LIB 13.7%
Incumbent MP
John Sidoti (independent), since 2011.
Geography
Inner Western Sydney. The seat of Drummoyne covers suburbs on the southern side of Sydney Harbour, covering most of the City of Canada Bay and a small part of the Strathfield council area. Suburbs include Drummoyne, Five Dock, Russell Lea, Concord, Rhodes, North Strathfield and parts of Homebush.
Redistribution
Drummoyne gained part of Homebush and the remainder of North Strathfield from Strathfield. These changes reduced the Liberal margin from 15% to 13.7%.
Drummoyne has existed as an electoral district since 1913, with the exception of three elections in the 1920s when proportional representation, and Drummoyne was part of the Ryde multi-member district. Traditionally Drummoyne was dominated by conservatives, but it was held by the ALP continuously from 1962 to 2011.
The original seat was won by the Liberal/Nationalist party continuously from 1913 until its abolition in 1920, and then again was won by the Nationalists when it was restored in 1927, when it was won by John Lee, who had previously been one of five MLAs for Botany since 1920.
The ALP won Drummoyne off Lee in 1930, although he won back the seat in 1932. The ALP’s Robert Greig won Drummoyne in 1941, 14 years after he had last served in the Legislative Assembly as one of the Members for Ryde from 1920 to 1927.
Greig was defeated by the Liberal Party’s Robert Dewley in 1947. He held the seat for two terms, losing in 1953 to the ALP’s Roy Jackson.
Jackson held the seat for one term, and lost in 1956 to the Liberal Party’s Walter Lawrence. He held the seat for two terms, losing in 1962. He was the last Liberal to win Drummoyne.
In 1962, Drummoyne was won by the ALP’s Reg Coady, who had previously held the seat of Leichhardt since 1954, but moved to Drummoyne upon the abolition of his first seat. He retired in 1973.
Coady was succeeded in 1973 by Michael Maher. He held the seat until his resignation in 1982, when he ran for the by-election in the federal seat of Lowe. He held Lowe until his defeat in 1987.
The 1982 Drummoyne by-election was won by John Murray. He served as a shadow minister when Labor was in opposition, and served as Speaker of the Legislative Assembly from 1995 until his retirement in 2003.
Drummoyne has been held since 2003 by Angela D’Amore. D’Amore was appointed a Parliamentary Secretary in March 2010, but her rise was cut short by an ICAC inquiry in late 2010. This inquiry looked into misuse of parliamentary allowances, and she was found to have engaged in corrupt conduct. Following this decision, Premier Kristina Keneally removed her as a Parliamentary Secretary, and her membership of the Labor Party was suspended.
In 2011, Liberal candidate John Sidoti won Drummoyne with a 24% swing. Sidoti was re-elected in 2015 and 2019.
Sidoti joined the ministry after the 2019 state election, but stepped down from the frontbench later that same year due to a potential investigation by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC). He moved to the crossbench in 2021 after ICAC announced a public inquiry.
Candidates
Sitting independent MP John Sidoti is not running for re-election.
Assessment
Drummoyne has been held by Labor as recently as 2011, and could well swing back. The 13.7% margin is probably too much, but Sidoti’s departure could provide an opening for Labor. More likely the Liberal Party will regain this seat.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| John Sidoti | Liberal | 27,922 | 58.8 | -2.3 | 57.5 |
| Tom Hore | Labor | 12,012 | 25.3 | +1.6 | 26.5 |
| Charles Jago | Greens | 4,461 | 9.4 | -1.6 | 9.4 |
| David Roberts | Keep Sydney Open | 1,781 | 3.8 | +3.8 | 3.7 |
| Maurice Saidi | Animal Justice | 1,288 | 2.7 | +2.7 | 2.7 |
| Others | 0.1 | ||||
| Informal | 1,102 | 2.3 |
2019 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| John Sidoti | Liberal | 28,878 | 65.0 | -3.8 | 63.7 |
| Tom Hore | Labor | 15,552 | 35.0 | +3.8 | 36.3 |
Booths in Drummoyne have been split into two halves, based on the two council areas that used to cover the area: Concord to the west of Canada Bay and Drummoyne to the east.
The Liberal Party polled 64.1% of the two-party-preferred vote in Concord, and 64.5% in Drummoyne.
The Greens polled 8.1% in Concord and 10.3% in Drummoyne.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | LIB 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| Concord | 8.1 | 64.1 | 17,454 | 34.6 |
| Drummoyne | 10.3 | 64.5 | 16,808 | 33.3 |
| Other votes | 10.3 | 61.7 | 10,660 | 21.1 |
| Pre-poll | 8.9 | 63.6 | 5,533 | 11.0 |
Election results in Drummoyne at the 2019 NSW state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, Labor and the Greens.
The only seat above 10% Labor has a shot of picking up in my opinion. If federal woes are any sign. And the sitting MP’s issues will damage them further. The Liberals would probably want a fresh face here and Fiona Martin is unlikely to win if she is the candidate due to her performance in Reid which was supposed to be trending Liberal in recent years.
Labor are unlikely to pick up Epping or Badgerys or Ryde so they should focus on this instead despite having larger margin..
What were the federal figures here?
Sidoti has been suspended from parliament.
@Mick Quinlivan
Aggregating all federal election day polling places within Drummoyne district, the result is Labor wins with 50.4% of the 2PP vote. Regular votes in Reid favoured Labor by around 0.3%. So we might estimate that Drummoyne is 50.1% Labor on federal results.
It will be interesting to see who the Lib candidate will be here. If Fiona Martin runs, I won’t imagine it will go down very well given how abysmally she did in the federal election and how she never bothered to move in to the electorate of Reid even after being elected in 2019.
Most likely a Liberal hold, albeit with a swing to Labor.
Rhodes, at the federal election, (common to both Drummoyne and the federal seat of Reid) swung 15% to Labor. This is a major outlier, both electorally and demographically. The rest of the electorate had below-average swings. The suburbs along the Parramatta River are relatively affluent nowadays and homes are more desirable and expensive here. People here are older and would lean Liberal.
The Liberal branches won’t be happy with a recently defeated federal MP, like Fiona Martin, running for a state seat. They may be ok with someone who is relatively popular and/or lost to a teal e.g. Trent Zimmerman, Dave Sharma.
Sharma or Zimmerman would lose as they don’t even live in this seat and it would be considered parachuting, anyone who thinks they would hold the seat if they ran here us absolutely delusional. And has no memory of what happened to KK when she was parachuted into Fowler.
Daniel. I agree that parachuting is risky and can backfire. I was referring to Liberal branches statewide and nationwide. They won’t particularly welcome ex-MPs to run in any state seat, especially one who suffered a huge swing e.g. Fiona Martin. Sharma and Zimmerman’s best bets are in their own stomping grounds but only Vaucluse is vacant.
There will not be a defeated Federal member standing here for the liberal party. All this being equal on federal figures this is a 50/50 proposition with the liberals having a chance of retaining.in such a situation candidate choice is essential. None of the 3 mentioned people could or would want to stand. The circumstances of Mr sidoti’s suspension cannot help
Looking at the primary votes lib 59%. all the rest left of centre so. There must have been a large exhaustion rate to get to.a 65% vote in 2019. This seat is less safe than it appears
I calculated the federal figures for this seat including prepolls, absents, postals and provisionals and got these results:
Primary:
LIB: 42.0%
ALP: 38.1%
GRN: 9.1%
OTH: 10.8%
On a 2PP basis at the federal election it would be ALP 1.1%. However remember NSW uses OPV, so I calculated the likely OPV result using these figures and I arrived at LIB 0.1% vs ALP. I’d say the unpopularity of Morrison federally and Sidoti’s scandal probably cancel each other out, so I think the Liberals are favoured to win this however their chances go down the longer they have no candidate.
However I think the OPV result federally would actually be closer to LIB 0.6% given the high number of right of centre independent/minor party candidates in Reid compared to the single left of centre Fusion party.
@Ben, Greens voters are more in tune with politics and are more educated than the average voter (according to the 2022 Australian Election Study) and I’d assume the same about Fusion and Animal Justice Party voters.
Votes for Greens, Fusion and AJP are less likely to exhaust than votes for right-leaning parties (e.g. PHON) and single-issue parties. The Greens, Fusion and AJP mainly draw their support from traditional Labor heartland as well as affluent, small-l liberal electorates and their voters most likely still have a favourite major party.
Parties like UAP and PHON have polled well in both traditional Labor and LNP strongholds and often present themselves as alternatives for voters “fed up with the major parties” and this attracts an apolitical/apathetic crowd. I believe that the Libs gain way less from the preferences from a 1% vote for PHON than Labor does from a 1% vote for the Greens.
@Votante For my 2PP estimate on OPV I used traditional preference flows with the Greens with less than 50% exhausting. Green votes, despite a lot less exhausting, still has an exhaustion rate of usually between 30% to 50%, depending on the seat. The flow to Labor is generally around 50%, some seats a little bit more, others a little less. My model uses an average which generally leans to the higher end of preferences toward Labor which is how the 0.1% margin was estimated. The reason I say it is closer to 0.6% is because my model has an equal preference split between Labor and Liberal with a large amount exhausting. Generally the prerences from the other minor parties which aren’t Liberal, Labor or Green would split more to the Liberals than Labor even if a huge portion exhaust. In the end, I’d say under OPV the margin would be between LIB 0.1% (low estimate) to LIB 1.0% (high estimate).
Interesting Ben I estimate the
Opv bonus by running a full preference for left and right assuming no leakage. And compare the actual 2pp. This gives an estimate of the opv bonus which occurred. Eg left would be ajp greens Labor socialists keep Australia open
Say left 49%, right 51
Actual 2pp alp 42 lib 58
Then opv bonus is 7% right
I think Reid and Bennelong, along with Higgins, were “teal” seats without a teal where Labor was still able to win with a good ground campaign, as well as the Chinese diaspora moving to ALP. Both are much less of a factor at state elections, with Matt Kean being a powerful force to keep teal curious libs on side.
So I think Libs hang on here and in Ryde.
I wouldn’t really classify Reid and Bennelong (and Chisholm as well) as teal seats since they do have a relatively socially conservative Chinese diaspora in the electorates especially when it comes to issues like law and order, education or social welfare.
But I agree Drummoyne will be a Lib retain with the Libs being favoured in Ryde since the NSW state Libs are a lot better at winning Chinese diaspora votes especially compared to the federal or Vic state Libs.
Will not be a certain liberal retain. Have they a candidate yet. Sidoti really harmed the liberal brand and Sally the fed
Mp is well liked. I would say this
Seat is uncertain with the libs
Favoured
Labor has preselected Julia Little – a Canada Bay councillor. The fact that they preselected on this side of Christmas could mean that they’re hopeful, despite the 13.7% margin.
The Liberals haven’t preselected anyone yet interestingly. I still think this election contest will be a walk in the park for the Liberals, despite the disatrous result in Reid at the federal election and the controversial sitting local member – John Sidoti.
I’m predicting a 2PP swing of at least 5% to Labor.
whats hapining here labor seem very quiet maybi sidoti staffer will win desbite running with mayor labor exbelled
federal factors wont come into play. they rarely do and vice versa. and only when there fresh scomo is gone and people have forgotten about him hard to see a labor win here
This is an unknown. Labor needs a big swing . On federal figures there was a narrow Labor win .. sure all federal factors won’t be repeated. But Mr sidoti has damaged the liberal party brand for the new candidate. This is so hard to tell. Probably a liberal win is most likely
This will be marginal Liberal after the election. This isn’t safe. Margin is well over inflated here. Canada bay is a swingy region. Past several federal election has proven this area is prone to swings.
This is less Liberal friendly than East Hills and Oatley respectively at a federal level I believe on 2022 numbers?
Liberals were wise not to pick the defeated member for Reid.
Craig Laundry should have run, this would have locked it up for the Liberals as he was popular and a big supporter of Turnbull.
the 2PP swing here will be close to 10% and way above the statewide trend, potentially even a blowout upset gain for Labor.
Sidoti did well off the back of a very strong local profile, aided hugely by being from a prominent and well networked local family. As such, his incumbency advantage (putting to one side the fairly substantial corruption claims against him) was far beyond the usual 3-4% that you’d give to a run of the mill “strong community profile local MP”.
The same could be said for Craig Laundy in Reid, both had very good and leverageable local community and business relationships that paid off at election time. Same for the local Mayor, who keeps getting elected, also before ICAC incidentally.
@Daniel T, considering that Craig Laundy is now back to the very lucrative family business, and hearing him comment on how relieved he is to be out of politics, the idea that he would run to (most probably) sit in Opposition as the state Member for Drummoyne is pretty funny. The Libs would be lucky to have him lend a hand in campaigning, but that would probably even be a stretch – especially with the impact of pokies reform on the Laundy pub empire.
Won’t be an easy Lib hold but they will get there somehow – much like Ryde.
Two quite good candidates.
Based on federal results in 2022, this would be a tossup or even Labor slightly in front. There was the perfect storm of a strong and popular Labor candidate, a dismal and ineffective Liberal MP, and the anti-Morrison factor. There was a 15% swing to Labor in Rhodes.
When Labor used to hold Drummoyne, their margin was around 5% to 10%. It was always within striking distance for the Liberals. There was a swing of over 20% here in 2011, though it was a vacant seat.
The area has changed over the years. It used to be very industrial and working-class and it was a magnet for Italian migrants and some Greek and other European migrants. It has gentrified quite a lot following de-industrialisation because of its low-density, waterfront suburbs, the river and its convenience to the CBD. It’s also got larger properties and wider streets compared to the Inner West. Rhodes is an exception with high-rise apartments and a large young, renting population.
@ Votante, agree with your analysis.Rhodes, Liberty Grove etc are clearly demographically different and have a large East Asian community in contrast to the low density suburbs which are very European. The Italian community started closer to the city in areas like Glebe and moved outwards where there were bigger blocks as they became more socially mobile similar to how the Greek community moved out of Marrickville to areas like Earlwood, Bardwell Valley, Brighton-Le Sands etc. Suburban gentrification has helped the Libs unlike inner city gentification. Antony Green says that Drummoyne is a notional Labor seat based on Federal results but i agree that it was a perfect storm. Still i feel the margin is inflated and really should be around the same margin as Ryde.
Liberal hold. Swing is too big and the Labor candidate, did quite poorly in the Canada Bay Mayoral Election which covers the same geography. Significant given the amount of coverage and money she was afforded.
I think coupled with the fact there is a Federal Labor MP, who has been virtually invisible in this electorate since being elected, Libs should capitalise on what is perceivably a focus on the Strathfield side of Reid.
The interesting focus for this seat is the East vs West divide. Libs perform very strongly in Concord, Concord West, Cabarita, Mortlake and Breakfast Point. Along with parts of Five Dock and Rhodes.
Labor does better on the eastern side like Abbotsford, Drummoyne and Wareemba where the electorate begins merging into neighbouring Balmain.
I think Di Pasqua will lean heavily into the Italian community, similar to what Sitou did with the Chinese community (noting Sitou doesn’t seem to be interested in any other community group).
Margin will probably get down to 8% as a ceiling but if Libs campaign well should hold around 11%.
Most voters in marginal seats don’t like wall to wall one party. The results in Reid were probably overinflated to translate to a state seat that has been trending strong Liberal the last decade.
@Nimalan, you make very good points that I agree with. I also think John Sidoti had a personal vote that stuck around throughout most of the three terms. This is on top of having demographic and economic changes on his side. His 2PP at the last three elections was at least 65%.
I count Kiama as a seat with a similar electoral performance i.e. traditional Labor heartland seat but flipped to Liberal in 2011, popular local Liberal member, marginal federal Labor territory.
NSWEC Ballot drawn:
1- Liberal (Di Pasqua)
2- Sustainable Australia (Conaghan)
3- Greens (Jago)
4- Labor (Little)
Should be a quick entry and exit at polling booths for most voters
@ Votante, i agree with you Sidoti built a personal vote which is now gone with his retirement, same with Gareth Ward in Kiama and Mark Coure in Oatley. Both Coure and Sidoti while having a strong personal vote have benefited from increasing affluence along with the waterfront. In addition, Sidoti would have built strong links with the Italian community something that Di Pasqule may also be able to tap into. I believe the west of the seat is where Libs are most vulnerable due to diffferent demographics. My prediction is that the Libs will hold with a margin around 4% On a sidenote i wish Haberfield was in this seat as it fits demographically.
* Sorry i didnt mean to make it sound that Mark Coure is retiring and that his personal vote is gone rather as someone who also built a personal vote.
@Nimalan it’s Di Pasqua not Di Pasqule
Haberfield in the Drummoyne electorate works but only if you swap something with Balmain.
The most likely choice is Drummoyne/Birkenhead point whose demos align more with Balmain than the electorate of Drummoyne.
The electoral commission would also need to change the name to something like Canada Bay as a midway point or Concord, to accommodate the other side of the electorate as Canada Bay Council is located in Drummoyne.
It’s a bit like Lidcombe and Silverwater in Reid, which have absolutely no real purpose being in the electorate other than to pad the Labor vote
people dont like wall to wall labor so even though thensw government is tired the averige voter will know who is in government in the other states and desbite knowing liberals have had long enough will vote iberal just to keep labor out of power a lot of people on this blog want a liberal victory i dont see many signs of minority government what other seats will independentswin sometimes an independent can do well in a local cowncil levil mayor but then fail in state politics
@ Strathman Scoop,
Yep apologies for the spelling mistake. Agree, numbers may not always work. Also i agree with you that Lidcombe and Silverwater should be removed from Reid if numbers permit . That way Reid can be focused on the Upper Inner West plus Olympic Park zone. The reason i would like Haberfield to be in this seat is that it is more suburban and has a significant Italian community even at a federal level i would prefer it be in Reid than Grayndler.