ALP 12.7%
Incumbent MP
Carmel Tebbutt, Member for Marrickville since 2005. Previously Member of the Legislative Council 1998-2005.
Geography
Inner west of Sydney. Summer Hill covers the suburbs of Ashbury, Ashfield, Dulwich Hill, Haberfield, Summer Hill and parts of Lewisham, Marrickville and Petersham. The seat covers most of the Ashfield council area and about half of the Marrickville council area, along with a small part of the City of Canterbury.
Redistribution
Summer Hill is a new electorate, taking in areas previously in Balmain, Canterbury, Marrickville and Strathfield. Marrickville was effectively split in two, with 41.6% of the population of Marrickville put into the new seat of Summer Hill. Most of Marrickville, all of Dulwich Hill and parts of Lewisham and Petersham were put into Summer Hill. The entire suburb of Haberfield was moved from Balmain into Summer Hill.
Those parts of Summer Hill and Ashfield north of the railway line, Liverpool Rd and Arthur St were moved from Strathfield into Summer Hill. The remainder of Ashfield, Summer Hill and Dulwich Hill, along with Ashbury, were moved from Canterbury into Summer Hill. While Marrickville provides the largest proportion of the new electorate, only 44% of the new seat’s population comes from Marrickville.
Overall, those parts of Marrickville that were more pro-Labor were mostly transferred to Summer Hill with most of the Green-leaning areas put into Newtown. Likewise, Haberfield was the least Green-friendly part of Balmain.
History
There has been an electoral district named Marrickville since 1894, with the exception of three elections in the 1920s when the seat was merged into the multi-member district of Western Suburbs. The seat has continuously elected Labor members since 1910.
The original district of Marrickville covered a smaller area, with the other seats of Newtown-Camperdown, Petersham, Darlington, Newtown-Erskine and Newtown-St Peters covering parts of the modern seat.
The seat was won in 1917 by the ALP’s Carlo Lazzarini, who defeated Thomas Crawford, a former Labor member who had joined the Nationalists over the issue of conscription.
In 1920 Lazzarini moved to the multi-member district of Western Suburbs. He briefly served as a minister from 1921 to 1922, and in 1927 he returned to the seat of Marrickville.
Lazzarini was opposed to Jack Lang’s leadership of the NSW Labor Party, and he was expelled from the ALP in 1936. He rejoined in 1937, but later joined the dissident Industrial Labor Party. Following Lang’s departure he served as an assistant minister in the new Labor state government from 1941 to 1944. He held Marrickville until his death in 1952.
Marrickville was won at the February 1953 election by the Mayor of Marrickville, Norm Ryan. He served as a minister in the state Labor government from 1959 to 1965, and retired in 1973.
Ryan stepped aside in 1973 in favour of Tom Cahill. The son of NSW Premier Joseph Cahill, Tom had won his father’s seat of Cook’s River after his father’s death in 1959. Cook’s River was abolished at the 1973 election, and he moved to Marrickville. He held that seat until his death in 1983.
The 1983 by-election was won by Andrew Refshauge. Following the ALP’s election defeat in 1988 he was elected Deputy Leader. He served in this role until 2005. Refshauge became Deputy Premier when the ALP gained power in 1995. He served in a variety of ministerial roles over the next decade.
In 1995, the Liberal Party was pushed into third place behind the No Aircraft Noise party, who polled over 23% of the primary vote. The Greens came second after preferences in 1999, and the Liberals have never again come in the top two in Marrickville.
When Premier Bob Carr announced his retirement in 2005, Refshauge also announced his retirement, along with senior minister Craig Knowles. The Marrickville by-election was held alongside by-elections in Maroubra and Macquarie Fields.
The ALP ran Carmel Tebbutt, a former Marrickville councillor who had been a Member of the Legislative Council since 1998 and a minister since 1999. The Greens ran Deputy Mayor of Marrickville, Sam Byrne. The ALP’s 10.7% margin was cut to 5.1% in the by-election.
Tebbutt was re-elected in 2007, winning with a 7.5% margin over the Greens, less than in the 2003 election, but more than in the 2005 by-election. Tebbutt served as Labor deputy leader and Deputy Premier from 2008 to 2011.
At the 2011 election, Tebbutt again faced strong opposition from the Greens. Her margin was cut to 0.9%.
Candidates
Sitting Marrickville Labor MP Carmel Tebbutt is not running for re-election.
- Jo Haylen (Labor)
- Don Tauriello (No Land Tax)
- Max Phillips (Greens)
- Julie Passas (Liberal)
- Susan Price (Socialist Alliance)
- James Cogan (Independent)
- Kylie French (Christian Democratic Party)
Assessment
On a Labor vs Liberal basis, Summer Hill is Labor’s second-safest seat, and Jo Haylen should increase that margin, and win the seat. The Greens are less than 5% behind the Liberal Party, and it’s possible that the Greens could come second if there is an anti-Liberal swing. This would likely result in a closer margin against the Greens than against the Liberal Party, but Labor shouldn’t have trouble winning Summer Hill in 2015.
2011 election result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Carmel Tebbutt | Labor | 17,413 | 38.1 | -8.5 | 42.2 |
| Fiona Byrne | Greens | 16,395 | 35.9 | +3.3 | 23.8 |
| Rosana Tyler | Liberal | 8,714 | 19.1 | +6.5 | 28.5 |
| Pip Hinman | Socialist Alliance | 860 | 1.9 | +0.3 | 0.6 |
| Paul Quealy | Independent | 817 | 1.8 | +1.8 | 0.7 |
| James Cogan | Independent | 572 | 1.3 | +1.3 | 0.8 |
| Kylie Laurence | Christian Democrats | 531 | 1.2 | -0.3 | 2.0 |
| Jimmy Liem | Family First | 395 | 0.9 | +0.9 | 0.5 |
| Others | 0.9 |
2011 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Carmel Tebbutt | Labor | 24,777 | 70.4 | -10.9 | 62.7 |
| Rosana Tyler | Liberal | 10,435 | 29.6 | +10.9 | 37.3 |
Booth breakdown
Booths in Summer Hill have been split into four parts. Polling places in the Marrickville local government area have been split into Dulwich Hill and Marrickville, with Lewisham included with Dulwich Hill. Polling places in the Ashfield local government area have been split between those in the north as “Haberfield” and those in the south as “Ashfield”, although some booths in north Ashfield have been included with Haberfield, and one booth in Ashbury has been included in Ashfield.
The Labor primary vote ranged from 32.5% in Haberfield to 48.5% in Marrickville. The ALP topped the poll in Ashfield, Marrickville and Dulwich Hill.
The Liberal primary vote ranged from 17.2% in Marrickville to 43.1% in Haberfield. The Liberal Party topped the poll in Haberfield, came second in Ashfield and came third in Marrickville and Dulwich Hill.
The Greens vote ranged from 19% in Haberfield to 27% in Marrickville and Dulwich Hill, where they outpolled the Liberal Party.
| Voter group | ALP % | LIB % | GRN % | Total | % of votes |
| Ashfield | 41.0 | 33.4 | 22.1 | 11,229 | 25.6 |
| Marrickville | 48.5 | 17.2 | 27.2 | 10,747 | 24.5 |
| Haberfield | 32.5 | 43.1 | 19.0 | 6,206 | 14.2 |
| Dulwich Hill | 46.7 | 19.7 | 27.3 | 6,150 | 14.0 |
| Other votes | 39.9 | 31.7 | 22.7 | 9,484 | 21.6 |
This is more or less a recreation of Ashfield, which was a casualty of the Carr government’s bizarre decision to reduce the size of the Legislative Assembly from 99 to 93 seats.
My prediction: The Greens will likely come second here in 2015, although Labor should hold.
The WestConnex is an unknown factor in this seat.
Despite the fact that putting heavy trucks underground will improve life for 99.9% of the electorate, it is widely regarded as a big negative here, particularly by Jo Haylen (an ex Marrickville mayor). The motorway will resume several properties in Haberfield, and there’s nothing a politician hates more than aggrieved (and very wealthy) property owners.
Haberfield’s property prices are approaching those of Vaucluse. This is one Sydney’s most elite suburbs.
Haylen has been doing verbal acrobatics on the issue, and seems to have convinced Luke Foley to completely abandon a project that Labor said it supported only a week ago.
On Linda Mottram’s ABC show last Monday morning I think he said they’ll still build it (he was very vague). But it won’t have any exits, entry points or exhaust stacks or have any affect on any property in any other electorate with a Labor candidate … But where it will now start, finish or go, or when it will happen under Labor is anyone’s guess.
Julie Passas (Libs) is a “colourful” and very visible local councilor for Ashfield Council. She runs hard on heritage (doesn’t like it, it stops people building McMansions). She’ll probably do ok – there are a lots recent immigrants and investors active in Ashfield, particularly from Asia.
Max Phillips (from Marrickville Council) could indeed get the No. 2 spot, his party are certainly trying and are spending up big on billboards in the inner west. His position also depends on how the WestConnex “lock the gate” campaign is playing out. That’s unclear – most residents, especially those property investors, do want the present traffic problems besieging the area to be fixed.
But I agree with general verdict, Haylen will win
When I described the Liberal candidate Julie Passas as “colourful” I was choosing my words carefully. While the Liberals in adjoining Balmain and Newtown are busy making themselves invisible, Ms Passas scored the highly coveted front page of the Inner West Courier this week.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/inner-west/ashfield-councillor-julie-passas-ordered-to-make-public-apology-attend-conduct-training/story-fngr8h4f-1227264934305
Worth checking out the front page picture, but watch out and be prepared to duck. She is holding a great rock in her hand and looks as mean as cut snake. This is political campaigning unrivalled anywhere in the country (with the possible exception of Ryde).
Labor and Greens are preferencing one another in Summer Hill. If the order remains as it was in 2011, then Jo Haylen is a certainty.
A few years ago, a football club in Leichhardt wanted to buy out part of Ashfield Park for their new stadium. There was a lot of community anger over it, and there was a public meeting at the local bowling club attended by various council members and so forth. Julie Passas was there and essentially hijacked the meeting, loudly claiming that if the club wasn’t able to build the stadium, the local kids would all become unemployed drug addicts. She was so obnoxious that I actually thought she was an agent provocateur trying to discredit the supporters of the scheme – as I recall, she wound up being thrown out. Suffice to say, when I heard about the incident between her and the council worker, I wasn’t in the least bit surprised.
As for the result, this seat is pretty much all the Labor voting suburbs of the old Marrickville district. It’s as safe as they come.
Two questions:
What is the political composition of the Council?
Since when did Councils get to behave like courts of law?
Ashfield council used to be split four ways between Labor, Liberal, Greens and independents, but in 2012 the Greens lost their seats (very narrowly actually, but nonetheless lost) and the elected council was 4 Labor, 4 Liberals and 4 independents, though I seem to remember a couple of the independents had past affiliations with one ot the major parites.
Adam, there is legislation in the Local Government Act relating to appropriate conduct.
One of the Independents on Ashfield Council used to belong to the Labor party, and another has policies almost identical to the Greens… Council meetings are rowdy to the point of farcical dysfunction, and it has a poor financial record. Needless to say it is campaigning against amalgamation and is directing its ratepayers’ money to its own survival.
Back to election matters: Rosanna Tyler (State Liberal candidate in 2011 and present Marrickville councillor) has apparently been subject to organised anti-Semitism. She has been personally targeted with a “hate campaign” (these were the Mayor’s words in a press release) and her law business tagged with offensive graffiti. Marrickville Council today issued the official release condemning the “racist and bigoted” attacks on her. This was the same Council whose Israel BDS campaign caused such a furore a four years ago, and cost the Greens the seat of Marrickville.
Marrickville is fighting amalgamation too.
Marrickville as a Council has been in a pretty parlous financial position for some time. While I’m sure they would fight amalgamation, I would argue that this council would be among the most benefited by doing so.
Max Phillips (unsuccessful Greens candidate) issue a press release yesterday:
“Labor are now on notice that the Greens will mount a strong challenge for Summer Hill in the years ahead, and demographic change is working strongly in the Greens’ favour.”
He means the rich are moving in, rents and property values are rising, housing is becoming unaffordable and pensioners, single income earners and students are being pushed out. He is confident all this means his party will win next time, and he “puts Labor on notice” to this effect…
It’s a sobering read for those interested in the calculations that political party hard-heads make.
It may not work for the Greens though, as the western end of this electorate closely resembles Burwood, Strathfield and Canada Bay in its demographic make-up. Those areas are gentrifying too, but there’s no joy for Max’s party as investors and Asian buyers snap up all the $1.6m median price houses and 1m apartments.
Quite the reverse. In Strathfield, the Greens vote declined. In Canada Bay the Liberals had one of the rare swings to them.