Lindsay – Election 2010

ALP 6.3%

Incumbent MP
David Bradbury, since 2007.

Geography
Western Sydney. Lindsay covers most of the City of Penrith, stretching from Londonderry in the north to Mulgoa in the south.

Redistribution
Lindsay did not lose any of its 2007 territory in the recent redistribution, while it gained territory from Greenway around Londonderry, where Lindsay’s border moved north to align with the boundary of the City of Penrith. This cut the ALP’s margin from 6.8% to 6.3%.

History
Lindsay was first created as part of the 1984 expansion of the House of Representatives, and has always been held by the party of government, making it one of the longest-standing bellwether seats.

The seat was first won by the ALP’s Ross Free in 1984. Free had previously held the seat of Macquarie since 1980. Free served as a minister from 1991 until his defeat in 1996 by the Liberal Party’s Jackie Kelly.

Kelly won the seat with a swing of almost 12%, destroying Free’s margin of over 10% after the 1993 election. Kelly was disqualified from sitting in Parliament six months after winning her seat due to her RAAF employment and failure to renounce her New Zealand citizenship, and Lindsay went to a by-election seven months after the 1996 federal election, where Free suffered another swing of almost 5%.

Kelly served as a junior minister in the second Howard government and as John Howard’s Parliamentary Secretary during his third term. Kelly announced her retirement at the 2007 election, and the Liberal Party preselected Karen Chijoff, while the ALP preselected David Bradbury, a former Mayor of Penrith who had run against Kelly in 2001 and 2004.

Three days before the 2007 election, a ramshackle attempt by the Liberal Party to paint the ALP as sympathetic to terrorists was exposed in Lindsay, when ALP operatives caught Liberals red-handed distributing leaflets supposedly from an Islamic group praising the ALP for showing forgiveness to the Bali Bombers. The husbands of both the sitting member and the Liberal candidate were amongst those caught up in the scandal. The scandal dominated the final days of the campaign, and Bradbury defeated Chijoff comfortably, with a 9.7% swing.

Candidates

  • David Bradbury (Labor) – Member for Lindsay since 2007.
  • Geoff Brown (Independent)
  • Andrew Green (Christian Democratic Party)
  • Mick Saunders (Australia First)
  • John Phillips (Family First)
  • Suzie Wright (Greens)
  • Fiona Scott (Liberal)

Political situation
The ALP holds this seat with a solid margin and as long as the ALP keeps up its national position it seems unlikely that they will lose Lindsay, although the 6.3% margin seems larger than should be expected for such a swinging seat.

2007 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
David Bradbury ALP 41,991 51.39 +11.68
Karen Chijoff LIB 31,176 38.15 -7.49
Lesley Edwards GRN 2,759 3.38 -0.38
Andrew Green CDP 2,498 3.06 +0.31
Lisa Harrold IND 953 1.17 +1.17
Iris Muller FF 915 1.12 -0.32
Kerry McNully IND 728 0.89 +0.89
Grant Bayley LDP 689 0.84 +0.84

2007 two-candidate-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
David Bradbury ALP 46,394 56.78 +9.70
Karen Chijoff LIB 35,315 43.22 -9.70

Results do not take into account effects of the redistribution.

Booth breakdown
Lindsay all lies in the City of Penrith, so I have divided booths based on geographical features, with Emu Plains west of the Nepean river and St Marys east of South Creek. I have divided Cambridge Park and Penrith along the railway line, while North and South areas are those covering sparsely populated areas.

The ALP won all areas, performing most strongly in the most urbanised area in the centre, while winning slim margins in the north and south of the seat in Emu Plains.

Polling booths in Lindsay. North in yellow, St Marys in green, Cambridge Park in red, Penrith in purple, South in orange, Emu Plains in blue.
Voter group GRN % ALP 2CP % Total votes % of ordinary votes
Penrith 3.50 58.01 16,222 22.81
South 2.48 51.50 13,319 18.73
Cambridge Park 3.41 61.87 12,379 17.41
St Marys 3.07 64.51 11,368 15.98
North 3.57 51.62 10,126 14.24
Emu Plains 3.89 50.25 7,706 10.84
Other votes 4.17 54.28 13,119
Polling booths in Lindsay, showing results of the 2007 election.

13 COMMENTS

  1. Watching Laurie Oakes absolutely slam Jackie Kelly’s pathetic defence of that disgraceful pamphlet stunt was one of my favourite moments of the ’07 campgaign. If anyone has a link I’d love to watch it again; couldn’t find it on google.

  2. Him moving to Chifley does seem plausible. Here’s why:

    1) Chifley is far safer and Roger Price looks to be on the way out.
    2) He’s only a first-termer so this is his final chance to make a move without losing a lot of skin – Ruddock pulled it off when he switched from Parramatta to Berowra in 1977.
    3) He has no attachment to the electorate, having grown up in Fairfield.
    4) He’s not well liked by rank-and-file ALP members in the area, having been parachuted in by a murky factional deal.
    5) He is, by all accounts, ruthlessly ambitious and wouldn’t let a small matter of loyalty to his constituents get in the way of career advancement.

    Here’s a link to the story that’s been doing the rounds (it also got another run in crikey this week):
    http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/09/29/tips-and-rumours-104/

  5. When it comes to rumours that one fails the plausability test. Why would Payne challenge a sitting ALP member sitting on a 6.3% margin when she has a Senate position locked up until 30 June 2014?

    Sounds like nonsense to me.

  7. It’s amazing that the Libs kept Lindsay to a 9% swing after that fake pamphlet disgrace. The swing was only a couple of percent more than neighbouring Greenway and Macquarie and less than Macarthur. I can’t fathom how 38% of people could have voted Liberal after that happened. There wasn’t even a spike to other minor right-wing parties.

  8. A report here announcing Suzie Wright as the Greens candidate. Also reports today that in the wake of the Penrith by-election the Liberals have decided to reopen nominations, the earlier round having reportedly failed to attract a sufficiently high-profile candidate.

  12. “Results of Penrith by-election any pointer to the result in Lindsay?”

    Very unlikely. Voters are pretty good with differentiating state and federal politics. Plus it was a by-election.

    Anyway,

    * Bradbury, ALP draws top ballot billing.

    * Geoff Brown, independent, position two

    * Andrew Green, Christian Democratic Party; position three

    * Mick Saunders, Australia First, position four

    * John Phillips, Family First, position five

    * Suzie Wright, Greens, position six.

    * Fiona Scott, Lib, position seven.

    Geez, Australian families are going to have difficulty deciding who to put first in Lindsay!

Comments are closed.