ALP 20.4%
Incumbent MP
Joe Tripodi, since 1995.
Geography
Western Sydney. Most of the seat lies in the City of Fairfield, as well as parts of Bankstown and Holroyd. It covers the suburbs of Villawood, Yennora, Fairfield, Carramar, Guildford West and Woodpark.
History
The electoral district of Fairfield has existed since the 1953 election. It has always been won by the Labor Party.
Fairfield was won in 1953 by the ALP’s Clarrie Earl. In 1962 he moved to the new seat of Bass Hill, which he held until his retirement in 1973.
Fairfield was won in 1962 by Jack Ferguson. He had won the seat of Merrylands in 1959 before switching seats. In 1968, he returned to Merrylands. He served as Deputy Premier from 1976 to 1984, when he retired from politics. His sons Martin and Laurie Ferguson are now both federal members of Parliament.
Eric Bedford won Fairfield in 1968. He held it until 1981, and then held Cabramatta from 1981 until his retirement in 1985. He served as a minister from 1976 to 1985.
Bedford was succeeded in Fairfield by former Fairfield mayor Janice Crosio in 1981. She served as a minister in the Labor government from 1984 to 1988. At the 1988 election she moved to the new seat of Smithfield. She resigned from Smithfield in 1990 to be elected to the federal seat of Prospect. She held that seat until 2004, serving as a parliamentary secretary in the final term of the Keating government.
Fairfield was won in 1988 by Geoff Irwin. He had previously won Merrylands in 1984, and moved to Fairfield when his first seat was abolished. He retired at the 1995 election.
Joe Tripodi won Fairfield in 1995. He became a minister in the Labor government in 2005. He rose through the ministerial ranks while developing a reputation as a backroom powerbroker. He became Finance Minister under Premier Nathan Rees, but was sacked in November 2009. This partly triggered Rees’ removal as Labor leader and Premier in late 2009. Tripodi now sits on the backbench.
Candidates
- Charbel Saliba (Liberal)
- Guy Zangari (Labor)
- Linda Harris (Independent)
- Annie Nielsen (Greens)
- Daicy Olaya (Socialist Alliance)
- Ahmad Al-Yasiry (Independent)
- Eileen Nasr (Christian Democratic Party)
- David Ball (Independent)
Political situation
Fairfield is a safe Labor seat, even in 2011.
2007 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Joe Tripodi | ALP | 24,767 | 58.3 | -5.7 |
| James Conna | LIB | 9,628 | 22.7 | +4.1 |
| Lizza Gebilagin | GRN | 2,637 | 6.2 | +1.1 |
| Alex Sharah | CDP | 2,253 | 5.3 | +4.2 |
| John Yuen | UNI | 1,113 | 5.0 | -1.8 |
| John Vanderwel | AAFI | 1,099 | 2.6 | +0.9 |
2007 two-candidate-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Joe Tripodi | ALP | 26,382 | 70.4 | -6.0 |
| James Conna | LIB | 11,098 | 29.6 | +6.0 |
Booth breakdown
Fairfield has been divided into four areas. Booths in the City of Bankstown have been grouped as “Chester Hill”. The two booths in Holroyd have been grouped as “Guildford”. The booths in the City of Fairfield have been split between Fairfield in the west and Villawood in the east.
The ALP polled only 61% in Guildford, but almost 70% in Chester Hill and well over 70% in the City of Fairfield areas.
| Voter group | GRN % | ALP 2CP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| Fairfield | 6.1 | 73.1 | 16,667 | 39.2 |
| Chester Hill | 4.9 | 69.5 | 7,018 | 16.5 |
| Villawood | 6.3 | 74.5 | 6,508 | 15.3 |
| Guildford | 5.8 | 61.2 | 4,753 | 11.2 |
| Other votes | 7.9 | 68.4 | 7,551 | 17.8 |
This has traditionally been the rock-solid Labor seat in the Fairfield LGA. Tripodi’s performance as a local MP was extremely poor, despite his high profile as a Minister and factional operative for the Terrigals. His replacement, Zangari, has only one tangible link to the area, and that is that he used to teach at Patrician Brothers, Fairfield. He does not live in the area, and professionally, has no current links to the area. Freeman Catholic College is actually in Paul Lynch’s electorate! Living in Cecil Hills, which is part of the Liverpool LGA, isn’t going to get him any brownie points.
If any of the Fairfield-based seats are going to go on election night, this will be the one. My sources don’t regard Zangari highly at all. I dare say that he will a time server, if elected, and that he will not distinguish himself in any way in the Parliament.
The Liberals have chosen their candidate wisely, ensuring that the strong Middle Eastern contingent in this seat have a choice. And, if the results for McMahon and Blaxland are any indication, the baseball bats, I think will be out for Labor.
Overall, I think Labor will retain the seat, but with a massive swing against it in this seat. And that will be, because Labor have not chosen wisely in their preferred candidate, as well as the stench from the Tripodi era. Quite frankly, Lawrence White would have been a better choice, had he chosen to run for preselection.
My prediction: Labor retain, 10-15% swing to Liberals.
It appears another candidate here is Ahmad Al Yasiry, backed by the Social Justice Network.
Also listed on Antony’s guide is Eileen Nasr for the CDP.
Independent candidate David Ball also ran for Blaxland at last year’s federal election. I can’t find much about the unaffiliated candidate Linda Harris.
Found her. Linda Harris is with the Communist League.
I know the Liberals didn’t win this, but I am extremely happy with the result. If I was Chris Bowen, looking at the results here and in Smithfield, I would be extremely worried.
Zangari has a lot of work to do to win back the loyal core. The Liberals cannot let up here. If they do, we’re back to the same old in this electorate.
A close look at the results, indicate some worrying trends for Labor. They were comprehensively beaten in the Holroyd LGA in every seat, with the exception of Toongabbie, where Rees’ personal vote got him over the line. This is worrying for the Holroyd Council elections next year, where Labor will be hard pressed to retain its hold over the Council and the mayoralship, which has been held by three complete amateurs (Cummings, Perry and Monaghan, who has been nothing short of disgraceful), whose political nous stands somewhere below zero. A fair bet that the Holroyd Independents will be holding the balance of power at this stage, unless something drastic changes. I don’t think that Zangari, or any other Labor candidate could have done anything about the swings in Holroyd. They were too consistent to indicate a lack of personal vote there.
Zangari was also beaten in Fairfield Heights and Fairfield West Public School, along with struggling to maintain a majority in Fairfield and the small booths in Smithfield. That could also be indicative of the swing, but I think is also pertinent to the lack of personal vote out there for Zangari. As I said above, he’s not a local (lives in Paul Lynch’s electorate). Bass Hill, Chester Hill and Carramar all held relatively solid for Labor, indicating the strength of the Labor vote there.
A great result for the Liberals here. They simply could not have done any better here, based on the geography of the electorate. Zangari has a lot of work to do, if he wants a long career in state politics. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him challenged for preselection in four years, given the extremely pathetic effort by Labor here (Memo to Lawrence White: you should have put your hand up!). This should have been a much more comfortable hold, even in the context of the drubbing state-wide.
Question to the people: Had Joe Tripodi stayed on, what do you think the result would have been?
Tripodi would not have lost the seat. Given that Labor’s vote, based on the geography, a low watermark for this seat, I can’t say he would have done any worse than Zangari. In fact, there was some personal vote for Tripodi in the electorate. A similar result to Richard Amery’s in Mount Druitt, I would have predicted.