Bean – Australia 2025

This could potentially be a low-priority target for the Liberals to get them a seat in the ACT, but nevertheless it’s unlikely to fall. However, if the Liberals do ever win a House seat in the ACT it’ll be Bean since it includes the outer suburbs and some small towns near national parks and the ski resorts out in the bush, plus it includes Norfolk Island (the only non-mobile booth (Jervis Bay in Fenner has mobile voting) the Liberals won in an ACT seat in 2022 was the Norfolk Island booth).

@ Nether Portal
This is the most friendly part of the ACT for the Greens but you would need a 1996 style defeat to come even close to winning it. It will fall if there is 1975 style defeat.

@Nimalan this is the least friendly part of the ACT for the Greens. They finished second in Canberra and did better in Fenner than they did in Bean. Did you mean the best for the Liberals, not the Greens?

Anyway, at the 2020 ACT general election, Brindabella (which overlaps with much of Bean) was the only seat where the Liberals did better than Labor.

@ Nether Portal
apologies it was a Typo yes i meant to say it is the most friendly part for the Libs sorry.

Bean was not that friendly for Liberals in 2022. 2PP was 63:37 for Labor. Greens vote 14.8% and a left independent & I mean genuinely left in policy terms of 8.1%.
Note that in Brindabella in 2020 – Liberals 38.4%, Labor 40.7%

@Nether Portal – the booths in Bean that aren’t in “Canberra” are only a small handful of people. Norfolk Island has a bigger influence on the outcome than Tharwa, and they’re both tiny.

John Howard said “looks like Killara, votes like Cessnock” about Canberra. That’s generally taken to mean affluent voters that vote Labor. But I think it’s also the case with other demographics that make up the Liberal base that in the ACT are most populous in Bean, that are more Labor inclined in Canberra. Interestingly Bean has the ACT’s only “no” voting booths, but I’m not sensing a realignment over it, and enough of the electorate was very strongly “yes” at any rate.

@ John
There is still an income gradient in Canberra/ACT and the best areas for the Libs in Canberra are still Yarramulma, Deakin and Forrest but there much weaker for Libs compared to Toorak, Point Piper, Peppermint Grove, Toorak Gardens and Ascot. Clearly how income is earned is often more important than the income gradient.

@Doug you are correct and in fact the Greens 3CP was slightly higher in Bean than in Fenner (Christie absorbed a chunk of the vote). I think Greens are more likely to hit 2nd in Fenner before Bean with Greens doing better among the more solidly Labor demographics lately (and the lower LNP vote bar to clear). I expect Greens to laser focus on Canberra in 2025 though, leaving Pocock to do his thing in the other electorates.

The No voting part of Bean is the suburb of Chisholm. I checked it has a significant below average of University Degree attainment (23% Vs 42% ACT average) and signing percentage of trades. I wonder this is Canberra only “Middle Australia” suburb to the likes of Frankston?

@ Marh
in the ACT, the suburbs of Charnwood, Dunlop and Holt are seen as the more rough suburbs. However, by Melbourne standards they was not be considered bad at all and will be like Scoresby. The southern suburbs back in the 1970s when the Liberals represented this area federally was often referred to as “Nappy Valley”. Perhaps a legacy of this is that it may look more like pre 2000s Australia somewhat more socially conservative, more religious etc with a less diverse population. While the Gunghalin area is more what i refer to as “Tommorow’s Australia with a more diverse population, a high % of people who practice minority religions etc and look like many other growth areas today around Capital Cities.

Who was that chap in the news recently….. Bruce L?
Mover and shaker in act libs?

Tuggeranong is the closest thing Canberra has to “outer suburbs”. It probably wouldn’t have been built on Canberra’s current design principles as it’s quite far from the city and extremely car dependent even by Canberra standards.

Chisholm has a bit of a “bogan” reputation but not necessarily a “rough” one, not that anywhere in Canberra is all that rough. It’s more anglo and Christian than Belconnen and Gungahlin, qnd has an ageing population. It’s shrinking due to empty nesters (the children of Nappy Valley are moving out) and other parts of Canberra are getting infill and densifying in a way Tuggeranong isn’t (outside the town centre, which is actually on the western edge of the area).

I get the general vibe it would be a solidly Liberal voting area in any other city. Not sure I can explain it, it just seems more like Eastern Melbourne or Northwestern Sydney than other parts of those cities.

I am still surprised by the 2020 ACT result in Brindabella. I thought 2-2-1 was possible but I still thought Liberals would beat Labor on primaries.

South of Isabella Drive, uni degree attainment is lower than the Australian average and there’s less cultural and linguistic diversity. The Greens vote is low, UAP and ON votes were high, and “No” voice vote was high, by ACT standards.

There is a Voices of Bean group, but then again, not all Voices groups will field a candidate or will even get traction. If an independent candidate were to be successful, it would have to one running on a “we’ve been taken for granted” platform, rather than a teal or Climate 200 one.

Otherwise, Labor would easily hold this. The Libs may be better off trying to get their Senate spot back.

@ Votante/John
It is difficult to make a Melbourne/ Sydney comparison with the ACT. However, i am think maybe Outer Eastern suburbs around Croydon, Ringwood North or Hughes would be a good comparison in some respects they were largely all mortgage belt areas in the Mid 70s to the the late 80s , generally less diverse fairly affluent yet less educated.

I think the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne and Berwick is the most correct comparison to Nappy Valley as incomes are still above the national median (but slightly lower than ACT median) although the only difference is Labor performs better there than the Melbourne areas mentioned

Labor have re-preselected sitting MP David Smith for the next election.