Wentworth – Australia 2022

I don’t know much about the area so someone familiar could offer better insight, but as i’ve said before does moving Wentworth closer into the city make sense demographically, the seat of Wentworth itself is already one that varies widely in terms of demographics with blue ribbon Lib suburbs and inner city suburbs. Would moving Wentworth into Warringah make sense (and just keep pushing everything a bit north) or move Wentworth into KS and push KS into Sydney.

There would be uproar if a redistribution committee attempted to have Wentworth cross the harbour.

Wentworth can be a write-off in 2025 for the Liberals unless Allegra Spender falters. Kingsford Smith won’t change that much post-redistribution. I don’t agree that Wentworth should cross the harbour. Geography, rather than socio-economic status and demographics, should be the main way of determining boundaries.

Many metro Sydney electorates are under quota. The indepedent or teal-held electorates of North Sydney, Warringah and Mackeller would have to expand westward, unless a metro Sydney seat gets abolished. This means the Liberals would be more competitive in North Sydney and Mackeller if they take in more inland suburbs.

@Nicholas Noted. I’m assuming the two communities don’t have any shared concerns, interests or similarities apart from voting patterns.
@Votante agreed about your statement about geography been the main factor in determining boundaries.

@North East

You are right to observe that there are similarities between the areas. But there is almost what one could describe as a rivalry between the Northern Beaches, North Shore, and Eastern Suburbs.

Residents of Paddington strongly objected being transferred into the Division of Sydney at the last redistribution. (This led to the committee amending the originally proposed boundary.) There is always objection to parts of North Sydney LGA being placed within Warringah. Each of those three areas (Northern Beaches, North Shore, and Eastern Suburbs) view themselves as having their own identity.

There is also the issue that such an electorate would be essentially discontiguous, the nearest connection being the harbour bridge and tunnel. Most Eastern Suburbs resident would very rarely travel to Mosman or the Northern Beaches, and vice versa. It may well be the case that the average Western Sydney resident visits either Manly or Bondi more frequently than an Eastern Suburbs resident visits Manly or a Northern Beaches resident visits Bondi.

@Nicholas Thanks for the info. When you refer to the Northern beaches and North shore are you referring to the same place. Also isn’t Warringah itself discontiguous, with part of it been next to North Sydney.

I think the best option might be expanding Wentworth south to include Coogee and other parts of Randwick council. Whilst not an ideal solution, ultimately Bondi and the eastern suburbs lack sufficient enrolment to form a district in their own right and must be combined either with part of Sydney council (Paddington area) or Randwick council (Coogee area).

@Yoh An it kind of seems like Wentworth is cornered by surrounding divisions that it doesn’t fit with and has nowhere to go.

Wentworth can expand either into Sydney or Kingsford Smith…it gains either safe alp areas or marginal areas don’t think it will make a difference to non liberal support but these new areas will be 60% plus for a teal which is bad for a liberal.

The current Sydney/Wentworth boundary awkwardly the divides areas surrounding Kings Cross. Uniting it all in Wentworth is a neat solution.

That might not be enough to get it up to quota, so Wentworth could be drawn into the CBD. If splitting the CBD is considered unsatisfactory, an alternative arrangement would be to adjust the Wentworth/Kingsford Smith boundary south and to compensate Kingsford Smith with the south eastern corner of Sydney (Rosebery).

I would not be surprised if Dave Sharma turns out to be the last Liberal member for Wentworth. It does need to move east or south – neither good for the Libs. Post Allegra Spender – whenever that may be – I could see it being like Macnamara – not a safe ALP seat but one that the Libs just can’t get across the line to win.

Good analogy redistributed, the eastern suburbs of Sydney does behave a lot like the Melbourne harbourside around St Kilda etc. I also see this area like Hamilton/Clayfield in Brisbane and hence David’s suggestion of expanding Wentworth right to the very edge of Sydney CBD would be a fairly satisfactory outcome, making it like the federal seat of Brisbane which also includes the CBD as well as some riverside suburbs close to the airport.

Wentworth used to have Darlinghurst and Woolloomooloo.

Back in 2018 when Kerryn Phelps won the by-election, people talked about how the Liberal Party was dead in Wentworth, following Turnbull’s departure, and that Scott Morrison would be gone in 2019. Neither of them happened.

Wentworth might always have independent candidates. It has its own character and people here generally earn more than the median income, have degrees, and are more politically-engaged than the average person. There’s a bigger field to choose from.

I think Allegra Spender won partly because people disliked Morrison. If the Libs were to preselect a progressive, small l-liberal, like a younger version of Malcolm Turnbull, they’d have a real chance of winning in 2025. Again, this would be harder with the redistribution subsuming stronger Labor booths.

Sharma was one of those alleged small l-liberals, as were Falinski and Zimmerman. They all lost, convincingly. I’ve said before that I don’t believe the public are very interested or sympathetic to these minute factional differences between individual MPs, when the reality is that the Liberal Party as a whole is only getting more conservative. If a Turnbull style figure actually won the leadership it might be a different story, but that’s never looked less likely in the party’s entire history.

The Liberals will keep their booths on the Vaucluse peninsula, and the state seat will stay with them. I doubt they’ll ever win anything else.

@Redistributed The TPP for Lib vs Lab was still 55% for Lib, although redistribution and the current trend of the Libs may narrow this. It may be an independent inclined seat but there won’t always be a strong independent running and there’s still very strong areas for the Libs. The difference between Wentworth and Macnamara is that Wentworth has very strong Liberal areas that Macnamara doesn’t, the closest is Caulfield which is usually good for the Libs but has swung to Labor recently and now has marginally Labor booths, Vaucluse is still strong Lib. Macnamara does probably have a soft Labor vote though, much like Wentworth.

@Furtive Lawngnome Been a small l Lib probably helped Sharma, Falinski and Zimmerman but at the end of the day people overlooked that because they were mad at the Liberal party and probably felt the moderates had little sway in the party room anyway, ironically voting them out has given them even littler influence. These seats won by teals also aren’t completely out of the picture for the Libs next election if the teals prove to be duds, they’re currently benchwarmers in the HOR with no LNP in power to build up anger against and the current drama regarding staffers doesn’t put them in a good light. Their best hope is for Dutton to lead the Libs to the next election.

Yoh An, I don’t really see any comparisons between the NSW harbourside and St Kilda at all to be honest. I am a St Kilda resident myself.

I can definitely see some similarities with some parts of Macnamara, for example around Albert Park which is really quite affluent, and parts of Port Melbourne.

However, the Liberal vote in St Kilda has traditionally only hovered around 20%, they have come third in every St Kilda booth for more than a decade now, and this past election they sat between around 13-16% across St Kilda, I don’t think any parts of Wentworth are really even remotely comparable to that.

St Kilda is a suburb that has transformed from a Labor heartland to a Greens heartland and has been extremely hostile to the Liberals for as long as I can remember (in many ways it acts more like a pocket of Melbourne’s inner north, in the inner south), whereas Wentworth has always been a Liberal stronghold that without an independent, Labor or the Greens would still struggle to win.

Just as one example, the largest polling place in St Kilda this year had an 80.5% Labor 2PP, the Greens came first with 44% and the Liberals only got 13%. Sydney’s eastern suburbs really just have no comparable areas to that.

I think Melbourne unlike Sydney has their beaches along with the more working-class areas probably due to more unfavorable beaches. Although Gentrification is happening given the beaches may have become more cleaner than in the past. The one exception is the Brighton/Black Rock and Mornington Peninsula where their beaches are sought after at least in the Melbourne Area so they are the high-income areas.
The only place in Sydney that seems to have a high ALP vote is the Coogee area (Kingsford Smith electorate). I wonder why the ALP vote is high there despite being along a beach?

Good point Marh. I think Goldstein is a more comparable seat to Wentworth than Macnamara.

In Macnamara you have Port Melbourne which had an industrial, working class past (albeit gentrified now); Albert Park and Middle Park which are the most affluent bayside parts but are probably still more comparable to Wentworth’s less Liberal suburbs; and then St Kilda which had more of a gritty history of social disadvantage & bohemia, before gentrifying into a very socially progressive Greens heartland; and the seat has always had a Labor lean compared to the national result (sometimes a very strong one).

Wentworth doesn’t really have any areas that have or had working class industry or social disadvantage as part of their identity.

Whereas Goldstein has always been made up of predominantly prime beachside real estate mixed with some middle class pockets, with a blue ribbon Liberal tradition but a social conscience too, and has always leaned more Liberal than the state or nation overall, so a lot more like Wentworth.

Marh, I think the Coogee area is close to unsw so could have a high number of uni students who are generally more left leaning.

I think Macnamara (removing the Caulfield and if the population is yet similar to have an electorate) would quite be identical to Kingsford Smith only if Kingsford Smith did not have an Airport (Unlikely to happen) and Macnamara has a University (There is a plan for the University of Melbourne in Fishermans Bend). Even areas not close to UNSW yet close to the beach still voted ALP (40%+ just for first preferences) so I think Kingsford Smith is like mixing the western part of Macanarma and the Eastern part of Gellibrand

Good points raised. i am thinking Potts Point/Kings Cross etc can be compared to St Kilda even if it is not beachside it has a similar history. The Eastern Beach side suburbs such as Coogee/Clovelly, Bronte and Maroubra were not as historically strong for the Libs like Manly. In Sydney, i would say the Harbour is more sought after than the Ocean Beaches. For example Rose Bay is more affluent than Bondi and Clontarf/Mosman is more affluent than Manly. I do think Goldstein would be like either Wentworth or Warringah (excluding the Forest District. I am trying to think of a good comparison for the Glen Eira (maybe Randwick/Coogee/Bondi Junction etc) or Inner West (Strathfield-Burwood)?

I think there are big differences between Wentworth and Macnamara but I don’t think Trent is right about the lack of comparison to St Kilda.

Only about a third of Wentworth is “harbourside” and that part is very rich and very Liberal. About another third is beachside and another third is what I describe as cityside – Kings Cross, Paddington etc. There’s a lot of diversity between those areas, as is the case in Macnamara which has quite a lot of diversity between its different parts. I’d be interested in which parts of Sydney are better matches for St Kilda than Bondi or Paddington/Kings Cross. It’s not like the inner west (that’s more like the inner north) or the north shore (more like Kooyong/Higgins).

Goldstein and Wentworth do seem to fit together a bit better.

Bondi has lots of sharehouses, backpackers and a relatively young population. Same in Bronte and Clovelly but to a lesser extent. They also have party and hipster vibes. This explains why Allegra Spender in 2022 and Kerryn Phelps in 2019 polled really highly. St Kilda and Bondi have a few things in common. They are both the most famous and most touristy beach in their city and are full of sharehouses and backpackers. Many other beachside suburbs like Coogee (in Kingsford Smith) are similar.

Double Bay, Rose Bay and Vaucluse and other harbourside and inland suburbs feel like a different planet. They are very wealthy, old money rich and a bit older. This is where you’ll find waterfront mansions, posh private schools and sports cars. These suburbs also have a high Jewish population like Caulfield and Elsternwick in Melbourne and according to Antony Green, Jews tend to vote pre-poll or postal as they don’t go out on Saturdays.

Adding to the above, the Liberals will be in a real fight if Allegra Spender and other Teals inspire a new crop of independent candidates who are hoping to emulate their electoral success. Since Spender and Kate Chaney are the daughters of Liberal MPs, they could persuade disaffected, rusted-on Liberals, or even the children of Liberal MPs, to switch like they did.

I think Kings Cross is probably the closest comparison to St Kilda in or around the Wentworth area. I’ve never thought St Kilda & Bondi really had much in common at all other than their beaches being tourist destinations, but I think their permanent populations, their culture and their voting trends are very different from each other.

While St Kilda happens to be in the inner south geographically, I think both culturally and electorally it is actually more similar to the inner north than it is to a lot of the south. Its voting patterns are more similar to Richmond & Carlton than they are to Albert Park, South Melbourne or South Yarra. So with that in mind, I would actually say if I had to choose whether it’s more like Sydney’s inner west or eastern beachside suburbs, I would pick the inner west.

But if I had to pick a suburb that was probably the closest comparison, I’d say it’s Glebe. When I have visited Sydney and stayed in Glebe, the streets looked & felt very similar, and looking at the results of the Glebe booth – 13% Liberal and 80% combined Labor + Greens – that’s pretty much identical to St Kilda. So if you mixed Glebe with Kings Cross’ sketchy past, and plopped it next to a beach, that would be the closest comparison to St Kilda in Sydney that I can think of.

But I definitely see no comparison between St Kilda and any of Sydney’s beachside suburbs, other than having a beach. Macnamara as a whole on the other hand, I definitely do see some similarities with the beachside suburbs (but also the differences I outlined).

@Votante, you’re right about the backpacker & sharehouse aspect. That is one similarity between St Kilda & Bondi. Except backpackers don’t vote so it doesn’t really impact the results.

Kings Cross also has a hostel type culture as well and I think that one is more similar to St Kilda than Bondi.

One thing I have always thought is that Bondi is a beach suburb, St Kilda is a suburb with a beach. The distinction being that the culture in Bondi is really based around it being a beach destination, whereas St Kilda’s culture would mostly be the same with or without its beach (which is really only active/popular for 3-3 months of the year anyway).

If you go to St Kilda on a Saturday afternoon in the middle of summer, it will feel more like Bondi. But most of the year, it has a very different atmosphere and a very different demographic. There is still a lot of disadvantage, public & community housing, social services, homeless services, street prostitution is less prevalent but still visible, and while a lot more middle class professionals have moved in and a lot of live music has disappeared, it definitely still has a lingering bohemian presence as well. These are the factors that I think make it more like Kings Cross than Bondi; and Kings Cross votes more similarly to St Kilda too.

If I look at the Bondi Beach booth, I know it’s difficult to compare because the presence of an independent reduces the Labor & Greens votes; but the Liberals polled 26% even with a centrist independent eating into their vote!

If I look at the 2016 result – the last election without an independent in the fray – the Liberals got 49% and won the 2PP at Bondi Beach! That’s just nothing like St Kilda at all. At the same election the Liberals got 24% at the largest St Kilda booth.

*Typo, 3-4 months of the year.

St Kilda is more of a cross between Bondi and Kings Cross than Sydney’s inner west, and while St Kilda is currently strongly ALP/Green, it has gone through periods of being Liberal leaning and has been associated with Melbourne’s Deakin Liberals whereas Sydney’s inner west has more of a labor party history. Another reason why I wouldn’t compare St Kilda to Sydney’s inner west is St Kilda has gone through periods of being a wealthy suburb.

Macnamara and Wentworth. If Brighton was added to the existing Macnamara then that would mirror Wentworth.

In its very distant past I agree St Kilda has a different history and legacy to Sydney’s inner west. But today, and in recent decades, its voting patterns are much more Balmain, Glebe & Leichhardt (not so much Marrickville & Tempe area) than they are Bondi.

Agree with the Kings Cross comparisons though which is probably the most consistent comparison both past and present, culturally and electorally.

If we’re talking though about comparing the demographics, culture and voting lean of St Kilda (specifically St Kilda, not Macnamara) with the beachside parts of Wentworth today including Bondi, I just don’t see many similarities at all.

The Right vs Left lean of St Kilda vs Bondi is probably >20% different, consistently across many elections for some time now, which is massive. Whereas St Kilda’s left/right lean is pretty much the same as much of Melbourne’s inner north and Sydney’s inner west, even if it has a different (less Labor / working class) history that led to this point.

All good thoughts. Interesting the former electoral district of St Kilda (state level) was held by Libs as recently as 1982 whilst that was never the case Melbourne’s inner north. St Kilda once has Grand Mansions a lot of which were later subdivided into apartments and rooming houses. Both Bondi and Kings Cross have some comparisons to to St Kilda. Like Bondi, St Kilda was once a hub of the Jewish community. The cake shops of Acland Street was started by the Jewish Community. A lot of the architecture of Bondi with art deco and Spanish mission style flats remind me of St Kilda. Prior to Turnbull, ALP often won the TPP around Bondi Beach. https://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2004/guide/went.htm

Agree Nimalan.

If we were talking about back in the days when Victoria was still the “jewel in the Liberal Party’s crown” (seems so unlikely these days), then yeah St Kilda back then was certainly nothing like Melbourne’s north or Sydney’s west at the time. And there are similarities in the history.

My comment though was really just specifically responding to the 28/06 @ 2:11pm comment that Sydney’s eastern suburbs behave a lot like St Kilda, because I interpreted that to be saying that in the present day, they behave (electorally) like St Kilda and I really don’t think that they do. I can’t see any booths in Sydney’s eastern suburbs that behave anything remotely like St Kilda these days.

Strictly speaking about the present day (say the last 5 elections), St Kilda’s voting patterns “behave” more like Melbourne’s inner north and Sydney’s inner city / inner west and really nothing at all like Sydney’s eastern suburbs.

The Liberals’ best performance in St Kilda since 2010 has been the 2016 election where the Liberal 2PP was between 32-36% across the suburb (and their 2PP hasn’t even reached 30% in a single polling place since), and my observation was that none of Sydney’s eastern suburbs behave anything like that.

I didn’t mean for it to become more about which suburbs share similar histories etc, just a correction about that one comment, where my intention was more to say that maybe a suburb like Albert Park or Port Melbourne – or even Hampton & Sandringham in Goldstein – would have been a better comparison with how the polling places in Sydney’s eastern suburbs behave.

The other thing too is that if I look at how the booths around Bondi, Bronte & Waverley behaved in an IND v LIB race (LIB vote reduced to the 20s/30s, ALP and Greens votes reduced to around the teens), they are also similar to how suburbs like Hampton & Sandringham behaved.

And while there’s no evidence because it hasn’t occurred yet, I would also agree that if a “teal” independent were to run in Macnamara, suburbs like Albert Park, Middle Park and parts of Port Melbourne could very possibly behave in a similar way too.

The key similarities I think between how Sydney’s eastern suburbs and Melbourne suburbs like Albert Park, Middle Park, Port Melbourne, Hampton & Sandringham behave, are:
– They are all the more marginal/swinging areas of their respective seats;
– They are not particularly rusted onto the right or left;
– They typically lean Liberal under a moderate leader like Turnbull but lean Labor/Independent otherwise; eg. LIBs won the 2PPs under Turnbull but IND/ALP won it under Morrison across all these suburbs.

So I would definitely agree that Melbourne’s bayside suburbs both north & south of St Kilda do indeed behave a lot like Sydney’s eastern suburbs in pretty much every way. Just not St Kilda itself.

Trent, 100% agreed. In terms of voting patterns, St Kilda-Elwood and Prahran-Windsor while geographically in the Inner South do have voting patterns like the Inner North. I would not use Hamilton (QLD) as a comparison to St Kilda. As you have pointed a Teal/Moderate Liberal will not make a difference unlike other suburbs such as Albert Park/Middle Park which are quite different and where a Teal would have a lot of appeal. St Kilda-Elwood is rock solid progressive territory. Maybe the only Bayside suburb in Melbourne which is such. I would be keen to see a Teal run in Macnamara/Higgins because even if they dont win the seat. i feel they can take votes from Greens/Labor as well as Liberal. i think they are many super rich voters in suburbs like Glen Iris, Albert Park/Middle Park who may have voted Labor in 2022 holding their noses as they felt there was no alternative. It maybe the case that Labor primary vote in Higgins would have fell from 28% to only around 22%, with a teal maybe getting 21% and Greens 19% etc so a four way split.

Surprised that no-one else has mentioned Wentworth’s Jewish population so far, but now that you have Votante, I thought I’d give my thoughts.

Sharma seemed to do quite well at the booths in the neighbourhoods with some of the biggest populations of people identifying Judaism as their religion in the 2021 Census ie. Vaucluse & Rose Bay, as well as the PPVCs.

Spender performed best in the neighbourhoods with a comparatively less proportion of people identifying Judaism as their religion ie. Bondi, Woollahra, Padddington.

Makes sense that Jewish people would have identified with Sharma given that he was the former Australian ambassador to Israel.

However, because I am looking at Judaism as a religion on the ABS, these communities I’ve singled out are probably just predisposed to identify more with the Coalition due to their own inherent religious conservatism. Whereas secular Jews that do not identify with Judaism on the Census, are probably more likely to identify with more socially progressive views than their religious counterparts. This would make a socially-progressive, teal independent candidate more appealing to these constituents.

I also found it interesting that the teal-independent phenomena was mostly expressed in divisions with significant Jewish populations or featured an incumbent that identifies as Jewish at the very least culturally/ancestrally (if not religiously). Seems that there was some fracturing in the Australian Jewish community’s support of the Coalition this election.

The ALP only won St Kilda by 2.6% in 1988, so had it not been abolished in the redivision before the 1992 election, the Liberals would almost certainly have won it in 1992 (especially since had it survived the redistribution, it would likely have moved south/east into).

Labor won the state seat of St Kilda in 1988 with a 55.6% 2PP. You may have been thinking of 1985 where the margin was only 2.7%.

Granted that’s still a lot less than the 2PPs in the area these days, but as I already mentioned, I was only stating that now, today in the present era, St Kilda (the suburb) doesn’t behave at all like Sydney’s eastern suburbs in elections.

I haven’t seen any eastern beachside suburbs of Sydney, or polling places in Wentworth, where the Liberals get a 13-15% primary vote and Labor get a 75-80% 2PP in the post-2010 era.

I was just saying that suburbs like Hampton and Albert Park behave a lot more like Sydney’s eastern suburbs, than St Kilda does.

@Marh I think it’s just the way the cities grew. Cities grow in all directions but when Sydney grew from its city centre if it went east, south or north it was hitting beach, and there wouldn’t have been much expanding before they hit the water in the east. Whereas Melbourne only hit the water by going south and once again there wasn’t much space before they hit the water, they would have to go in a more south-east direction (is the Mornington Peninsula considered south, here i’m classifying it as south-east). The soil was also best in the east of Melbourne and it didn’t have as much waterside proximity in a close proximity like Sydney (due to the layout of the harbour) and most of it would’ve been used as ports and dock area, such as Williamstown and the Fisherman’s Bend area. I don’t know too much about the history of expansion along Port Philip Bay but my assumption is newly gentrifying suburbs such as Carrum were first built as expansion suburbs in the 20th century as more affordable housing, which newer suburbs always tend to be.

@Tom the first and the best, @Trent In regard to the electoral district of St Kilda, at first i thought maybe the reason it was more marginal was because it included areas close by that voted Liberal but then i saw something that shows shows St Kilda has gone under massive change. Pretty much what happened was St Kilda used to have lots of mansions, especially St Kilda road that were built from 1850 to 1890 but as it was closer to the city it underwent densification on St Kilda road knocking down houses for larger buildings and apartments. It also seems a lot of St Kilda’s large houses are derelict or sharehouses/ been rented. It’s likely a lot of properties in St Kilda are used as investment properties that are rented out. It got me wondering about negative gearing and the effect its removal would have on voting patterns, it would probably result in less investment properties and could mean the houses go to an actual homeowner, if it’s an expensive area it could help the Libs.

In Perth, the northern beaches are currently one of the high-growth corridors.

@North East that’s very a accurate description of the housing profile.

There has been a shift in recent years with former rooming houses closing down and going back on the market as high end properties – we saw that with both the Gatwick and the Oslo on The Block, and there are two more rooming houses up for sale now, both in former mansions, which will no doubt be multi-million dollar properties.

That said, there isn’t a whole lot of those sub-divided mansions actually left in the suburb for that to happen to. Probably the biggest shift – after the subdivisions early in the 20th century which retained the old structures – was in the 1950s and 60s where a lot of the old houses were simply demolished for boxy 3-storey walkups. So many of St Kilda’s streets are nothing but those blocks of flats which all look the same, are often very cheap ($300-350 p/w for a 2 bedroom), have one owner for the entire building so are unlikely to be sold separately, and keep the suburb relatively affordable. I think only about 10% of St Kilda’s housing stock is detached houses (they are multi-million dollar properties) and a further 10% are terrace houses (increasingly owner-occupied). But that small supply has two impacts: firstly the small supply of high end houses sell for huge prices because they are tightly held; but compared to inner suburbs with a lot more terrace houses, there has been less of a change in demographics because the vast majority of housing is still those old rented flats.

The percentage of renters in the suburb does seem to be gradually decreasing but it’s still extremely high (over two-thirds), and so far it hasn’t benefited the Liberals in the voting trends, although that is probably more to do with the wider trend of the Liberals moving away from appealing to inner city voters in general than it is with any demographic or housing evolution.

You’re also spot on about the differences between how the cities grew in Sydney and Melbourne due to the geography of the two as well. Not having anywhere to really expand in the east of Sydney I think has kept that part of the city very sought after. In Melbourne, much of the bayside suburbs (from Mentone down) were originally working class growth areas, that grew more affluent over time as they became more established; while the most inner bayside suburbs as you say were working class port/dock areas. St Kilda was the original Brighton at first – the exclusive suburb the wealthy moved to – but by the 20th century the tram & train lines making the suburb accessible to workers seeking leisure transformed it more into an entertainment destination and the wealthy moved down to Brighton to get away from the “riff raff”.

@SEQ Observer, interesting points about the Jewish vote. I have been curious about the Jewish vote in Wentworth because I know it has the highest percentage in the country of constituents who identify as Jewish. However, it seems to be less of a discussion point there than it is in Macnamara. Do you think that’s just because Labor have made Macnamara’s Jewish community more of a focus (by having Jewish MPs since 1996), or is it because Wentworth’s Jewish population – while slightly larger – is more secular/modern and less Orthodox & Hasidic than around Caulfield?

I haven’t spent enough time in Wentworth to really know or observe if their community has the same very obvious presence & culture as around Caulfield / Ripponlea.

@Trent Thanks for the info about St Kilda’s housing make up. It’s a shame some nice properties in St Kilda have been demolished but i guess that’s the cost of been close to the city and increasing population growth and the need for densification. I wonder if the densification and knocking down mansions for apartments was controversial at the time or how it was received by the local community, i couldn’t imagine them been too happy, maybe they thought better to get out and move further down the coast. Rooming houses going back on the market could in theory move more of your typical Lib voters into the area but as you said the number is too small to have an impact electorally, especially with lots of apartments going up which are never going to be torn down for stand alone houses. Interesting about amount of renters decreasing, i wonder if the population is on the decrease overall, isn’t St Kilda currently going through a bit of a rough patch and going a bit downhill. I wonder if this is driving people out, this probably won’t help Libs as i can’t imagine many wealthy people looking to move to an area becoming rougher. St Kilda has transformed a lot in recent decades as it seems to have gone from rough-gentrified-rough. When it was gentrified it seemed to be by the alternative punk/artist groups.

I’ve only just come across the extensive discussion on potential impact of the upcoming redistribution on Wentworth and had a few thoughts.

I think it is important that suburbs and communities of interest aren’t split between two different seats. The current split of Paddington and Rushcutters Bay from Darlinghurst and Potts Point/Kings Cross is less than ideal. I would imagine the best way to overcome the shortfall of electors in Wentworth would be to include Darlinghurst, Potts Point and Woolloomooloo in Wentworth.

In doing so you can try and avoid an awkward border in the Coogee/Clovelly area. The southern border of Wentworth realistically should either follow the suburb boundaries between Coogee and Clovelly or the border between Randwick and Waverley council (not sure if this is possible population wise). Splitting the suburb of Coogee (as was the case in the late 90s and early 00s) or the suburb of Clovelly as is the case now is not ideal.

Wentworth is the most under-quota electorate in NSW. The redistribution will shore up Allegra Spender’s support. Her electorate is surrounded by strongly Labor and Greens-voting booths. Her current margin is quite high for a teal who won in 2022.

Wentworth will have to either:
1. Expand westward and regain Darlinghurst and Wolloomooloo. It may even go up to Hyde Park. Sydney, the seat, is over-quota.
2. Expand southward towards Randwick and Coogee. Kingsford-Smith goes up to Green Square.

Eastern Distributor/South Dowling St is like a huge divider and it doesn’t make sense for Wentworth to jump across it.

I’m not sure if Dave Sharma is planning a comeback. He was touted as a future Liberal leader, like Frydenberg was. He’s a much younger guy and has had a shorter political career.

To my mind, Wentworth should probably expand to the south into Coogee. It is very possible that there will not be another Liberal MP in Wentworth. It could be another Melbourne Ports/ Macnamara – close but just out of reach.

@Votante

Is there a chance Kingsford Smith can take Sydenham, Tempe and St Peters from Grayndler, then push Wentworth even further south so that Darlinghurst and Kings Cross can stay in Sydney?

I vaguely remember reading somewhere that Surry Hills and Darlinghurst are very interconnected in terms of culture (I could be wrong), and Kingsford Smith took the St Peters, Sydneham, Tempe area back when the electorate of Phillip was still in existence (that time I think Surry Hills was in Wentworth too, but there is no way I would support that proposal given the Eastern Distributor)

Also is there a chance that Labor/Greens would try to unseat Spender after this redistribution by putting her into 3rd? One thing that sets North Sydney (my seat) and Wentworth apart from the other teal seats is the high amount of renters (I remember this was higher than Higgins and Ryan) which I cannot guarantee will be fans of some of Spenders economic views.

North Sydney and Wentworth are already marginal on a Traditional Labor vs Liberal 2pp (The former more than the latter, but we all agree Wentworth will become more marginal on this measure after the redistribution)

@ Leon, I am not keen on Sydnham, Tempe going into Kingsford Smith. Culturally it is part of the inner West and belong in Grayndler, i also believe Barton should not go north of the Cooks River which divides the inner west from the St George District. Kingsford Smith is very much an Eastern Suburbs electorate. Sydney is very much divided into regions which have a local identity.

@Nimalan

Ahh I see.

I was thinking of making Wentworth the main beachside seat (massive change from the predominantly harbourside seat it was until 1993) while making Kingsford Smith based more heavily around the airport by moving Zetland, Rosebery, Beaconsfield, Alexandria and the Sydenham area into the seat (without including any of Rockdale! Bayside LGA is REALLY poorly thought of!)

I also agree that Grayndler or Barton should not cross the Cooks river

And either way after recalculation, I found that the Sydenham area didnt need to move into Kingsford Smtih anyway even if Darlinghurst and Kings Cross remain in Sydney

I will do a related conversation in the Grayndler thread

@ Leon, i agree with you that Bayside LGA is really poorly thought of there is really no community of interest between Mascot and Sans Souci. i do agree Wentworth does have a community of interest with Coogee even Maroubra. Even areas like Randwick, Maroubra, Clovelley etc have a Jewish community although not as large as Dover Heights/North Bondi, Rose Bay etc. The St George District is very different to the inner west more ethnic, suburban, nuclear families, religious than places like Tempe, St Peters etc which is why i prefer the Cooks River divide. Once upon a time areas like Marrickville etc had a strong Greek community but that has dwindled as the community moved to suburban areas south of the Cooks River a bit like how St Kilda once had a large Jewish community but that moved east wards to Suburban Caulfield.

It should expand south further into randwick. I also think it should shed Elizabeth bay back to Sydney so it can shed the rest of marrickville to Grayndler-. Should be safe for spender and will become a marginal seat in the future. Liberals should look at a deal with labor to preference them over the teals in exchange for liberal preferences over the greens or liberals should preference the greens to make them feel the heat

The 2022 election loss here could of been a blessing in disguise for the libs. Given that it’s 20% under quota projection wise it will take in Labor territory and most likely be a Labor seat 2pp wise. At least with spender established there she will pull some of that Labor vote and may even be spender vs Labor. I think the libs can live with that