council areas have been grouped as “Mosman” while those booths in the Northern Beaches council area have been split between the two former council areas of Manly and Warringah.
Steggall won a majority of the two-candidate-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 56.5% in Warringah to 62.6% in Manly. She also won the pre-poll and other votes but by smaller margins.
| Voter group | GRN prim | ALP prim | IND 2CP | Total votes | % of votes |
| Warringah | 6.6 | 7.2 | 56.5 | 21,922 | 23.8 |
| Manly | 6.0 | 5.0 | 62.6 | 15,917 | 17.3 |
| Mosman | 5.5 | 6.5 | 58.6 | 14,664 | 15.9 |
| Pre-poll | 5.5 | 6.5 | 55.7 | 28,846 | 31.3 |
| Other votes | 7.8 | 8.3 | 53.2 | 10,774 | 11.7 |
Election results in Warringah at the 2019 federal election
Toggle between two-candidate-preferred votes (Independent vs Liberal), two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for independent candidate Zali Steggall and the Liberal Party.
Zali only really had a whiff of a chance of defeat when Gladys’ name was being thrown around; but now that both Berejiklian and Buncle are both gone, she has next to no chance of losing the seat come May.
https://www.smh.com.au/interactive/hub/media/tearout-excerpt/5475/LP4-Warringah-ABOUT.pdf
Read the SMH article today that contains Lincoln Parker’s CV (Sky News After dark, tick, former rower, tick, defence analyst, tick, AUKUS supporter, tick, married to an American flight attendant, tick) he sounds like a carbon copy of Tony Abbott. I am now convinced that barring a major upset he looks like he will be trounced by Zali. Libs fault for lagging on preselection and withdrawal of Jane Buncle. With the Morrison Government suffering in opinion polls, I am convinced the only Lib that could have taken on Zali and won was Gladys, now her and Buncle have ruled herself out, they are just offering more of the same. I wonder if new Northern Beaches councillor Georgia Ryburn would be interested? Seems like the Libs shooting themselves in the foot with these type of candidates.
Can’t blame Ms Buncle from withdrawing her nomination.
For the liberals in NSW the pre-selection have been a complete disaster. Labor (and Zali) must be loving not having any liberal candidates on the ground.
The way the liberals are progressing with selecting their candidates it will be a “post-selection” not a “pre-selection” unless it is very early for 2025.
What is the old saying? “If you can’t govern your own party how can you govern the country”.
In a state where the Liberals need to win seats to retain government they are doing their best to ensure that they don’t.
Zali to (definitely) retain.
I suspect the Libs wrote off Warringah months ago.
I suspect that Jane Buncle has ongoing political ambitions and has wisely decided that preselection for Warringah after this fiasco would be the ultimate polished turd that would kill her chances forever.
I do not live in the electorate, but everyone I know would love Abbott as their member… honest and hard working. Zali, through her voting record, is a lefty and certainly not Liberal leaning.
If the people of Warringah vote for Zali again I think they must be as foolish as the people who vote for Adam Bandt, who wants to provide aircon for every home, paid for by an extra 50% tax on the so called rich people. I wonder how many people believe wind and solar can replaces the gas and coal that supplies most of the energy to this country to run these aircons? . Then there’s legalising pot so more people can be addicted and live in fairy land.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/climate-warrior-zali-steggall-failed-to-declare-six-figure-donation-from-family-trust-of-coal-investor-20220213-p59w0x.html
Uh oh
LJ Davidson
Thanks for the second most viewed article in the SMH today. Here is Zali’s response : Shallow, disingenuous, deceptive, & a completely irrelevant distraction. :;
Responding to questions from The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, Ms Steggall said in a statement: “These are donations from a number of members of a large family who nearly all live in Warringah. If you ruled out taking donations from anyone who has invested in coal at one time or another, you pretty much rule out everyone as most people have through their superannuation.”
All she had to say “Yeah, money has no colour . I’m in politics now & it’s my job to take whatever donations, from whomever.” Problem is that she can’t help propagandising everything , talking herself up, & never admitting any error, let alone failure.
On a character test == FAIL
On a competence test ==fail
On a intelligence test== Fail
@WD – Story of her term: Vaucous and about as asinine as @Caro Bird above.
This article isn’t enough to change the needle but you already get the sense that the Liberal Party are going to go a full-blown negative campaign to go after Zali. Still, very curious to see where this goes…
All the money arrived on a single cheque too, so the usual excuse that ‘tee hee it’s merely a coincidence that several members of my immediate family gave near but not quite the legal limit in unreportable donations’ doesn’t even apply. Utterly idiotic, and it gives the Libs an attack line not just on her, but on all the Climate 200 independents where before they really had absolutely nothing.
Liberals are trying to revive Jane Buncle preselection for this seat after the donation scandal it has been reported. Lawyer and former wine executive Katherine Deves would also like to nominate but she hasn’t been a member of the Liberals long enough required to nominate as a candidate.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/turmoil-in-nsw-libs-could-spell-more-byelection-trouble-for-perrottet-20220220-p59y10.html
This is such an easy fix for the Libs, and the answer is right in front of them.
You have 2 quality candidates running for Bennelong. One of whom is Armenian-Australian and could easily run for Warringah.
Give Craig Chung Bennelong, and make Gisele Kapterian the candidate for Warringah. 2 birds, one stone.
The Armenian Church Diocese is even located in North Manly, and Gladys herself was being touted as a potential candidate for the seat.
Libs also solve the issue of declining female representation and you have a candidate with fairly solid out of government, corporate bonafides.
Caro Bird (well above this post)
Why are people so outraged when the Greens dare call for improved living conditions. Also wind and solar can very easily replace coal and gas, we don’t want a 50% tax on the rich, just a 6% tax on billionaires and a re-evaluation of corporate tax laws so companies that make huge amounts of money actually pay some tax.
As for cannabis, the forbidden fruit is all the more sweet because it is forbidden. Look up Portugal. Ciao.
Even if Zali won or not, I bet it will only be one of a few seats where the LNP TPP margin from ALP will be improved given it is unlikely Tony Abbott will contest again
Looks like Libs have settled on someone- Disability campaigner and advocate David Brady:
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/liberals-push-to-install-disability-campaigner-as-warringah-candidate-20220301-p5a0lq.html
Pretty good CV
https://www.davidbrady.info/
Is definitely an outside the box candidate, especially when there is a constant focus on more female representation, I hope the same focus can be extended to people of colour and people with disabilities to also enter our parliaments.
Latest Update for Liberal Party Candidate (in what has already turned into the 2nd biggest shit-storm in terms of pre-selections for the parties):
Frontrunner Lincoln Parker expected to be dumped in favour of diability campaigner David Brady. Attempts were made to revive Jane Buncle to run but this has fallen by the way-side.
This is a move to bring in a compromise candidate, instead of continuing this fight.
Highly unlikely that the Libs would win Warringah anyway but if they lose Hughes they should seriously ask themselves whether they should continue to exist. The stupidity is endless.
I sometimes wonder if in 1941 the UAP looked like the current Liberals. And if so, will a 2025 election have a similar result to 1943? The Libs are seeming to have an ‘end of days’ feel about them.
The Anti-Abbott swing following his departure as Leader of the Liberal Party (from Opposition Leader to PM) was very much on. Some people forget that Abbott suffered a 9.2% swing on Primary Vote against him in 2016, followed by a 12.64% swing against him in 2019.
For context, the worst result for Abbott Prior to 2016 was 2001, where his primary Vote dropped to 51.45%, although he managed to win with a 2CP of 55.67%.
Take 2016, as a starting point (all of this is primary votes):
*Abbott lost 18,000 votes over two elections, split fairly evenly
*Labor lost 11,000 votes over two elections, again, split fairly evenly
*Greens lost 8,000 votes over two elections, with the majority lost in the 2019 election
*Major Independent (Mathison, Steggall) gained 40,000, with 3/4 of this gain occuring in 2019.
*Although turn-out remained around the low-90% through the 3 elections, the number of voters clearly kept increasing, indicating that there are many more electors in the seat than when Abbott Started, with an extra 5,500 votes occuring in 2019.
It does show that there was an Anti-Abbott vote occurring in the area and a strong element of tactical voting occurring election. It also shows that they could have taken full advantage back in 2001 if they had a viable independent candidate following Dr Peter McDonald.
It shows that the Liberal Party needs to move on from the traditional candidates that they have had for the seat and move to someone more akin to a Classical Liberal or Small-l liberal running for Warringah, not the capital-C Conservative.
Apparently the Liberals are running Katherine Deves, an Amanda Stoker style ‘biological sex campaigner’, aka anti-trans activist.
The Liberals really haven’t learnt their lesson from 2019….
Zali Stegall should hold on.
It’s obviously not unique to reactionary politics, the Greens have an ugly problem with TERFs on Melbourne councils for example, but US Republicans and UK conservatives have had success valorising transphobia supposedly in the service of women’s rights and I can absolutely see that becoming a major theme for the Liberal Party trying to come up with counter narratives to run in progressive seats. Not that I think it’ll work for them this time.
The Liberals really need to realise that they cannot park these hard-right types in these types of seats that while were/are traditional Liberal strongholds, aren’t socially conservative, and unlike in more middle or lower middle class areas, places where a lot of voters will have issues like climate change or LGBT rights at the forefront when they decide how to vote. The “doctors wives” vote is concentrated in these blue ribbon areas.
The rise of Zali Steggall and these “Voices” candidates shows that there will be backlash to a hard right Liberal, and that a lot of voters aren’t just going to look past it, and place 1 next to the Liberal candidate, when there is an alternative.
Steggall was already a lock before Deves’ preselection and now the seat of Warringah is located within a safe in Zali Steggall’s house because there is no way that she loses.
Also, just to put it out there, transphobia is not cool.
This is the only seat that was held by a former Liberal PM that isn’t Liberal held today. The Liberals should be ashamed of themseleves for losing a seat which was held by one of their former Prime Minister’s.
Andrew Fisher was a Labor PM and was member for Wide Bay. Labor haven’t held it since 1974. Should Labor be ashamed too?
Ben, and I wonder who that Liberal member was who lost the seat **Cough Cough**
Fisher was not the member of Wide Bay when they last held it. The Liberals are also in huge danger of losing Reid which was formally Lowe which was McMahon’s seat, And they could lose Wentworth again as well as the possibility of Bennelong and Kooyong if they get very unlucky and thinks turn out as bad as they are reported.
Was wondering how long it would take before another asinine comment from Daniel…
This is a fascinating decision on pre-selection for the seat as it clearly shows the Liberal Part has learned nothing from the demographic shift that has occurred in the seat. The other thing that this will throw up was the threat from Lincoln Parker to run as an independent if he wasn’t pre-selected.
My money is that his people will tell him to stand down and not run but he has a track record of shooting from the hip.
Hawkeye, I don’t think Daniel’s comment is as foolish as you make it out to be. The recent SA election did see a large swing, almost in line with the published opinion polls although it was concentrated more in the ‘affluent’ suburbs. Translating this to the federal election, it means seats like Kooyong and Wentworth which Daniel referred to are at high risk of being lost.
I don’t think the swing will be as high in the other seats like Reid and Bennelong because they aren’t considered affluent in nature. Again comparing to the SA election, Labor didn’t manage to gain Dunstan, Hartley or Colton. These seats were in the 6-8% range but are probably considered more middle class in nature. This means the Coalition still has a fighting chance of holding onto seats like Banks and Reid.
Andrew Fisher is the second last Labour Member to have graced the Division of Wide Bay. After he was displaced, to assist the War effort, by Wide Bay’s first ever Liberal members, the Corser family, its been ninety (once broken) years of ‘shame,’ as it were.
@Ben – Katherine Deves pre-selection confirmed for the Liberal Party, after the High Court upheld the decisions made by the party.
Activity has been largely scant on the south side of the Northern Beaches. If anything, all of the activity is occuring around Dee Why, with what looks like Steggall combing forces with Scamps to target the border between the two seats. Given the high movement within the community around the Northern Beaches within the Northern Beaches (where have I heard that before) and that Dee Why is the biggest suburb that is divided between the two seats, this is actually a smart play.
It also suggests to me that Steggall thinks she is confident of retaining Warringah.
@ Hawkeye_au. Steggall will retain Warringah. I will go as far as saying if Deves wins at this election I will run from the Oaks in Neutral Bay to The Styne at Manly in one of Borat’s Mankinis…….
One of my liberal leaning friends received an e-mail from Deves addressed “Dear <>”…. not a great way to start a campaign. But not surprising as she has had to set up a campaign in a week.
Deves has got some press about transgender people playing sport. The good voters of Warringah aren’t particularly worried about such matters but more concerned about their princes and princesses (particularly those from Mosman) playing rugby against teams from the western suburbs consisting largely of children with pacific islander backgrounds……
And of course the performance of the Manly NRL team. So I am not sure who Deves is trying to connect with. Not the average Warringah punter
Best
Pollster
@Pollster – Agreed that very likely Steggall will retain Warringah. The Liberal Party have shot themselves in the foot that many time, I’m surprised they can still walk.
Agreed as well that Transgender issues in sport is not a hot topic for discussion. The discussion is worthwhile but now is not the time.
As for the Mankini image, that is something I don’t need and not even Mrs Hawkeye can help save my eyes now…
@ hawkeye – I wouldn’t have made a threat involving me in a mankini if I thought I had any chance of having to go through with it……
I would go as far as to say that Zali is as safe as Wilkie is in Clarke.
The other question is whether or not the labor vote percentage gets to double figures…
Cheers,
Pollster
This morning I saw candidate Deves at the bus stop in Neutral Bay. Not one person in the queue of commuters took a brochure. Based on about 10 state and federal elections the commuters in Neutral Bay have always taken everyone’s brochure – even if out of courtesy (or pity for the labor candidate who will never get elected but is at least having a go).
Based on my observations today I will now think the real question is whether or not Zali gets over 50% of the primary vote and I think the answer to that question is yes she will.
And @Hawkeye_au won’t have to cut his eyes out…..
Cheers,
Pollster
Those eyes wouldn’t be cut out. I’d have probably jammed forks into my eyes.
The recent discovery of Deves’s social media posts just cements Zali’s win in Warringah. There is no way Deves can win from here because it will raise constant questions for the rest of the campaign and she is a totally inappropriate candidate for this electorate.
Zali was smart enough to call for her disendorsement and Scomo retreated from making the Chandler bill government policy as he knows he will have another fight on his hands with Allen/Zimmerman/Sharma et al.
Being a captain’s pick also probably meant the candidate vetting process fell by the wayside so I’d be interested on what will be discovered over the course of the campaign by the other 8 captains picks in those electorates.
Things just got spicy.
Deves’s team has just announced that Barrister Bridie Nolan has become the team’s campaign manager?
The significance? She is the new wife of Zali Steggall’s ex-husband.
4 Words:
OH NO YOU DIDN’T!!!!
Zail will hold this with a swing to her, the Liberal candidate is nothing but trouble here & the more that comes out the worse it is.
Think Deves will have to be disendorsed next week for her Nazi comments.
Moderate Liberals like Sharma and Zimmerman are allegedly furious with her positions from her social media history and believe endanger the Liberal vote in neighbouring seats where Teals are running.
We’ll see. Deves was given a seat that was already basically unwinnable mainly as a bone throw to the rank and file, so Morrison can pretend to care what they want. She wasn’t meant to win. If she actually won she’d probably cause problems for Morrison/Frydenberg in the party room anyway. Pulling her out now would give yet another reason for the already very demoralised volunteer base to mutiny.
I don’t think the likes of Trent Zimmerman are in a position to make waves on this. His own party don’t want him and the actual ‘moderate liberals’, such as they are, already have Kylea.
It’s a tough judgment call. I mean not for anyone with a shred of integrity, let alone genuine interest in the wellbeing of the LGBT community, but for an almost pathologically self interested and quite instinctually reactionary Liberal leader like Morrison it’s a conundrum.
What a complete mess. Back Deves, and the teal wave will sweep away the moderate elements of the Liberal party more than it already will (To be a fly on the wall at their offices when they heard Morrison abandon the integrity commission!). Disendorse Deves, and piss off the conservatives in the rank and file that you need to campaign like mad to claw enough seats off of Labor to cover losses elsewhere. With the white flag on integrity, it looks like the decision will be the former, which makes you wonder (once again) why Morrison bothered impaling himself for this preselection interference. As sneaky simon holmes a court said, “wouldn’t want to be in the shoes of josh, tim, dave, trent, jason or celia”.
One interesting stat that does demonstrate the clear Anti-Abbott vote from this election is the comparison of the Last HOR Primary Votes with the last Senate Primary Vote in the Seat:
Abbott’s Primary Vote: 39.01%. His Next two worst performances were both around 51.5%, both in 2001 and 2016. Both times, with a decent Independent Showing (2001 being against Dr MacDonald and 2016 had James Mathieson).
However, the Primary Senate Vote for the Coalition in the seat was still up at 48.51%. This clearly demonstrates that Abbott lost 9.5% directly as an impact of himself. This is even seen in the original 2PP, where Abbott would have won against Labor but only by 52:48, a 9% drop in his 2PP. The correlation is clearly there.
You could say that Zali effetively started with a hard base of 17% and then stripped 14% in what could amount to tactical voting from Labor and Greens Supporters (31%). This thought around tactical voting is clearly apparent as the Greens achieved 15.7% in the Senate for Warringah (gap of nearly 9%) and Labor achieved 19.6% in the Senate for Warringah (gap of 13%).
It could well be that you will see the Greens and Labor effectively run dead in the seat, potentially driving more 1st preference voting to Zali. I can’t see the Liberal Voting dropping much further, but I don’t see that vote gaining.
I think Zali could well win with an increased majority, but I think the increased majority comes at the expense of cannibalised votes from Labor and the Greens.
Hawkeye
It is hard for the Greens and Labor to run deader (pardon the phrase) than getting 6% and 8% last time. Labor more than the Greens have become so hollowed out on the North Shore and parts of regional NSW (Tablelands and westwards) where independents have run and been abetted by Labor in the past that they have got to a stage where they are eating their own senate and LC votes. It seems to be a particularly NSW phenomenon.
Labor didn’t run dead in Warringah in 19- they had a very good candidate but Abbott was so toxic that the payoff of strategic voting for Zali was very strong.
The traditional 2nd party gets smashed when a strong IND stands and wins, and continues to be until the IND retires. This is why all the suggestions on this blog of a party purposely withdrawing from a seat they are doing ok in, to increase the chances of an IND winning, are so absurd. Would a business purposely hand over its customer base for 10- 15 years to a new entrant in the market, in order to damage its existing competitor???
@Redistributed – Completely agree re: Labor’s Primary Vote being Hollowed out. Don’t forget that the 2019 Election result was Labor’s worst Primary Result in their history (as a percentage), eclipsing the 2013 result by 0.1%. Even now, regressed polling modelling only has the Labor Primary Vote around 37.5%, only a 3% improvement from the last election.
In terms of the North Shore especially, you only need to look back to the 2011 State Election, where Labor ran 3rd to the Greens in every seat North of Sydney, South of Broken Bay/Hawkesbury River and west to The Hills. In some State Seats, they still haven’t recovered 2nd place and, federally, still come close to losing 2nd place when it is a straight fight.
If their vote drops even further, they will be pretty much a spent force in the entire Northern Corridor.
And in that 2019 the ALP had >4% swings to it in Bradfield and North Sydney. And 9% in Warringah on 2PP.
I think a few are trying to find data to fit a narrative while ignoring what it right in front of them.
@high street – I know Dean Harris personally. I play cricket with him. Affable and intelligent. He’s told me personally that once Labor got a whiff about how strong the zali campaign was, they pretty much pulled all the support and left him to his own devices. They ran dead.
No-one has suggested they pull out completely but they are putting in even less effort as a party and basically leaving it as “Here are a couple of corflutes, and a video about you. Good luck and try not to damage our brand.”
The same thing will happen in Fowler. The Liberal Party will strategically run dead and allow Dai Le all the space she needs.
As for fitting a narrative, the comment refuses to acknowledge how bad the primary vote for Labor In Northern Sydney had been for a decade and how it has never recovered in the area. It can’t be ignored, especially as now left-of-center voters are now likely to abandon voting labor if they can find a strategic vote to topple the Liberal Party Candidate.
As redistributed rightfully said, there is only so much cannibalisation that can go on. I still think there is a bit left, especially as there could be a small bounce back to the Liberal party on the back of the anti-abbott hysteria disappearing. Not enough to win the seat because it is clear Deves is a poor selection.
@Hawkeye_au (and others).
I think what we have here is a semantic debate about what “running dead”” means. I am distinguishing between what normally happens in very safe or safe seats (even fairly safe seat at times) and the deliberate intent to “run dead”.
I expect many posters on this blog have political party experience as I am not going to be presumptuous and assume that you don’t. I have very recent experience. However, any thought that Labor in 2019 was going to provide the ALP candidate in Warringah with ANYTHING more than a couple hundred corflutes, 100 T-shirts and 100,000 HTV’s and the party’s best wishes, is living in fairyland. Providing this minor level of support of not “running dead” it is standard practice in such seats.
Running dead would have to include a direction to the local candidate to not turn up to candidate debates, and for the fairly thin number of pre poll and election day booth workers who do show up, to be told not to bother.
As you say, the ALP Warringah candidate is a very good guy and a strong candidate, but he would not be the first candidate to have entered a race expecting a certain level of support from Head Office, and then finding it not appearing – in some eyes this constitutes “pulling support” – to others it was a misapprehension from the start.
To this cannibalising the Senate and LC vote that Redistributed mentioned. The data is not strong for that from 2019.
North Sydney – ALP Reps 25%; ALP Senate 24%
Warringah – ALP Reps 6.6%; ALP Senate 19.6%
North Sydney – LIB Reps 52%; LIB Senate 48%
Warringah – LIB Reps 39%; LIB Senate 48%
Either a), the ALP Senate vote in Warringah held up quite well, considering being run over by the Zali truck in the Reps/running “dead”, or b) Dean Harris had a negative personal vote of 13%, worse than Tony Abbott’s of negative 9%!!
This seat has put the Liberals in an a awkward position. Because New South Wales state Liberal Treasurer Matt Kean has now called on Liberal candidate for Warringah Katherine Deves to be dumped over a series of comments she made online regarding transgender.
Scott Morrison is holding firm on this candidate for now. But I can’t imagine he still holding out hopes of winning the seat and is more doing it to present that the ship is steady. I doubt the Liberals are holding out any hope of winning back Warringah now.