ALP 1.1%
Incumbent MP
Emma Husar, since 2016.
Geography
Western Sydney. Lindsay covers most of the City of Penrith, stretching from Londonderry in the north to Mulgoa in the south.
History
Lindsay was first created as part of the 1984 expansion of the House of Representatives, and had always been held by the party of government until 2016.
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.
Bradbury was re-elected in 2010, but lost in 2013 to Liberal candidate Fiona Scott.
Scott lost her seat in 2016 to Labor’s Emma Husar.
Candidates
Sitting Labor MP Emma Husar is not running for re-election.
- Brandon Lees (Conservative National)
- Diane Beamer (Labor)
- Melissa McIntosh (Liberal)
- Nick Best (Greens)
- Christopher Buttel (United Australia)
- Mark Tyndall (Independent)
- Geoff Brown (Sustainable Australia)
- Mark K.C. Moody-Basedow (Christian Democratic Party)
- Jim Saleam (Australia First)
Assessment
Lindsay is a very marginal seat and the Liberal Party would love to win it back. Husar should benefit from a first-term personal vote which could solidify her position.
2016 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Emma Husar | Labor | 36,675 | 41.1 | +2.1 |
| Fiona Scott | Liberal | 35,081 | 39.3 | -7.4 |
| Kingsley Liu | Greens | 3,199 | 3.6 | +0.5 |
| Warren Howard Wormald | Christian Democratic Party | 2,701 | 3.0 | +0.2 |
| Marcus Cornish | Independent | 2,128 | 2.4 | +2.4 |
| Stephen Roddick | Liberty Alliance | 2,110 | 2.4 | +2.4 |
| Stephen Lynch | Nick Xenophon Team | 1,850 | 2.1 | +2.1 |
| Linda La Brooy | Family First | 1,513 | 1.7 | +1.7 |
| Scott Grimley | Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party | 1,497 | 1.7 | +1.7 |
| Deborah May Blundell | Animal Justice | 1,454 | 1.6 | +1.6 |
| Jim Saleam | Australia First | 1,068 | 1.2 | +0.5 |
| Informal | 11,913 | 11.8 |
2016 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Emma Husar | Labor | 45,633 | 51.1 | +4.1 |
| Fiona Scott | Liberal | 43,643 | 48.9 | -4.1 |
Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into central, east, north and west. North covers the rural booths including Londonderry, while East covers St Mars. West covers the booths on the other side of the Nepean River plus Mulgoa and a few other booths in between.
Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in the centre (54.9%) and the east (61%), while the Liberal Party won a majority in the west (54.6%) and the north (54.8%).
| Voter group | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| Central | 54.9 | 24,544 | 27.5 |
| West | 45.4 | 19,485 | 21.8 |
| North | 45.2 | 10,394 | 11.6 |
| East | 61.0 | 9,426 | 10.6 |
| Other votes | 49.4 | 9,685 | 10.8 |
| Pre-poll | 51.3 | 15,742 | 17.6 |
Two-party-preferred votes in Lindsay at the 2016 federal election
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With no sitting MP recontesting and being the type of seat that is more receptive to Morrison’s folksy leadership style I think Lindsay is at the top of possible gains to the LNP. The only seats I can think of as probable Liberal gains are Lindsay and Herbert, regardless it will be very tight in these seats.
I’m giving this to the liberal party. Labor have really botched this seat.
Emma Husar was a truly awful MP. The anti-male sexism and the parading of her mildly autistic son around for sympathy points were just the tip of the iceberg when all the bullying allegations came out. She’s definitely damaged the reputation of Labor around here.
And I say all this as someone who is Labor-leaning.