LIB 13.2%
Incumbent MP
Jason Falinski, since 2016.
Geography
Northern beaches of Sydney. Mackellar covers Pittwater council area and a majority of the Warringah council area. Major suburbs include Dee Why, Collaroy, Narrabeen, Mona Vale, Avalon and Frenchs Forest.
History
Mackellar was created in 1949 as part of the expansion of the House of Representatives. It has always been won by the Liberal Party with substantial margins.
The seat was first won in 1949 by William Wentworth, grandson of colonial political figure William Charles Wentworth. Wentworth had previously polled 20% of the vote in the seat of Wentworth (named after his grandfather) as an independent in 1943.
Wentworth was a leading red-baiter in Parliament during the 1950s, although he remained in Parliament for almost two decades after winning Mackellar. He was close to John Gorton, and when Gorton became Prime Minister in early 1968 he appointed Wentworth to cabinet as the first ever federal minister with responsibility for Aboriginal affairs. Wentworth remained on the frontbench under Billy McMahon and served in the ministry until McMahon’s defeat in 1972.
Wentworth announced his retirement in 1977, but didn’t wait for the election to resign from the Liberal Party, after returning to the role of outspoken backbench rebel during the first term of the Fraser government. He ran as an independent for the Senate in 1977 and polled 2%.
Wentworth was succeeded in Mackellar by Liberal candidate Jim Carlton, who had served as the state party’s General Secretary during the 1970s. Carlton served as a minister in the final year of the Fraser government, and was a frontbencher in the Liberal opposition from the Hawke government’s election in 1983 until the 1990 election. Carlton retired from Parliament in 1994.
The ensuing by-election was won by sitting Senator and Liberal frontbencher Bronwyn Bishop. Bishop had been a Senator for New South Wales since 1987, and had been a prominent Opposition frontbencher, and had been discussed as a possible leadership contender. She played a prominent role in the opposition frontbench after winning the by-election, but her colleagues did not share her assessment of her leadership potential, and she was passed over in favour of first Alexander Downer and then John Howard.
Bishop was re-elected to seven full terms from 1996 to 2013. Bishop was appointed to a junior ministerial role after the election of the Howard government in 1996. She was dropped from the ministry after the 2001 election after a controversial tenure as Minister for Ageing. She was elected Speaker after the 2013 election, but was forced to step down in August 2015 after criticisms over extravagant travel expenses.
Bishop lost Liberal preselection to Jason Falinski in 2016. Falinski won Mackellar in 2016 and was re-elected in 2019.
- Barry Steele (TNL)
- Darren Dickson (One Nation)
- Sophie Scamps (Independent)
- Paula Goodman (Labor)
- Jason Falinski (Liberal)
- Christopher Ball (United Australia)
- Ethan Hrnjak (Greens)
Assessment
Mackellar is traditionally a safe Liberal seat, but in current circumstances the Liberals appear to be losing ground in seats like this, and a strong independent in the form of Sophie Scamps appears to be doing well here. She would need to cut down the Liberal primary vote significantly to win, and it’s probably harder to do that here than in some other seats further south.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Jason Falinski | Liberal | 52,088 | 53.0 | +1.8 |
| Declan Steele | Labor | 16,648 | 16.9 | -0.4 |
| Alice Thompson | Independent | 11,975 | 12.2 | +12.2 |
| Pru Wawn | Greens | 11,283 | 11.5 | -2.6 |
| Suzanne Daly | Sustainable Australia | 2,550 | 2.6 | +2.6 |
| David Lyon | United Australia Party | 2,317 | 2.4 | +2.4 |
| Greg Levett | Christian Democratic Party | 1,401 | 1.4 | -1.1 |
| Informal | 4,857 | 4.7 | -0.6 |
2019 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Jason Falinski | Liberal | 62,124 | 63.2 | -2.5 |
| Declan Steele | Labor | 36,138 | 36.8 | +2.5 |
Mackellar covers all of the former Pittwater council area and a majority of the former Warringah council area, all now contained in the Northern Beaches council area. All of the polling places in the Pittwater area have been grouped together as “north”. Those in Warringah have been split between “south-east” on the coast and “west” further inland.
The Liberal Party won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 60.4% in the north to 66.6% in the west.
Independent candidate Alice Thompson came third, with 16.5% in the north and just over 11% in the south-east and west.
The Greens came fourth, with a primary vote ranging from 9.3% in the west to 13.5% in the north.
| Voter group | IND prim | GRN prim | LIB 2PP | Total votes | % of votes |
| North | 16.5 | 13.5 | 60.4 | 23,719 | 24.1 |
| South-East | 11.3 | 11.0 | 61.3 | 22,552 | 23.0 |
| West | 11.1 | 9.3 | 66.6 | 14,105 | 14.4 |
| Pre-poll | 11.4 | 10.8 | 65.0 | 26,337 | 26.8 |
| Other votes | 8.0 | 12.4 | 64.8 | 11,549 | 11.8 |
Election results in Mackellar at the 2019 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, Labor, independent candidate Alice Thompson and the Greens.
New UComms polling by Climate 200 for the Scamps campaign reported in the Guardian Australia. 60-40 to Scamps on preferences
Primaries:
Falinksi – 32%
Scamps – 31%
Labor – 15.5%
Greens – 8.6%
32% seems very low, especially considering this teal seat hasn’t been as high profile as the others. That being said I don’t think Falinksi has a big a profile as a frydenburg for example. Even if it’s a single seat poll those numbers seem to suggest there may be a big swing to the independent, whether it’s enough is a different matter.
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I find it hard to believe that Falinski would drop 20% pv and the Greens and ALP only 4% combined. Especially as in Warringah and Wentworth their votes just fell away.
In Warringah Tony Abbott’s pv fell 12.5% and the Lib vote in Wentworth by 14.8%. Both of those were distinct circumstances that are not happening in Mackellar.
Just had a deeper look into that poll. It is a really weak one, only 834 in the sample. For me, a 20% Primary Vote is way too big of a drop. The fact that it was commissioned by Climate 200 makes it sound really weird.
If you were that confident, you wouldn’t release that result.
Couple of things have happened and that i have discovered:
1. The corflute situation is getting ridiculous, in terms of vandalism. Scamps having been labeled a derogatry expletive and Falinski Corflutes giving him Hitler’s moustache and Swatstikas being drawn on him as well. Given Scamp’s gender and Falinski’s heritage, this is getting disgusting.
2. Out of no-where, there are UAP Corflutes all over Mona Vale. Dunno where that came from.
3. I did see those fake Scamps Corflutes with the Greens sticker on them, around the Wakehurst Parkway. I’ve had confirmation they were done by Advance Australia.
4. Was walking my daughter to school when 3 of the Scamps supporters got right up in our faces and scared her with their banner waving, especially when trying to cross the road. To their credit, the organiser there was apologetic and told me that they had issues with the 3 people before and would be disciplined and was really good about it so full credit to them. But I did discover that a lot of people working on the ground there are ex Labor and Greens Operatives from all over the North Shore and Northern Beaches. Not surprising TBH.
5. Those from the Right of the Liberal Party have abandoned Falinski and are focusing their efforts elsewhere, I believe up in Robertson and Dobell. Not only that but a couple of the Liberal Councillors have been getting quite nasty on the campaign trail and have attempted to implicate the Mayor of NBC as part of the Scamps Campaign.
Getting really testy up here atm.
Robertson is probably the second seat after Reid to be won by labor . But dobell will remain Labor
Seems the cops have been called a few times to the Prepoll for Mackellar. Some animosity between the groups it appears. Presume the usual blame the other side excuses will come out.
Confirmation that KK will be voting in Mackellar.
That’s slightly embarrassing.
lmao
Haha would be even more hilarious if it turns out the one bedroom flat she rented in Liverpool is just sitting empty and she was living in Scotland Island the whole time.
Well I thought this seat falling to the teals was a surprise. I could see North Sydney, Wentworth, Kooyong, Goldstein and Curtin falling but for this seat I thought it was a bit of a stretch especially since this seat isn’t really undergoing the same demographic changes to the same extent as the other aforementioned seats.
Whilst it was clear during the campaign that this one WAS in play; it was also the outlier in that the 3 other Sydney seats that fell to Teals all had histories of being won (and held) by Independents at Fed and/or State level. It will also be the hardest to defend, even moreso than Wentworth. Should the Teals gain some “runs on the board” then they certainly could hold but if anything, I’d possibly see Bradfield falling before Mackellar holding (esp if there’s any tinkering with boundaries).
The state seat of Pittwater had independent MPs albeit for less than a term each.
I was surprised that so many Liberal seats fell to independents and Greens. Mackeller was the most surprising because it’s the teal seat that’s furthest from a capital city CBD.
Most likely it’ll expand westwards at the next redistribution.
Wake Hurst.Manly.have been won by LaborManly won by an independent as was Pittwater
Knew Manly was held by LAB during Wran era along with Peter McDonald & David Barr (multiple term Indies) as well as Warringah’s history of electing non-endorsed party candidates (Percy Spender).
Thought LAB may’ve held one state seat on the peninsula during Wran years but wasn’t sure which. Remembered McTaggart but the history of the area does bear out that in comparison to Warringah & Nth Sydney; this is “tougher turf”.
And Willoughby or however you spell it (Labor only held it for 1 term however)
State seat of Willoughby straddles the northern boundary of North Sydney/southern boundary of Bradfield. Interesting to see how it plays out in the state election as the 2PP figures for much of the seat (both LIB/ALP & LIB/Teal) were ugly.
Rob Stokes the former member of Pittwater that overlaps a big chunk of the federal electorate of Mackellar is considering a tilt of running against Sophie Scamps meaning it might be a interesting contest
@Ben I think Rob Stokes would win.
I think they can too the onpy places they probably cant win against the teàls is warringah wentworth indi and probably goldstein at least this time around.
In the Saturday Paper of 3 August they reported polling that the Teals were at risk in Mackellar, Goldstein, Curtin and Kooyong. The article was not very substantive and was more about campaign funding. Goldstein and Mackellar were the surprises for me there. If Rob Stokes did run, he would surely be in a with a good chance. Sophie Scamps seems to have a lower profile than other Teals but that might not be the case inside her electrorate. I wonder if the Mackellar vote last time was influenced by Jason Falinski – I didn’t know much about him but he popped up on TV a few times leading up the election and came across as a big buffoon. I wonder if that was the impression he gave in the electorate and it turned voters off.
Mackellar has less Teal Friendly demographics than Warringah with lower levels of education (32.9% compared to 47.9% in Warringah), older age structure (43 compared to 40 in Warringah) and almost voted No to the Voice (49.2% No compared to 40.5% No in Warringah)
John i think you forgot to include Mayo in south australia as another one of the seats liberal party won’t win back and i guess it still remains to be seen if Ryan and Brisbane will flip back to the LNP at the next election whenever it happens this year or next year and Mackellar is the last seat where the liberal party is still yet to preselect a candidate
Ben mayo isn’t really a teal seat and is not a safe liberal seat. In fact on 2pp terms it’s Labor ATM so they might be better served with her there and unlike the teals they have no real change on unseating rr even in minority govt because she’s said she will back the party with most seats unlike the teals who will vote on ideological lines so I think sharkie is safe. In regards to the greens seats they are also Labor on 2pp so the way to win those is to win the 2pp if they win the 2pp there they should flip back
Mayo is held by Rebekha Sharkie who is a member of the Centre Alliance, a centrist party that only exists in South Australia. It was founded by Senator Nick Xenophon as the Nick Xenophon Team. Sharkie has held Mayo since 2016. Before that it was a Liberal heartland and it was the seat Alexander Downer represented.
Mayo takes in the Adelaide Hills, the Barossa Valley, the Fleurieu Peninsula and Kangaroo Island. Its main population is the city of Mount Barker in the Adelaide Hills.
@np it’s has trended Labor since then and it’s now notionally a Labor seat
@redistributed can we get a link to that poll
If the teals were to lose those seats to the libs then they would be in the box seat to form govt whether in majority or minority. In my opinion Labor will need about 6-8 votes to govern after the election and that’s not counting any seats they lose to the greens. I’m putting Labor’s losses anywhere between 8-12 to the coalition. So let’s say AVG of 10. That puts them on 68 seats and the coalition on 68. If te coalition took those seats they’d be on 72. But I’m not including any potential greens gains from Labor or libs from greens. Those teal seats are pretty all that stand between Dutton and the lodge.
The existence of teal held seats is a existential problem for the libs. In other times the teals would have won liberal pre-election buy now the voters in those electorates have decided the liberal party candidates are unacceptable. I suspect most if not all will be reelected. Labor could lose their absolute majority as it is only 3 seats. But governments usually get a second term and this has been the case since 1946. I think talk of Labor losing 10 odd seats is exaggerated massively.
@mick since about 1932. Scullin was the last one term govt. It wasn’t a complete rejection of the liberals I think it was just a rejection of the govt and acomo. I agree on the Labor etting a second term it is highly likely they will get a second term but even Labor can’t see a way to offset their loses and have begun to accept minority govt as the likely outcome which is why they are holding off the election. But the. Longer they leave it the worse it’s gonna get. Losing 10 seats isnt that preposterous they lost 11 in 2010.
I think the next election will be May 2025.. when it is due. There should be fixed terms .
Mackeller will expand south post redistribution. This boosts the notional teal 2PP but bear in mind, Zali’s personal vote was embedded into the teal 2PP. Her personal vote was much stronger even at her first election than the other teals were at their first.
Mackellar is not that much under quota so it will barely increase her margin. Warringah however will be about 25% under so will need to move into NS by about 1/3 of its current electors.
In regards to fixed term that would require a referendum and I think albo wasted people’s appetites on his failed voice
The other liberal preselection candidate in mackellar is turnbull’s former son in law who might get tasked in taking on Sophie scamps if he wins liberal preselection for the seat