Wentworth – Australia 2022

Dave Sharma has been preselected to replace Marise Payne in the senate. You would have to think that guarantees Sharma won’t be recontesting Wentworth at the next election.

Also makes a mockery of the idea that locals should vote for moderate branded Liberals over an independent to make sure they can influence the Liberals from within. Of course even having a moderate Prime Minister won’t necessarily guarantee their strength within the party, and they’d be all too familiar with that in Wentworth.

I don’t see any permutation of an Eastern Suburbs seat ending in the blue column – too many young renters whether it’s the inner city or near the beach.

It would not surprise me if Dave Sharma ended up being the last Liberal MP for Wentworth. Allegra Spender would seem secure for the foreseeable future. In the future I see it being like a Sydney version of Macnamara – basically 55% Labor with a few % either way but always just our of Liberal reach.

out of Liberal reach

It was pretty obvious as to why Sharma was chosen, Because they know they won’t win this back.

Choosing Constance would have meant they would’ve been denied a strong candidate for Gilmore, And choosing Zed would have gotten allot of backlash because he would’ve been parachuted across states, and he is hard-right which means the Liberal party would’ve learnt 0.

reports today that the liberals plan to convert, not beat, allegra spender, as per the AFR…

@daniel t he would have still run for Gilmore. The plan was to use it as a springboard to the lower house he would have simply quit the senate. That was the plan when molan died.

@louis given the fact its likely to become a marginal seat on 2pp terms due to redistribution they’re better off with spender holding the seat asap independant rather then risk losing it to Labor

I wonder how many Turnbull fans voted Liberal in 2022 but will change their votes in 2025 as they haven’t forgiven or forgotten what Dutton did to Turnbull.

On ABC’s Nemisis, there were Liberals who lost their seats to the teals saying that voters said to them, “I like you but I can’t vote for you” or “I like you but I don’t like Morrison or the Liberals”. There’s a cohort that stuck with Liberal in 2022 because of Dave Sharma, but now that there’s no Liberal incumbent and Dutton is the LOTO, they’ll switch to Spender.

@votanye that will serve the liberals better anyway as they risk losing the seat to Labor after the redistribution

The majority of voters in Dover Heights and Vaucluse voted No in the Voice referendum. And in Bellevue Hill South, the Yes vote only extremely narrowly won, with a margin of just one vote. Other booths that narrowly voted Yes by less than 100 votes include Double Bay East, the EAV Wentworth PPVC, Edgecliff, Kings Cross, Rose Bay Central, Rose Bay PPVC, Ultimo, Vaucluse East and Wynyard.

@John Labor won’t win Wentworth.

@ NP
I generally agree with your analysis on Wentworth. Lower Density areas such as Dover Heights voted No will more densely populated areas with more Young Renters Voted Yes. I also dont think Wentworth can be won by Labor unless possibly if there is a redistribution to include Surry Hills/Redfern but even then i am not sure.

@Nimalan putting Redfern in the same seat as Darling Point would be very weird. Redfern was once notorious for its crime and it was once known for being full of people living in housing commission whereas Darling Point is right on Sydney Harbour and is home to many millionaires in mansions given that it’s the most expensive suburb in Sydney (a quick Google search tells me that in 2022 the median sale price in Darling Point is $10,350,000, but other more recent sources say that Bellevue Hill and Point Piper are more expensive, but those suburbs are still in Wentworth).

Here’s some ABS stats for this seat, as of the 2021 census:

* 0.4% are Indigenous, compared to 3.4% statewide and 3.2% nationwide
* The median weekly household income is $2,870
* The median age is 38, compared to the state average of 39 and the national average of 38
* 53.6% have a Batchelor Degree or higher
* 57.6% were born in Australia, compared to 65.4% statewide and 66.9% nationwide
* 7.3% were born in England, compared to 2.9% statewide and 3.6% nationwide
* The other top three countries of birth are South Africa (3.9%), New Zealand (2.5%), America (1.7%) and China (1.4%).
* 46.0% come from families where both parents were born overseas, while 32.4% come from families where both parents were born in Australia
* 40.6% are non-religious compared to 32.8% statewide and 38.4% nationwide
* The next most common religions are Catholicism (19.0%), Judaism (13.5%) and Anglicanism (9.2%)
* 76.4% speak only English at home, compared to 67.6% statewide and 72.0% nationwide
* The next most spoken languages at home are Spanish (2.0%), Mandarin (1.7%), French (1.5%), Russian (1.3%) and Portuguese (1.3%)
* The unemployment rate is 3.6%, compared to 4.9% statewide and 5.1% nationwide
* 43.1% work as professionals and 23.0% are managers, while all other jobs are below 10.0% individually
* 92.2% have never served in the ADF, compared to 91.6% statewide and 91.2% nationwide
* 46.2% of families are couples without children while 40.8% are couples with children and 11.5% are one-parent families
* 61.7% live in a flat or an apartment, compared to 21.7% statewide and 14.2% nationwide

@ NP
Agree with you i dont like the idea of Redfern in Wentworth. Also interesting statistics. The Jewish population in Wentworth is the highest in the nation. I believe Dover Heights is the only Majority Jewish suburb in Australia

So with a weekly household income of $2,870, which is a monthly household income of $12,437 and a yearly household income of $149,240, Wentworth is considered an upper-class electorate for a household with one or two people and even in a house with 10 people it’s still middle class (I worked thus out using an online calculator).

I have a theory that the Voice Referendum support (Yes Vote) doesn’t grow linearly by income but rather like wave
Very Low Income (A lot are indiginous and young students) actually has a higher Yes Voter than the ones with salaries at working and lower class incomes but then support goes up again at Upper Middle Class (educated white collar) but drops again at the upper class (old-money business people fiscal conservatives)

*Lower Middle class

@ Marh
I found a publication by Accent Research. Shaun Ratcliffe who Ben has done podcasts with is from that Organisation. They did a publication abut the voice (link at the bottom). The publication examined key demographics and their support for the Voice. Two crucial demographic factors stood out. Firstly, when looking at languages spoken at home, those who spoke only English were 61:39 in favour of ‘No,’ while those who spoke another language broke 53:47 in favour of the voice. Another factor was religion; those who practiced a religion other than Protestantism or Catholicism split 50:50. While these results are not overwhelming, they do suggest that individuals from CALD communities were more likely to support the voice, all else being equal.

https://www.accent-research.com/projects/the-voice

Nimalan, that would make sense as many districts that voted ‘No’ to the same sex marriage plebiscite recorded either average or above average results on the Voice Referendum.

As a guide, Bennelong and Parramatta narrowly voted No on the referendum (with support being about 5% or more above the national average). In contrast, they narrowly voted No for the same sex marriage survey (with support being >10% below the national average).

I believe the districts with high proportion of tertiary educated young adults (mostly in the inner suburbs of capital cities) recorded above average results for both plebiscites.

@Nimalan, good points here although they seem to leave out the difference between Australian Born (or immigrated as a child) CALD and those who came later in life. I would expect it that the first would be heavily Yes and latter would be a No.

@ Yoh An

Agree even a seat like Blaxland which had the highest No vote for SSM had a fairly average vote for the Voice and better than more affluent seats such as Cook or Moore. On the other hand white working class seats such as Hunter, Shortland, Spence etc had a very strong YES vote for SSM.

@ Marh
Generally agree. Although South Asians (other than Sri Lankans) are among the most recent wave of immigrants and voted strongly YES. The number of Australian-born South Asians who are of voting age will be quite small especially in the growth area suburbs which generally have the highest % of South Asians. The Vietnamese Community traditionally less economically well off but now into the Third Generation seems to align with your premise as suburbs such as Springvale, Noble Park, Sunshine, St Albans etc were strongly Yes voting suburbs but there is a higher % of Australian born (or immigrated as a child). The Afghan community is interesting as it probably among the newest and fasted growing refugee communities and the suburbs around Dandenong, Doveton, Hallam etc voted Yes.

Back to question on why Upper Class (Vaucluse , Toorak etc) voted No but Upper Middle Class Voted (high density inner city) voted Yes is since White Collar Professionals don’t share the same sentiment as wealthy businesspeople and Surgeons even though they are both university educated and the latter being mostly wealthier. One believes that responsibility is why they succeed and the other believes that it is the support in previous generations is why they were able to succeed

The NSW Liberals still hold most of their affluent beachside/harbourside seats north of Sydney Harbour (Lane Cove, Manly, North Shore, Pittwater, Terrigal, Vaucluse and Willoughby) despite the Liberals having lost them to the teals (Mackellar, North Sydney, Warringah and Wentworth) and Labor (Robertson, which is a classic bellwether but also overlaps with the Labor-held state seat of Gosford which is also usually quite competitive). There were a bunch of controversies surrounding these formerly Liberal-held seats at the 2022 federal election, from HTV card controversies in a bunch of seats to preselecting bad candidates at the very last minute instead of credible candidates who had the support of local branches.

If state Liberal MPs who hold seats that overlap with federal teal seats ran as the Liberal candidates for those seats, could they potentially win them back from the teals? For example, could Manly MP James Griffin beat Zali Steggall in Warringah, or could Kellie Sloane beat Allegra Spender in Wentworth? I’m curious as to what you guys think.

If the Liberals haven’t gotten a candidate for Mackellar yet they should get Rob Stokes to run for preselection since he’s now retired from state politics (Rory Amon replaced him as the MP for Pittwater). I think he could potentially win back Mackellar from Sophie Scamps (though Dutton being leader may hurt the Liberals in these seats even if they have great candidates).

I could ask the same question for Victoria too. Could Opposition Leader and Hawthorn MP John Pesutto or Kew MP Jess Wilson win back Kooyong from Monique Ryan? Could David Southwick win back Higgins from Michelle Ananda-Rajah? Could Brighton MP James Newbury win back Goldstein from Zoe Daniel?

As for Terrigal MP Adam Crouch, I don’t know how that will affect Robertson since Robertson also includes Gosford and Woy Woy, which are in the state Labor seat of Gosford. The Entrance is in play in 2027, more so than Gosford, and Terrigal just isn’t in play despite its margin since that was probably one of the most shocking things that happened at the 2023 state election (safe Liberal seat somehow becoming marginal and decided on postals but I still doubt that it would be in play and it will almost certainly swing back to its old margin in 2027).

@ Nether Portal
The NSW Libs are more moderate so they outperformed the Federal Libs in the corresponding areas. I note there other circumstances such as funding limits at a state level, OPV etc. However, in Lane Cove, North Shore, Manly and Pittwater where there were Climate 200 endorsed Teals, the Libs managed to get 45% primary if they had got this in Curtin, Kooyong, Goldstein etc they would have likely won the seat. The more affluent an area it is important for Libs to get a primary close to 45% as right-wing minors such as ONP, UAP have a very small share of the vote, While in seats like Longman and Flynn the LNP can get a slower primary vote in the 30s and still win the seat due to preferences from right wing minor parties which have a higher share of the vote. I have said this a few times before to others that i dont think Zali Steggall is super popular just due to her margin we need to remember that she faced deeply unpopular Liberal candidates in 2019 and 2022 who lost votes in places such as Mosman, Farlight, Seaforth and Clontarf which other Libs such as Dave Sharma would not have lost. You did an an excellent comparison of the overlapping booths in the Warringah thread and we saw a huge contrast when looking at overlapping booths at a state level in Mosman, North Shore. I do honestly think they can win some of the Teal seats back but maybe in 2028 with a leader like Dan Tehan rather than Dutton. The issue also is that Sky News will attempt to sabotage any campaign for the Teal seats and suggest they try and win a working class Labor seat instead. However, i think the easiest MP to dislodge would be Michelle Ananda Rajah as it is easier to get rid of Labor than Teal. However, Higgins is more of a mixed seats and includes areas where there is geninue Labor support like Murrumbeena, Carnegie and parts of Ashburton.

@Nimalan very good points. Interestingly before Zali Steggall contested and won Warringah in 2019, in 2016 it was a Liberal vs Greens seat, same as Kooyong which was Liberal vs Greens in 2019 before Monique Ryan won it in 2022.

The issue with a teal running in a working-class Labor seat (e.g Chifley or Shortland in NSW or Calwell in Victoria or Oxley and Rankin in Queensland) is that they don’t have the demographics that a teal needs to win. Plenty of Liberal seats also don’t have those demographics, e.g Mitchell on the federal level and Castle Hill and Kellyville on the state level are affluent and blue-ribbon but are too conservative for a teal and the demographics are different (there is more ethnic diversity in the Hills as opposed to the Northern Beaches, especially at the northern end since Manly does at least have a sizeable population of European and South American immigrants). But nevertheless there would be Labor seats that a teal could win such as Coogee which includes some of the teal suburbs in Wentworth like Bondi Junction, Bronte, Clovelly and Waverley.

And yes that was an interesting booth comparison. I’ll try and make a map of the NSW state election using federal division boundaries (note that it would be estimated since I’m not counting every single vote).

@ Nether Portal
Sorry i meant Sky After Dark feel the Liberals future lie in seats working class seats such as Calwell, Blaxland etc they support a realignment which would allow Libs to be the party of the poor in their view not Teals running in working class seats. Peta Credlin said the the wealthy seats are in transition so Teal is just a stepping stone until Labor eventually wins Kooyong etc in their view.

https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/the-liberals-need-to-embrace-their-working-class-voters-to-win-over-the-outersuburban-freedom-fighters/news-story/2213b607fc9c81f8627de427f92871f8

@Nimalan oh okay yeah I think I’ve heard that before but I think the issue is the same: the demographics aren’t right.

@Nimalan Yeah but Credlin and SAD are idiots. Unless Labor literally become the US Democrats and focus more on idpol (which they already doing but not to the same extent as the Dems) the Libs will never win very safe multicultural ALP seats. Not saying that seats like Werriwa, Holt, Rankin etc are forever out of reach, or even multicultural seats they once held like Chisholm or Bennelong, but Watson/Blaxland/Oxley/all of N-W Melbourne are probably unwinnable for the LNP barring an absolute miracle.

@scart that is true just like albor will never win regional seats.

@John Labors safest seat period is a regional seat (Newcastle). Though it will be a cold day in hell before they win Maranoa, Gippsland or Barker though

newcastle isnt regional its basically a sateliite city of syndey like geelong or bendigo. and lobr have a stron presence in the hunter valley for whatever reason.

@ Scart
I agree with your analysis. Yeah i think it is actually a stupid strategy for Labor to to try an emulate the US Democrats and focus on being socially progressive rather than bread and butter issues that is a big mistake they made in 2019. I have often heard especially from Greens-inclined supporters that Labor should have made an effort to retain Hawthorn at the 2022 state election and win Brighton and Sandringham. I think the 2022 Federal election showed that winning the upper class vote maybe a difficult strategy In North Sydney and Brisbane they did not run dead unlike the other seats such as Goldstein but still did not make the 2CP. While Labor did win Higgins they did it very low primary vote and on current boundaries there is every chance that they maybe knocked out of the 2CP by the Greens by 2028. If Labor can win more middle Australia seats such as Deakin, Aston and Petrie then they can afford to forget about Higgins etc. Even without Teals the long term trend is that the Greens are replacing the ALP as the challenging party to the Libs in super-wealthy seats. The US has more of a Two party system so both Upper East Side and the Bronx in the US will vote for the Democrats even if they have otherwise very different interests. With the rise of the Teals there is less incentive for affluent voters to vote Labor. I also agree with you that Werriwa, Rankin and Holt are more socially mixed and depending on boundaries may fall to the Libs but certain not Calwell, Scullin etc.

@nimalan the problem is that labor is no longer the party of the unions and the average worker they have been infiltrated by the left woke people. and to appease both their members and to stop the greens taking inner city seats where these issues are prevalent they have become socially progressive.

The redistribution will be important here. Wentworth is significantly under quota and the redistribution can only make additions from the safe Labor seats of Kingsford Smith or Sydney. In 2022, a number of Kingsford Smith booths in Clovelly, Coogee, Kensington and Randwick and Sydney booths in Woolloomooloo and Darlinghurst had Labor 2PPs in the 70s, with the Greens beating the Liberals into third on primary vote. It is these areas that border Wentworth and would likely become part of Wentworth in the redistribution.

I can’t imagine these areas voting Liberal. The talk about Labor potentially winning Wentworth in the future would surely come from the results in these areas in 2022 and also very strong results by Labor in Coogee at the 2023 State Election. How these results translate to a teal vs liberal contest will be interesting, and I imagine Allegra Spender will be campaigning hard to win over the 70% of voters in these areas who didn’t vote Liberal in 2022 to ensure she holds on.

@conor this is why i sugggested having spender there would be benfiicla to the liberals for the time being. even though it will expand into labo territory now an expansion to parliament is ineviatble which would shrink it again making it winnable for the libs

It has to be remembered that Malcolm Turnbull built up an enormous personal vote and that makes Wentworth seem safer for the Libs than otherwise would have been the case. At several elections from the 1980s through to Turnbull contesting the Lib 2pp margin was in the 52-53% range. In 2007, there were press reports that the ALP thought they were in with a chance.
As Wentworth can only go west or south, the likely LIB/ ALP 2pp after the redistribution will be about 51%. Unless there is a serious Liberal revival in inner city seats, it will be game on for a Labor win after Allegra Spender departs the scene.

@ John
I agree with you to a large extent but not completely. You are correct that in the 2010s the Labor party has been concerned about losing seats to the Greens so they have moved to the left this is not something Kevin Rudd had to worry about in 2007 so he ran on a Howard-Lite campaign which turned about a masterstroke. Fast forward a decade even with Liberal preferences they are now worried about Batman/Wills so they move more to the left. I think the crescendo occurred at the Batman by-election when they decided to move against Adani mine etc. The issue for the Labor party is if they loose a seat to the Greens unlike the Coalition they pretty much never get it back. However, the seats under threat from the Greens can be grouped into 2 categories (Red/Green-Wills, Gryandler, Cooper and Sydney) or Blue Green (Higgins, Macnamara and Richmond). In the former category Labor has been able to hold on to it when they have popular sitting MPs like Pilibasek, Albo and especially Ged Kearney-who is pretty much bullet proof in Cooper, in these seats Liberal preferences mean the chances of Greens victory are reduced considerably. However, Long term prospects in Blue/Green seats are not as good for Labor since these seats have a stubborn Liberal vote and often have a lot more centrist voters so someone like Ged Kearney will not work in Higgins.

@john because of coal mining. Newcastle also has a large Green vote now too.

@redistributed while that may be the case after this redistribution an expansion to house is going to happen sooner or later s its been 40 years since the lsat one. that would shed those gained labor areas and make it liberal again so having spender in the seat for the time being should benefit the libs to keep away labor til that happens

Scart exactly hunter and shortland have always been labor as well albeit marginally but i think after this redistribution and if newcastle has to shrink or expand that will change for one of those seats

@Nimalan I agree with most of your analysis, but there are some things I don’t agree with. Labor under Albo have been more similar to the US Dems than they were under Shorten. The seats that Shorten gained in 2016 (including my home seat of Herbert) were all seats that if British, only a week earlier, would have voted for Brexit, and if American, only 4 months later, would have voted for Trump. Also, America is definitely changing. Trump is now ahead of Biden amongst Hispanic voters in some polls (which even 4 years ago would have been absolutely unthinkable), and is doing better than any Republican ever amongst Black voters in the 15 elections in which all Black Americans have been able to vote (again, would have been hard to fathom 4 years ago). As a result, Biden is now a lot more likely to retain the predominately white Rust Belt (Pennsylvania/Michigan/Wisconsin) than the far more multicultural Sun Belt (Georgia/Arizona/Nevada). In addition, while Labor voters are definitely very different to Teal voters, Labor MPs and Teal MPs increasingly are not. john is correct that Labor are moving towards the centre on economics, yet further to the left on social issues.

@redistributed agreed that Labor would won this in 07 if it weren’t for Malcolm’s personal vote, and that they are in with a real chance once Spender leaves.

SCart – not sure if Labor would have won in 2007 without Malcolm – that however we will never know. There was an element of Labor ‘talking it up’.

@ Scart
Fair points. You are correct that in 2016 Shorten appealed to working people in the seats he won or came close to winning. I think in 2016, Labor probably ran a more economically focused campaign on medicare, services etc as opposed to 2019 when they focused on climate, Israel Folau, Adani mine etc. I think one of the problems Labor has had for a while is lack of economic differentiation which they had in 2007 with work choices. Labor IMV has not recovered fully from the 2019 Debacle among working people and in some cases gone backwards in Herbert, Braddon, Bass and Lindsay. Having said that i think a Teal- lite strategy is a dangerous one for Labor as seats such as Blaxland may fall to an independent like Dai Le if they feel ignored.

@Nimalan Part of me thinks that Labor’s campaign in 25 will be economically focused (like 07 and 16) but they won’t be be winning back those seats. No hope in hell of winning back Herbert (source: I live there), and unlikely to win back the others, and may well lose some of their 16-19-22 seats (Lyons, Dobell and Solomon being the top contenders).

Historically govt tend to lose seats after coming into govt except with exceptional circumstances given albo has no backbench to burn and is hardly the Messiah there is no plausible way I can see him gaining seats or holding his majority

@ Scart
I agree with you they is no way in the world they are gaining Herbert, Braddon, Flynn etc. There is only a few seats such as Leichardt, Sturt, Deakin or Menzies which i think Labor can gain to offset any loses. Like you i think Lyons is the top contender followed by Paterson. Solomon is actually got a healthy margin now and tends to be better educated and wealthier than average. However, a more localized issue such as youth crime could impact the result in Solomon.