Watson – Australia 2022

Given the state seat of Lakemba has now been abolished, 2 Labor MPs- Tanya Mihailuk, Member for Bankstown and Jihad Dib, Member for Lakemba, have to now battle it out to be the Member for Bankstown.
Tony Burke has held the seat for nearly 2 decades, and also served a period in the NSW parliament.
Labor is in a tricky spot, where they could potentially lose 1 of 2 promising front benchers (one of whom- Mihailuk- had prior Federal aspirations, losing Blaxland to Jason Clare).
Albo and NSW Labor are pushing for more female representation, could be time for Burke to move on. Word has it both he and Bowen will resign if Labor do not win the next Federal election anyway.
Both Mihailuk and Dib would definitely energise this seat more than Burke has. Especially considering both have more demographic affinity than the current member. Who would probably be better suited returning to the NSW Upper House, potentially leading the Minns’ Labor Government in the Legislative Council

Watson, Blaxland, Banks, Barton and Grayndler are down a combined 25% at 31 December. If you include Hughes and Cook as well, Southern Sydney is down almost 40%. The adjustment of members will probably come with the next redistribution.

Mihailuk should run in East Hills. You know, where she actually lives.

@ Nicholas, East Hills is drifting away from Labor especially close to the Georges River. i would not be surprised if Libs get another swing to them (3rd election in a row against the state trend) so Tania may not want to bother in East Hills.

If the Libs decide to run with Mohammad Zaman again in 2022 they will certainly lose ground and go backwards this time in a very big way Watson deserves some reputable opposition for once. It’s well known Libs have a huge problem with Branch stacking in the seat of Watson.

I think the Liberal candidates in Watson and its western neighbour Blaxland got called-up last minute. I’m not sure why. Maybe internal politics or a lack of interest? Their campaign Facebook pages have 10 or so followers each and no real posts.

@Ben Raue Margin here should be 13.5%

Media reports that a Muslim doctor from Egypt, Dr Ziad Basyouny, will run as an independent.

He could come third with his campaign on Palestine and bread and butter issues (he mentioned housing and cost of living). He could strike a chord and get preferences from the Greens and pick up voters who voted UAP or ON. I doubt he’ll win. He doesn’t seem to be another Dai Le – a local council figure running against a parachuted candidate with no local connections.

Really doubt the Libs will preference him over Labor so there’s no chance unless he gets 45+% of the primary vote and significant outpolls Labor on first preferences. Dai Le was a former Liberal so the Libs would be happy to run dead and preference her.

As Dan M Said previously if the Libs preference him over Labor it will cause unrest in Liberal’s base and Sky After Dark will be furious. What i am interested is how he will preference he will need to have a HTV with all boxes marked otherwise it will cause a massive informal vote unlike the Teals which dont need to have a HTV with preferences marked as they represent better educated and seats with better English proficiency compared to seats like Watson, Blaxland, Fowler or Calwell.

Even so Labor will be forced to utilise resources meant for marginal and winnable seats to defend safe seats now. The shoes on the other foot now. Libs could preference in order to hurt Labor. Paybacks a female dog.

The Liberals could preference Dr Ziad to help defeat Tony Burke but it comes with risks as mentioned above.
It would agitate Sky News After Dark but the bigger concern is risking the Jewish vote in Wentworth, Macnamara and Goldstein. This could make Jewish or more Zionist Liberal voters switch to the teals and Josh Burns and help them retain their seats. The Liberals have nothing to gain in Watson.

I think we’d probably see airborne swines before the Liberals or anyone else wins this seat apart from Labor. Not withstanding the fact that Tony Burke’s been there a long time, and out of the current Labor caucus, he, Jason Clare and Ed Husic have (unsurprisingly) been very vocal about Palestine and Gaza, contrary to some of the others. When others talked about Fatima Payman’s actions in a negative light, neither of the three voiced any criticism or objection to that. I still think that any anger towards Labor on Palestine will slowly dissipate by election time and when push comes to shove the voters will still back Labor over the Liberals.

Now that’s not to say the Independent candidate will not gain any traction (he most certainly will), and it’s very much possible he could shave Tony Burke’s margin back down to just under 10% (which is what I think will happen), but it would take the Greens and Liberals (and everyone else) to direct preferences to Dr. Ziad for him to have a chance at beating Burke. The Greens certainly won’t direct preferences to Ziad (and neither would Ziad to them) given they want a Labor minority government that they could have a say in, and the Liberals, well they won’t be gaining any vote in this electorate after what Dutton said this week, and Ziad has made it clear that he’s angry at Labor but won’t back the Coalition either because they’re pro-Israel.

Realistically, I think Ziad will have no choice but to begrudgingly preference Labor ahead of the Greens and the Liberals even though he’s running against Labor. The best he’s going to do in my view is make Watson less safe than it is now, but not enough to beat Burke unless something dramatic happens between now and the election.

Is Dr Ziad a Muslim Vote candidate?

There’s an option for the Liberals to not annoy their vote in seats with Jewish populations, but knock out Burke. Simply run super dead, by that I mean don’t even man booths and make it impossible to find a Liberal How to Vote.

@LNPInsider How on Earth would that knock out Burke?

Depends on how much vote he can get and if the Muslim votes people advise people to vote against Burke he could very well lose however unlikely

Tommo9, I don’t follow your logic. Labor losing Watson makes them more likely to fall until minority government, not less. As much as Ziad might dislike Labor, I imagine he’s also smart enough to realise his electorate do not like the Liberals so it’d be political suicide to support them in a hung parliament. So the Greens should be directing preferences to join over Labor to increase their chances of holding the balance of power.

*To Ziad over Labor

@Nether Portal I don’t think he is, but they haven’t ruled out backing him. I think The Muslim Vote wants to run their own candidate in Watson.

Is there a possibility that Ziad will preference Libs over Labor out of spite and he does not make the 2CP and causes an upset victory for the Libs. Kos Samaras said 40% of Labor total primary vote in Watson comes from Muslims and in Blaxland it is 55%

What are the odds that Burke retires at the next election? He’s been around a long time.

Is it fair to say that Basyouny and other similar potential candidates will likely have a generally left-conservative agenda on issues other than the Middle East conflict?

Burke has just been given a massive new portfolio. He is not going anywhere.

@Wilson the reason I said that was because Watson (with the large migrant population) is also one of the most socially-conservative electorates in this country (it had the 2nd highest No vote for SSM behind neighbouring Blaxland), and given that the Greens are literally diametrically opposite to that it’s hard for the community to back someone who’d prefer the Greens over Labor (apart from Palestine, there’s not really anything else that Ziad Basyouny and the Greens would have in common). The Liberals, well they’re dead wood in this part of the world in the next election anyway, so considering all the different issues, it’s quite possible that Basyouny will probably still preference Labor over the other two. And talking about the path to minority government for the Greens to gain ground, that path is through seats like Wills, Cooper, Macnamara, Richmond etc, not through working-class suburbs like Watson, Blaxland etc where the only mutual allegiance between them and the community is Palestine.

@Darcy Burke’s been given a fairly divisive and controversial portfolio, and depending on how he takes it in the next few months, could be pivotal. So far nothing suggests that he’s taken the community for granted and he’s one of the better ministers in the current government so I think he’ll retain but there will be a swing against him. Another reason I say this is because I came across an article talking about one of the Muslim leaders saying that from his interactions with the locals, they’re happy with Burke and Jason Clare in their electorate and they believe that Muslim Vote movement does not represent all of the Muslim population in that electorate. There’s bound to be some personal vote for Burke (and Clare) if this is true, which should help them weather any big or small swings.

@ Tommo9
SSM is only one issue not necessarily means it is the most Socially Conservative seats in the country. It actually had a better than state and Average result for the voice and if you look at Vote Compass Watson is quite a left-leaning seat. I would say Maranoa is the most socially conservative seat in the country. If you ask people in Watson on Climate Change, Black Lives Matter, Welcome to Country, Refugees, Defund the Police, Critical Race Theory, Australia Day, China etc they will be much more left-wing than White Working Class residents in seats such as Lindsay, Braddon, Lyons etc. Muslims will also be anti-AUKUS against US alliance etc so while they maybe Conservative on Religious issues they will be not be right-wing on all matters.
Also Cooper is not in play for the Greens in 2025 it is only 4.1% Muslim as i mentioned quite a few times.

Agree Nimalan and Wilson, the Greens would be keen to preference Ziad ahead of Labor because he shares their views on global affairs (support of Palestine and antiwar views).

@Nimalan on the issue of Cooper, I say that seat is in play not because of the Muslim vote issues like they have in Wills, but generally speaking there’s a lot of renters and inner-city folks who’d skew Green anyway particularly south of Bell Street. With or without the Palestine issue, the housing issue and cost of living could very well push voters to the Greens, given they’re not exactly going to ever back the Liberals but they’re not impressed with Labor’s handling of it.

@ Tommo9
I think Ged Kearney is probably bullet proof until she retires she is like Plibasek or Albo too popular. If you look at booth results Bell Street is no longer a divide in Cooper like it is in Wills. The state seat of Northcote is entirely south of Bell Street and despite the Libs preferencing the Greens at a state seat Labor won and if Libs preferenced the Labor ahead of Greens at the state election in 2022 like they did in 2018 Labor would have got a swing to them and won it by 4.4% this is a Red-Green seat unlike Macnamara, Richmond, Griffith or Brisbane where there are more centrist voters as well.

Also and plibersek will likely retire after the 2028 election also after losing the election. Plibersek may choose to retire beforehand