McMahon – Australia 2022

Chris Bowen
What to say about this diabolically talentless clown that hasn’t already been said !? Well i guess i could continue on with my animal kingdom of politics comparisons !? I was thinking Wombat. But Wombats are likeable, strong, & endearing in a messy, uncensconcious casually destructive way. SO then i thought Rhinocerous as they are blind, stubborn, not very bright, & recklessly defiant !. However Rhino’s are noble, imposing, & powerful. Then it came to me “”PYGMY RHINOCEROS” !!!!. thats it !!!.

Id’ particularly like to remind everyone of just one of Bowen’s numerous debacles as a 4 TIME FAILED minister, ^& shadow.>>>>>
EXTRACT FROM 2019
When laws are fair, MORE tax is collected ,the reverse is true also. It is known as “the virtuous circle” The Abbott govt “debt levy” that Bowen insanely proposes to re-introduce was a total, & spectacular failure, & wonderful example of this. The govt actually collected LESS tax from the highest & top rate, tax payers when it raised the rate from 47% to 49% !!.THAT is an historical fact.

I agree WD, Chris Bowen is an absolute clown. If Labor did lose this seat (not going to happen given the SSM vote is a thing of the past now) it’d be a good excuse to get in an MP who was representative of the area (i.e. not some white Labor party hack).
On the lighter side, he can speak fluent Indonesian.

Ryan Spencer
Nice to find agreement on something. Perhaps that could be Bowen’s singular positive achievement of consensus !.
The interesting what if is around the original AEC PROPOSED McMahon boundaries which EXCLUDED Fairfield, & included the lib voting NW of Fowler. Labor objected but it might have been close. I’D have loved to see Bowen go down.
Bowen was never , & is probably still not seen as a “HACK”. The reality is that he is the effect, not the cause.

As for Indonesian. Well you have to walk before you can run. It would have been better if he had learned to think logically in ENGLISH, & common sense ,before attempting to comprehend another language.

IIRC the originally estimated margin for the Fairfield-less McMahon was something like 2-3%. Although this was coming off the high water mark of 2013.

I don’t know much about demographics in this part of Sydney, but it certainly seems to be some of the more affluent/middle-class parts of the western suburbs. It’s really only the rock-solid margins in Fairfield itself that keeps this reasonably safe for Labor.

Indeed, much of McMahon west of the Cumberland Highway represents what you could call “middle Sydney”, in the sense that socioeconomic scores are roughly around the 50th percentile.

What’s interesting in this regard is the northwestern corner of McMahon – initially it seems a little strange to be scraping off a few suburbs that are in different LGAs and not all that connected with the rest of the electorate. The justification (aside from numerical constraints) is that Minchinbury is much more affluent than the rest of the Mount Druitt area, and Erskine Park and St Clair are much more affluent than the rest of the St Marys area.

The southwestern corner of this district may see significant population growth in the near future. However, I certainly wouldn’t expect new residents to be voting 70% Liberal as the current residents do. (People who live on acreages tend to be very inclined to vote Liberal!)

Again I would caution against assuming population growth necessarily benefits the Liberals. McMahon has a prime example in the suburb of Pemulwuy, a new suburb ranking in the 97th percentile on the IRSAD, which voted 56.5% Labor in 2019, almost exactly how McMahon voted overall.

Chris Bowen, for all his faults, has always had an association with McMahon (the former Prospect) and the wider Fairfield area his entire life. The issue with replacing Bowen is who do you get as a replacement, long-term? Frank Carbone, the logical candidate, is no longer part of the ALP. Ninos Khoshaba is a failed state MP who couldn’t hold on to Smithfield in the 2011 wipeout, partly due to a fracturing of the Assyrian vote in the seat. Hugh McDermott is doing a reasonable job as the State MP for Prospect, and Guy Zangari is doing better than I expected as the Fairfield MP. Do you put one of those two in, once Bowen goes? Or do you go the Carl Scully route for those with long memories, and import an outsider, if you’re Labor? There’s no one candidate out there from the Labor side who can be said to represent the seat on purely ethnic grounds which was a groundless criticism from a previous poster in relation to Bowen.

Bowen’s big scare came in 2013. He should have lost the seat, but a superb ground campaign (I recall it being very dirty, though), and a Liberal candidate who had more links to Liverpool than the Fairfield area saved him. Obviously, 2019 saw a swing against him, mostly due to his policies as Treasurer. As I argued a number of elections ago (See comments re: 2013 Federal election for McMahon, and 2011 State Election for Smithfield), Bowen has never been overly popular in this seat, with the exception of east of the Cumberland Highway. This is due to a more discerning electorate to the west, and for those with long memories, the fact that he was part of Fairfield Council with some odious characters on the Labor, Liberal and Independent sides. Bowen’s actual record on council compared to the others was vastly superior, and reflected well on him in a moral sense as well.

Bowen is still the best politician in the Fairfield area, although Carbone, Zangari and McDermott are getting closer on ability. He won’t lose this seat, and after the COVID debacle that has sent a proud area into lockdown, and some unfair targeting of Fairfield from a feral mainstream press, he can expect a better than average swing in 2022. If Labor lose this election, I expect this to be his last election as the member for McMahon.

Vivek Singha – the Liberal candidate at the last election – was the Science Party candidate for Greenway in 2016. He’s a good bloke with a very impressive resume, including founding the Australian branch of the FOXG1 Foundation, a non-profit organisation funding research into and supporting those affected by brain disorders. He always seems to be out-and-about, attending fundraisers and other community events, and posting videos of himself onto social media – the sorts of things you’d expect from an MP!

He definitely has much stronger links with Greenway than McMahon. The Liberal Party preselecting him for McMahon instead of Greenway was a missed opportunity.

Most within the Science Party dislike the Liberal Party, so it was a surprise for some to see him make the switch. But even in his 2016 candidacy, it was apparent that he is more conservative than the typical Science Party supporter. Ultimately he felt that he could achieve more in a major party.

I wouldn’t know what his intentions are for the next federal election.

I some may think that Vivek Singha will achieve more by joining the Liberal Party, it won’t be at the next election.

Really nasty stuff about Chris Bowen being likened to an animal being aired by a regular reviewer. A lot of unrequired venom, particularly as we should be focusing on the make up of the seat and voting patterns rather than on personalities. Chris Bowen is likely to hold but his majority may decrease.

John T
Not nearly as nasty as i’d like to be. Or as is justified.

Bowen & Shorten politicised the dedicated funding of the NDIS, successfully . THEREBY harming the ALL the disabled & the 1.8 MILLION CARERS . This includes my high level disabled daughter, & my ex. There has never been an act of greater political evil that iv’e witnessed anyway.
Hope that explains my very pure hatred
cheers wd

St Clair and Erskine Park being in McMahon is so anomalous. Neither suburb has much to do with the Fairfield and Smithfield areas. It would make far more sense for them to be Lindsay, like before the 2001 election, or even Chifley before they are in McMahon, though perhaps the numbers won’t allow that. As someone who lived in St Clair until not too long ago, I will say though, Chris Bowen wasn’t entirely absent. He was visible around here, and did seem to take representing this far flung corner of his electorate seriously.

The seat as a whole doesn’t seem to be as safe for Labor as the old Prospect seat. The Liberals have improved here, as in Werriwa. It could be vulnerable the next time there’s a big swing against Labor in NSW, or Australia as a whole.

First of all, I am insulted and disgusted that when the name changed we were designated McMahon who is widely considered the most incompetent and worst prime minister of all time.
As a swing voter, originally from a swinging electorate, I am always frustrated that I know my view essentially says nothing and doesn’t count.
Chris Bowen: generally not bad when in the local community with good accessibility. But his performance as a parliamentarian is definitely lacking. My greatest disappointment was his vote in the gay marriage bill. By far the voters in this electorate voted against it. One of the greatest votes against in Australia. A much bigger margin than Chris is ever elected with. Yet the man voted for the bill. In parliament that is unconscionable conduct when he is there as a representative of his constituency. No matter what I personally thought about the outcome of our electorate in the plebiscite or charges of government, I always respect the decision of the people and accept it; frustrated as I may be at times.
I 100% agree with WD re the NDIS; I was part of the establishment of the NDIS from the point when the Productivity Commission first started asking for submissions. I was a managerial representative of a disability organisation. Shorten acted despicably with absolutely no respect for people with disabilities. In fact I was at an event about it when his language was full of expletives. He is more than largely responsible for the disaster that it is. I was appalled that factionally Chris Bowen is his greatest supporter.

As a voting resident for 30 years (on and off), I have always noted there is a mentality of “I vote Labor because my parents did.” I was guilty as charged for 8 of these voting years.
The change in habitual voting is being seen but the question always arises. “If I don’t vote for them, who do I vote for?”
Chris Bowen, must vote with the Labor party. IE although his constituents said no in the SSM debate, He had no choice but to vote yes. The point here is that it does not matter whether a stuffed chook is running for Labor, the stuffed chook MUST vote with the party on ALL policy. So to vote for Labor, you have to make sacrifices on things. They may include but are not limited to financial programs that benefit you versus educational content for your children, the leaders of tomorrow.
Chris may be a nice guy and personally want things for his constituents but in the end, you are getting a stuffed chook.
I am a ‘traditional Labor’ voter and have not for the past 10 ys and will never will place the illusive 1 beside their candidate again.
Where did I go? Yes like a blind sheep, went to the other side of the spectrum and it was hard to cross that line however, the “for the country” feeling was far greater than the previous path I was following. They got my vote for about 8 years until I realised I am voting for me and my family.
This led me on a strange path of voting to elect the person who would agree with my wants and needs. Never to be found.
I then looked at the values of life. What are they, what do we really want? In the. end we want to elect the member who will get out of my life and let me get on with plying my trade with the least interference possible.
There is only one real option and that goes to the member who will repeal as many Acts as possible that interfere with me and make Acts that stop the states interfering with me.
I am yet to find that person but I do know one thing.
Labor and Liberal vote in parliament to give themselves election funds. Not only that, when you place that illusive 1 beside Labor or Liberal, they get around $2.70. So the Labor party made around $100,000 in Advertising funds from your vote alone. The Liberals, about $75,000. Remember this is your money. Sufficient to add, how much do they get from Big Pharma, China, and Aldi bags? The media paint that this is a two horse race but when you add prefered prime minister values of the two you get less than 70% and that leaves over 30% of the people who prefer someone else. 30%? They are odds worth taking.
Some people believe we should have a first past the post voting system opposed to the preferential voting system.
Personally, I believe we are blessed to have preferential voting but that the NSW method of “optional” preferential suits us all.
I am pretty well fed up with the media and their two party race and the only way I can see that changing is to give an independent or minor party my $2.70. We all may end up with a whole different perspective on life.
As for McMahon, I live in the area it has changed from Reid to Fowler to Prospect to McMahon. It does not really matter what it is called, it has been Labor for 100 years and they still do not listen to us.

Interesting and good result for Labor here. They got swings to them in the Penrith LGA part (St Clair and Erksine Park) which is demographically similar to the majority of Lindsay which was a bad result for Labor in a good year. They also got swings to them around Fairfield and Guildford (working class parts) while the results in Fowler where bad due to KK. It may suggest result in Lindsay maybe due to local campaign rather than demographics. The Equivalent areas in Melbourne had a TPP swing to Libs due to lockdown backlash.

Chris Bowen scored well in the Fairfield parts of the electorate. Fairfield was the most locked down area in 2021 and frontline workers had to queue for hours to get a PCR Covid test before they could leave the LGA. There was a huge vote for the UAP – 10% or more in some areas in McMahon e.g. Guildford, Fairfield. The Libs took a hit, maybe because they are in charge in NSW, unlike the Libs in Victoria.

I suspect that in western and south-western Sydney, most UAP/PHON/LDP voters, including the ex-Lib voters, preferenced Labor ahead of the Libs and that’s why Labor got small 2PP swings to them whilst the Lib primary vote went down.

Given the redistribution will push this west into lib voting territory and ceding strong labor territory in the east a frank Carbone run here could derail Chris Bowens parliamentary career

Is there a law where there has to be a seat named after every prime minister? I know Cook is named after Captain Cook and not Joseph Cook however there would need to be 2 divisions of Cook, so that’s why they didn’t name another one.

McMahon is consistently ranked as the worst prime minister and didn’t get a seat until 2010, Id choose to abolish this. Bad prime ministers shouldn’t be entitled seats. Id favour renaming this back to Prospect if this isn’t abolished or a new seat named Prospect if there is a large shift of boundaries like prior to the 2010 election.

Tbh, I’m still kind of perplexed as to why Arthur Calwell, an opposition leader who did not become PM, still had an electorate named after him.

@daniel t yes it seems it is a rule of the aec as it states on their website. they have been trying to name it after both but that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere any time soon. There are two one is in QLD but that’s also named after captain cook. Prospect is a place and they will now only name it after places if it is suitable as they generally try to avoid them and I doubt they will name one after a suburb again.

@WL same here which is why I’m proposing it be changed at the next election

@Potatees
I think Federal Prospect was named after the reservoir, not the suburb. Granted I am using the Wikipedia for this.

Leon is correct. This seat has always used the Great Western Highway as the boundary, meaning that the Suburb of Prospect was always cut in 2. The original name reference is to the Reservoir in the middle of the seat.

This has become a weird seat in general, due to the impacts of the roads that create a couple of significant divides here, with the Great Western Highway at the Top and the M7 splitting the western end of the seat. This seat is primed for a much-needed redistribution.

As for WL, I am perplexed as why they would give a seat name to Arthur Calwell. A massive defender of the White Australia Policy and someone who got thrashed twice in elections, before getting rolled by Whitlam.

With respect to Calwell there is also a suburb in Canberra named after him. I agree his views on White Australia and also being against state aid to non-government schools will not be in Sync with Today Labor party or even Today’s Australia more generally. However, this is just my view but he was the architect of the Post War immigration program and he did open up Australia to Holocaust survivors and Continent Europeans. i believed this paved the way for Australia to accept Non-Europeans later down the track,while Australia was not yet Multi-racial it was becoming Multi-ethnic and moving away from the traditional Anglo-Celtic homogeneous society. If Australia could not accept Continental Europeans it would be harder to accept Non-Europeans. Interestingly, the seat named after him was shaped by this post-war immigration program and its two members who held the seat were post-war immigrants themselves.

@leon, Hawkeye
The problem is the same as place names are avoided due to the revolving issue that places can move In and out of the division take Corangamite where the namesake is the lake that no longer resides in the division

@nimalan nonetheless it should be renamed

I quite like the geographic way of naming seats they use in the UK, with multiple localities allowed.

Imagine this being called “Fairfield, Smithfield & St Clair’…..

McMahon will most likely expand geographically at the next redistribution and take in more semi-rural areas from Lindsay/Werriwa. This is to increase the elector count. This is assuming that none of the under-quota electorates east of McMahon get abolished. It may take a slice from Fowler as Fowler moves south.

@Potatqes, I don’t rate Frank Carbone’s chances in 2025 that highly. He’s not Dai Le. Dai Le can connect better with multicultural communities, partly because she was once a refugee, and has more electioneering experience. Chris Bowen is not Kristina Keneally. Bowen has strong, local connections, grew up locally and was once the mayor of Fairfield. He’s not some parachuted blow-in from outside.

In 2025, the pandemic politics will be less of an election issue. A lot of voters shifted to Dai Le in Fowler in 2022 as they saw KK as some blow-in who never cared about the impact of the pandemic on SW Sydney residents, and only cared about them for her own election.

Based on some experimentation I did some time ago, the sense I get is the next redistribution could push McMahon north further into Blacktown LGA. Both Chifley and Greenway will need to contract.

@votante yes but the demographics will put him at a disadvantage due to the redistribution to be honest the libs might have a fair shot too.
@nicholas my experimentation has it moving west further into Penrith and south out of black town all together towards the southern boundary of fairfirld

I don’t like the idea of renaming an electorate when there’s hardly a redistribution like it was for Prospect/McMahon. I can understand if there’s a radical distribution or a new seat, but not when just half a suburb here there are removed or added. It might be because Prospect was a state electorate’s name.

@Potatees, there’s a possibility of an electorate east or north-east of McMahon that’ll get axed. McMahon might shift east as would many others in the middle-ring of Sydney. If this happens, McMahon will take in more solid Labor territory. If it shifts west, I still don’t see Bowen losing it ever even if it slices his margin. He turned all but two booths red in 2022.

It might be more competitive when he retires. For now, I think Liberals would rather aim to regain their old seats lost in 2022 before going after fairly safe Labor seats.

@votante in 2022 he was in opposition and there was an anti govt vote. He’s now in govt and people blame the govt for their problems

Also the logic of it expanding east is flawed. There are a lot of other divisions in the east that would absorb most if not all of that. And if you look at mcmahon it’s surround to the north west and south by about 40% of over quota most likely that will transfer to mcmahonin some way. Expect more then one current seats to be abolished a massive reshaping of current divisions especially in the greater Sydney area, regions not so much. In my opinion I’m abolishing four but then creating 3 new ones in the growth areas.

I think the overarching question here is: where will the abolished seat be. There are huge population deficits in the north and central belts of Sydney, and abolishing, say, Bradfield as I have proposed in the past, goes only part of the way to fixing the population problem in the aforementioned central belt. Likewise, abolishing Blaxland or Watson has provides no help for regions north of the harbour. Once that question is answered (what seat will be abolished) then it can be found out which direction McMahon would move.

Should the abolished seat be in the central belt, then it would move east. Should it be in the north, well, that gets a little more complicated. And there is no reason why a seat in both areas is abolished and a new one in north and/or south western Sydney is created, although Potatees suggestion of abolishing four might be view as a little bit extreme to the AEC unless Potatees can provide suitable explanations for them all as well as their knock-on effects. I would be interested in hearing what your suggestion is, Potatees.

@bajoc il be proposing bennelong, Barton, Whitlam and Hunter. to move populations around to form a better lot of divisions. however the names would survive due to their importance and the names North Sydney, Grayngler, Cunningham and Shortland would be gone. Bennelong name would replace North Sydney after i move “warringah” west, Bradfield and Mackellar south and then any remainder transferred westwards. Grayndler would become Barton after I carve the current division up. Cunningham would be overtaken by the Whitlam name afer i do a bit of work there and Hunter would shed its western rural/regional areas to become solely a Lake Macquarie division.

This could be an interesting one to watch at the next election. It will either move west and take in more of liberal voting Penrith or east and set him for an interesting challenge with the Frank Carbone and Dai Le network. Whether that sees him square off with frank Carbone or Dai Le would make for an interesting matchup.

Bowen could be in trouble depending on how the redistribution plays out

This seat is very much in play for the next federal election along with Whitlam. Expect this to be a ‘key seat’ to watch on election night.

@austi i agree on McMahon as it will problem shift wextwardsfurfherinto Penrith but whitlam should contract and move into Wollongong making it safer for labor

Well here’s the electorate summary (I’ll do these for more seats soon):

McMahon is located in Western Sydney and includes many working-class suburbs.

McMahon is currently held by Labor MP Chris Bowen, a high-profile Cabinet minister in the Albanese government. He has held this seat since its creation in 2010. He currently holds this seat with a 9.5% margin.

McMahon overlaps with the state seats of Badgerys Creek (Liberal, 10.5%), Fairfield (Labor, 10.9%), Granville (Labor, 23.5%), Mount Druitt (Labor, 32.4%) and Prospect (Labor, 8.7%). It also overlaps with the local government areas of the City of Blacktown, the City of Cumberland, the City of Fairfield and the City of Penrith.

The I think “mcmahon” will remian in Bowen’s and kpaborshands. Depending on what McMahon becomes. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cgjyDuw5jayZpBlk6nqXmRqCSMrDwGTU/view?usp=drivesdk. I’ve doneabit of a re odel and you McMahon isin yellow. Chris Bowen would most likely contest this as the western division would become more favourable to liberals

i think if dai le is forced to go up against chris bowe she could actually beat him the libs managed 40% of the 2pp and if dai le were to contest youd imagine shed pull that 40% and then shed only need to entice a small fraction of the labor/greens vote to topple him

I expect the Green vote to be much higher in 2025 as there is a very large Muslim community in McMahon the 5th highest in the nation at 13.8%. Also Chris Bowen has strong community connections to this seat and was dropped into seat from Scotland Island. Sky After Dark attacks Chris Bowen due to renewable energy but this not Coal country and Sky News dont seem to get it. The more laughable suggestion is that Craig Kelly was thinking of running for One Nation does he not realize how ethnic this seat is?

Labor shot themselves in the foot at the last redistribution. The original proposal from the redistribution committee had Fowler taking in Liverpool, Cabramatta, and Fairfield, with McMahon taking in the western end of what is now Fowler. Evidently, Labor feared for Bowen’s prospects, and objected to the proposal. The committee folded. Had Fowler been contested in 2022 on the initially proposed boundaries, the Labor vote might have been too strong for Le to overcome. But it was Labor who objected to these boundaries!

Agree Nicholas, it is only Chipping Norton on those boundaries which as any decent Liberal vote.

@nicolas but that was them whe fowler was a safe seat and before they parachuted someone from sotland islan

@Nimalan Chipping Norton is in the ultra-marginal Liberal-held state seat of Holsworthy which would probably be a fairly safe Labor seat on federal boundaries. This means that Holsworthy voters clearly prefer the Liberals but the federal Liberals don’t appeal well enough. That’s what it means when a different party wins the same booth on the federal and state levels. Labor is centre-left, the Coalition is centre-right, but they both still need to appeal to swing voters, who are mostly centrists (or moderates; though most Australian Liberals and Nationals would be considered “moderates” (Moderate faction = Moderate Democrats, Centre-Right = Moderate Republicans, Right faction = Moderate or Centre-Right Republicans) in the US especially on issues such as multiculturalism, climate change and same-sex marriage), as well as to disaffected voters.

This is why if Labor supports a carbon tax it would be electoral suicide, but I’ll start a new thread on that.

Nicholas….great pickup re the ALP objection. I suspect that many parties have regretted suggestions and objections over the years!