Dunkley by-election, 2024

Not sure why all the commentary above assumes North Sydney will be abolished – the Commissioners have only just started their work. Regardless, the seat name may go but the voting area, and therefore VOTERS, and the current MP’s, remain. If N-S is abolished, the surrounding seats drastically change and take on large parts of N-S – they don’t remain the same seat as before.

Both the current Warringah and North Sydney are approx 1% margin on 2PP to the Libs. Don’t take my word for it – go and look it up. How that aligns with the IND MP’s being thrown out out office if they support an ALP minority government confuses me…

@high street given the deficit in that area there have been multiple suggestion suggesting it’s abolition to boost numbers in surrounding divisions. It’s voters will be divided up 3 ways between Bradfield Warringah and Bennelong kylea think will be out of a seat and she will have to try and take some else’s. Zali stegall already sits in Warringah and th erss already an independent challenger in Bradfield and Bennelong won’t be friendly to an independent

John,
They are called suggestions for a reason.
The AEC’s Guidelines for Naming Federal Electoral Divisions says:
“Every effort should be made to retain the names of original federation divisions”.

North Sydney is an original federal division and hence is more likely to be retained than any of the surrounding divisions.

NSW State electoral districts are usually adjusted between the Northern Beaches and the North Shore via the District of Davidson. I expect that the federal redistribution will make adjustments in the same area by altering the boundary between Bradfield and Mackellar.

Yeah i prefer North Sydney as a federation seat to be retained and for another seat such as Berowra or Cunningham to be abolished instead. Labor Party has actually submitted a draft map that will allow for North Sydney to be retained. I dont want Hunters Hill to go into Bennelong as it demographically very different. The reason the Libs want North Sydney or Warringah abolished is they want to create the Walton seat on Western Sydney which is friendly to them.

@watson they will most likely just transfer the name in that case as they did with Reid and Hunter. While they preserves the name the division in itself was majorally redistributed and usually resemblesthe division that was abolished in name only.

@nimalan the reason Labor want to keep NS is because it hurts the libs

@ John, i actually think Labor wants to keep NS so Bennelong can be retained by Labor.

@nimalan or both. If ns is kept the libs are down 2 seats.

Nimalan
A basic fact of life is that one of Warringah or North Sydney have to go because all of the seats on the North Shore are so far under quota. The numbers would suggest that Bennelong does need to move east – from whence it came. There is a strong link between Hunters Hill and the various pieces of Ryde and Gladesville. If you followed your demographic argument – Prahran and Toorak could not be in the same seat because one has a high social housing component – who overlook some of the richest people in the country …

Why are you all having this conversation about the NSW federal redistribution here instead of on the correct thread?

@redistributed warringzh is a corner seat and won’t be. Ns can can split between the 3 divisions it borders

Sure Ben, i have moved my comment the other thread.

a liberal victory here could cause major problems for Albo but with the state of the Victorian Liberal Party im sure the best they can hope for is strong swing towards them

@ John
I think two by-elections in 2001 Ryan and Aston are worth looking at. In those cases, they were in government held seats. When the Libs held Aston in 2001 with a 3.66% swing against them it was seen as a good result and Howard said the Libs were back in the game. Labor will be prepared to accept a 4-5% swing against them i think.

@nimalan a 4-5% swing in victoria is a victory for dutton. 2-3% maximum

I think you have to go back to the Howard | Latham years to see how Victoria behaves when there’s nobody with a “hometown advantage”, I’m not even sure what the new premier’s name is so we’re in uncharted territory…. locally the see a federal government which is in “let them eat solar panels” mode whilst families are struggling to pay bills, you have to back to the 1970 to 1990s period to see how that played out ….I think this an interesting swing.

Albanese government is reminding me a lot of the Whitlam government.

“Albanese government is reminding me a lot of the Whitlam government.”

Without the disorder

The redistribution will determine who will win either dunkley or issacs in 2028

There’s a possibility of the Liberals picking up the seat but losing it in 2025, regardless of the distribution.
By-election swings can be out-of-the-ordinary and unpredictable. It does happen occasionally when a party loses a seat at a by-election but then regains it at the general election and has even happened in safe seats e.g. Ryan 2001, Cunningham 2002, Wentworth 2018.

I still sense Labor can hold at this by-election but will suffer a swing.

@votante the 2025 will depend on the redistribution

I certainly hope this Liberal candidate has much more common sense and decency Campbell didn’t have, Campbell acted on election night in Aston that the Liberals had been out of government for 10 years “there will be a time when we need a strong liberal government” they hadn’t even been in opposition for a year yet!!

@daniel t her only problem was that she was an outsider she was a pretty ok person but she shouldn’t have been the liberal candidate for aston

Doesn’t she also serve as an independent on the Liberal-aligned Melbourne Lord Mayor?

Would be keen on a guide for the Melbourne elections later this year, what month are they usually in so I know when to vote?

Will a guide go up for them Ben considering there are Sydney and Brisbane council elections on here?

No guides for Victorian council elections. The partisan lines are much less clear, and there is no attendance voting so I can’t do maps or redistribute results data for the new wards. The election is in October.

@Daniel T don’t tell me you just called Sally Capp “Liberal”. She’s definitely a progressive. She wants to change Australia Day, for example.

So the Liberal candidate is Frankston City Mayor. When he ran for council he was an “independent” candidate. His main opponent in the pre-selection was former “independent” Kingston City councillor and State MLA for Carrum Donna Hope (nee Bauer).

Unlike last time, at least he’s local. Sharn “I lost at Survivor twice” Coombes was a blow in that moved into the most elite area of Mt Eliza to claim that she lived in the electorate.

Nathan Conroy has been described as a popular mayor. This seems to be because he has been elected mayor by Council three times. As far as local promience goes, as a resident,He’s one of my local Councillors. I have never heard anything from him. I didn’t even know he was the mayor.

He’s been described as ultra-conservative and reactionary by some local community groups. So he may do well with those that have decided Albanese is poison. But those less engaged in politics than almost all of us here will probably have never heard of him. Even if they voted for him in Council elections back in 2020.

All Victorian councilors are independents Darren. It is one of the reasons I don’t vote in local council elections – even if I find someone I think I can vote for, the vagaries of coalition building means that who I vote for might drop the issues I care about and someone who didn’t run on those issues links with other councilors who do. Also I am now in Casey which is to corrupt to have a council….

Also, beware ‘ultraconservative’, he might well be but ultraconservative sometimes just means ‘goes to church at Easter and Christmas’.

@Mostly Labor Voter not necessarily all councillors are independents. I don’t live in Victoria but I know that parties don’t endorse candidates except minor parties like the Greens, but they might be affiliated with a party but they don’t run on the party ticket: it’s the same in most of New South Wales outside the major cities. Party affiliation might be through candidacy for a federal or state seat or they could’ve always been a member of that party. For example, the Mayor of the Port Macquarie-Hastings Council is Peta Pinson, who stood as an independent but is a member of the National Party. She contested the seat of Port Macquarie at the last state election, trying to win it back from National-turned-Liberal MP Leslie Williams, but was unsuccessful and the Liberals retained the seat quite easily (the two-candidate-preferred count was Liberal vs National). Another example is the Mayor of the Bega Valley Shire, Russell Fitzpatrick, who was the Liberal candidate for Bega at the same election, attempting to win back Bega after Labor won it from the Liberals at a by-election after Andrew Constance resigned. He was unsuccessful.

We can’t really see all the party affiliations though so there may very well be some rural councils that are controlled by independents who are members of the Nationals or who vote National at federal and state elections. In Queensland, however, every councillor has to declare if they are or aren’t members of other organisations (including political parties, sports clubs, trade unions, local community groups, associations, etc) in their register of interests even if they stood as an independent (which is what they all do outside Brisbane). And the register of interests of every elected councillor in every LGA in Queensland are available online (if you wanna find them, just go to the council’s website and then go to the councillor info and then find it from there, then you should find some PDFs with the register of interests of the each councillor in that LGA; the party membership stuff is under “Membership of political parties and organisations” or something like that). So with this info, the Gold Coast City Council is controlled by the LNP, as independent LNP councillors hold seven of the 14 wards (the other seven are independent-held) plus the Mayor (Tom Tate) is a member of the LNP, so the LNP technically holds eight seats on the Gold Coast City Council while non-aligned councillors (“true” independents as opposed to politically-aligned independents) hold seven, with a total of 15 seats on the City Council (14 for ward councillors and one for the Mayor).

date has just been announced March 2nd

@Darren

Just to clarify, Donna Hope isn’t “née Bauer”, Bauer was her previous married name. Not sure if Hope is a new married name or she’s gone back to her maiden name.

Regarding Nathan Conroy, as you said, he’s not really a “popular” mayor, it’s just that he’s been voted in a few times. Most people here know zero about him. The Frankston City Council is pretty dysfunctional, for a while there they never actually had a council meeting because of how bad the in-fighting got. Then there was the minor local scandal of him instructing council workers to undertake campaigning for the Libs at the last federal election, which to me doesn’t seem legal.

Anyways, my tip is for Labor to suffer a swing against, but to hold on. This area has gentrified quite a bit through Seaford etc, and has become a lot more progressive in the last 10 years.

Just hope that the tinfoil hat-wearing Bergwerf doesn’t get his deposit back.

Saturday 2nd March
https://www.aec.gov.au/dunkley/

@Neter Portal,

Yes I get what you are saying – my comment was really that the idea of Nathan Conroy being an ‘Independent’ when he is actually a Liberal is a bit mendacious, as you could say that about any councilor in VIC who then stands for one of the major parties.

Where I grew up in Western/South Western Sydney, the local council was always labor vs independents, it was just that every independent happened to be a member of the Liberals. For some reason the party declined to actively run in a lot of councils so the members took it upon themselves to run.

however unlikely i imagin labor will be spending resources here to sandbag the seat as a loss will undoubtedly cause trouble internally and externally for labor

I reckon the libs have.good shot at picking this up

whos planning on helping at the by election? would be nice to meet ome fellow tallyroomers

@John I don’t live in Melbourne sorry.

But are you employed by a party or something or just observing?

@nether portal il be helping out on election day

John
I don’t live in Melbourne either, However i’m considering doing some pre poll and election day

@John oh okay.

@paladin me neither but Il come down if I’m not working. Whereabouts are U coming from

@John
I live in Willoughby, but I have friends in Mornington.

Getting back on track with Dunkley,how is Labor going to retain the seats if they interfere with the legislated tax cuts?
Currently we are be softened up to expect that the legislated tax cuts are not going to come into effect.

@sabena that might be the thing that loses them the seat. i think thats why scomo is going because he knows it will guarantee liberal win in cook even though its a safe seat

If labor alter the stage 3 tax cuts in a way that further benefits low-middle income earners and shifts the benefits from the top end of town to the middle and lower end, and communicate this clearly, then I expect widespread support from the public. the majority of the dunkley electorate won’t care about stage 3 altercations besides possibly mount eliza (old money). when they introduced a superannuation tax, despite it technically being a broken promise, the tax received high support from the public, and I expect altercations to stage 3 would receive similar support. if they decide to scrap stage 3 altogether however I expect them to suffer a large swing in both dunkley and cook and most likely lose dunkley.

Louis,
I disagree.Dunkley is a seat where there will be many people in the $150k to $250k earning range who will bear the brunt of any change.

@louis Labor won’t do it to benefit the Middleto low end as they were just looking for an excuse to cut them. They have $20 billion of surplus to help those people. They are just lining the govts pockets.
@sabena agreed

IMO, Stage 3 should go ahead but there should be another bracket for very high incomes, perhaps above $350,000, and/or a wealth tax levied on net worths in the tens of millions.

The left needs to stop scaring the upper-middle class. From an equality standpoint, it makes no sense.

@nicolas that’s stealing. All your doing is making the govt richer not helping out anyone below. That’s communism. That didn’t work

@John

What I’m saying is that upper-middle class voters get scared off when the left (including the Greens and the left of the Labor Party) talk about scrapping the Stage 3 tax cuts. The leftist narrative of needing to “tax the rich” is a damaging one if “the rich” are understood to be the top 20 percent. And that’s the impression that conversations around Stage 3 are creating. So if the left wanted to be both serious about equality and their own political interests (and also demonstrate some concern for the state of the budget!) they’d keep Stage 3 but shift the tax burden from the middle class to the top one percent.