Bennelong – Australia 2025

@Politik that would be an interesting play on words, since the franc (e.g the Swiss franc) is a type of currency and gambling involves money.

To the locals, what’s Laxale like as a local MP? Is he well regarded? I’m not from the area but I’m watching with a keen interest.

I’m still not confident of an ALP win here. It’s a naturally Liberal seat. The ALP do seem to be throwing a lot of resources at Bennelong, so maybe they’re in with a chance.

@ElectorialElliot He’s a great local MP – he actively picks up the slack of the State and Local Govt. representatives and takes action on things they refuse to touch/ignore. He’s much more engaged than the previous MP and works very hard. Hope he does well against, yet another, Bennelong parachute candidate from the Libs.

Campaign Update: It’s a bit hard to miss Jerome with a nice big billboard next to Top Ryde Shopping Centre above the main road.

Candidate Update: John August has been confirmed again as the Fusion Party’s candidate. It seems two of the most perennial candidates for Fusion and its iterations are in adjoining electorates (Berowra & Bennelong). John August has run in Bennelong in 2013 (Secular), 2016 (Pirate), 2022 (Fusion) and now 2025 (Fusion). In the years he didn’t run in Bennelong, John August ran in Wentworth in 2010 (Secular) and Senate in 2019 (NSW). John’s best result was last election with 2.13% of the vote.

Actually the big billboard next to Top Ryde City is a Liberal one for Scott Yung.

yes – saw the big sign for Scott Yung while driving through Ryde on the weekend

Using the ‘adjusted to redistribution’ numbers here is how Bennelong has voted compared to the Libs.

% More Liberal than NSW

2004: 4.6% more Lib
2007: 5.1% more Lib
2010: 6.1% more Lib
2013: 6.5% more Lib
2016: 10.6% more Lib
2019: 6.2% more Lib
2022: 1.4% more Lib

In 2022, Bennelong voted the least Liberal compared to NSW that they have in the last 20 years (and probably ever?). You’d think with incumbency, the inner/middle suburbs swinging less than the outer suburbs that this seat might start to vote very similar as NSW as a whole. If Labor can get 50% of the TPP in NSW, I think they have a very good shot of holding here.

i dont see how labor holds this seat. they are starting from behind after the redistribution and only ever seem to do good at landslide election when they come to power. you also have to take into account the retirnig members loss of personal vote. If Alexander had been the candidate libs would have won this.

@drake that still represents a 1.4% swing to the libs in nsw and given hes currently on -0.1 he wuold have to buck the trend and i just dont see how.

@John – Obviously you didn’t read and take on board anything that Drake said. You don’t have to agree with it but you should at least try and acknowledge what other commentators are saying.

“Starting from behind” amounts to 84 votes. Sure, take that to the bank…….

And I pretty sure Drake did take account of the retiring members loss of personal vote – by correctly stating that Labor now have the incumbent (and thus have potential for a surge).

@high street yes but still labor are gonna go backwards in nsw not forwards so he would have to basically pull off what constance almost did in Gilmore.

@Drake “In 2022, Bennelong voted the least Liberal compared to NSW that they have in the last 20 years (and probably ever?).”

The reason why the Lib vote in 2022 dropped so badly was a once-off factor where the high proportion of Asian Australians in Bennelong had voted Labor to avoid voting Scomo in. This was a direct consequence of his hawkish anti-China stance and we saw a similar anti-Liberal trend occuring in seats with high Asian populations, such as Banks, Reid, Chisholm and Tangney.

Labor only wins Bennelong in landslide elections. It has only happened twice, ever – in 2007 (KRudd landslide) and 2022 (Albo landslide). I do not think 2025 will be a landslide election for Labor – they would be considered lucky to be able to hold on.

Not only does the redistribution already put the Liberals at a head start (due to the nature of the areas being added in – wealthy riverside Liberal-leaning Hunters Hill, Woolwich etc), they have an incredibly strong candidate (Scott Yung) and, presumably, a considerable proportion of Asian voters who will swing back to the Liberals due to not seeing an immediate threat to their livelihoods at the moment, unlike in 2022. In an election where Labor is projected to have a swing AGAINST them, I do not see them holding onto Bennelong.

I don’t think the Chinese Australian will swing back very strongly. Albanese and Wong have repaired Australia’s relationship with China, which this community may well reward them for. Dutton is also just about as hawkish as you can get.

Honestly I wonder if Dutton completely nuked his attempts reconciling the Liberal party with Chinese-Australians (and by extension damaging Liberal appeal to CALD communities) by announcing that he wants to put a referendum on allowing the Government to deport “criminal” dual-citizens. (Imo, the definition of criminal is likely subject to the interpretation of the government in power)

Although I don’t live in Bennelong, this proposed referendum and it’s implications scare me and has been met with shock or discontent amongst the Chinese-Australians ik.

I wouldn’t make assumptions about Bennelong instantly correcting back. In addition to what has already been said about Dutton and his track record on China, there’s been several state elections in a row since 2022 where Morrison, or indeed China-Australia relations, were not on the agenda. Labor has consistently done well in places similar to Bennelong in all of these elections, the latest being the WA election in the seats overlapping Tangney. There’s a reasonable expectation for this track record in places like Tangney, Chisholm, Reid and Bennelong to continue.

Now that doesn’t mean Labor wins here – based on the current polling, I still think it’s more likely that these factors aren’t enough to prevent some swing back – but it’s not that unlikely. And there’s also a lot of time for the polling to change – we have seen a considerable shift towards Labor in just the last month, and the campaign has yet to even begin, so there’s plenty of room for things to swing further or back, one way or another.

@Adda Also the seats you mentioned such as Tangney, Chisholm, Reid and Bennelong are all inner-city/middle ring areas (Bennelong’s more inner city than the last iteration following the redistribution into Lane Cove) and these are areas which (if the WA election’s anything to go by) the Liberals are struggling to make any inroad in and I don’t think Dutton is the one to do it. If Malcolm Turnbull or even Josh Frydenberg was leading the Liberals then maybe they’ll have a better chance.

Consequently I think Labor, as long as they try hard enough, have a good chance of retaining Tangney, Bennelong, Chisholm and Reid despite the odds even if they can’t make inroads into seats like Menzies or Deakin this time around.

the libs and dutton have dialled down the rhetoric and anyone including chinese australians should be able to see that they are only addressing security issues not necessarily doing because they are chinese but because of the security related issues surrounding the chinese communist party and their actions.

@adam no but probably enough to win back some of the marginals. including bennelong and tangey. possibly Chisholm but reid will remain labor held for this election.

@tommo labor cannot win bennelong. id give the libs good odds in Chisholm and Tangey but will agree on Reid.

It’s all well and good to quiet down on China a year before the election but anyone who turned on Scomo for threatening China-Australia relations no doubt considers the progress since Albanese to be positive. It’s not hard to point to Dutton’s consistent hawkishness over the last decade on China (probably even more so than Morrison) and scare those voters about a return to the Morrison era relations.

That is assuming that China-Australia relations in themselves are the key factor driving the Chinese vote. I wouldn’t quite put it that way – it seems to me that there’s been significant damage to the Liberal brand as a whole among this cohort, as evidenced by the continued poor performance of the party in this demographic.

Claiming that Labor have no chance here is just pure wishcasting. It’s an extremely tight marginal and we have an entire election campaign to go.

@adda im putting 1k down on Scott Yung to win.

Mate, considering your predictive track record on this site, I would not be betting on elections. I say this as an election bettor myself.

come again?

Just friendly advice. You are losing money in the long run if you are betting on the same lines as your predictions on this site.

For Bennelong in particular, the odds right now are about 1.3 to Liberals. That’s not worth it. There is far too much uncertainty in this seat for that return. The Labor lines might be value, but I prefer to look for other seats.

I’ve profited in every state/federal Australian election since I started punting in 2020 QLD, if that helps back my words up.

@adda. can i get some tips for this one?

Haven’t really placed anything yet. Still a long while to go before the election. Plus seat market lines easily move based on a single punter. That said, while I won’t directly recommend tips you can probably judge based on my comments where I think the best bets are.

Based on my comments as in, when I make predictions like everyone else in these pages. I’m not going to talk about gambling in the comments sections of this site excessively.

Np. I’ll have a look

Pollbludger has NSW shifting 1.3% to the Libs, 1.4% in the newspoll state breakdown. Even if we bump it up a bit to say 2%, I really don’t think it’s that out of the question that Labor can do 2% better here vs the rest of the state.

Labor did 4.06% better here vs NSW in 2019. 4.69% in 2022. With incumbency and campaigning for the first time in Lanes Cove it’s definitely possible.

I don’t think the Chinese vote has come rushing back to the Libs since 2022. Labor did extremely well in the eastern suburbs on Melbourne in the state 2022 election, did very well in heavily Chinese areas in NSW election, held on to Mansfield in QLD, held on to Riverton and Bateman in WA.

I’ll note that Labor campaigned very hard in North Sydney in 2022, and were rewarded with a big swing – so this wouldn’t be the first time campaigning in Lane Cove. The rest of Drake’s points are valid.

@adda thanks il make sure to look out .

Re Bets
Very hard to bet on party based against your own views. 16/1 Labor in Banks worth a try 2.6% only a small margin.

@mick yea i know i never bet against my own team. cant even tip against my own footy team

I honestly don’t know what to expect here. I’m leaning on a Liberal gain but there seem to be a lot of factors that make it feasible for Jerome Laxale to hang on here.

Will be curious if any of the main candidates make a serious gaffe prior to the election. This is a fascinating contest.

@drake that would suggest that the opposite would happen this time. Labor doing better then the rest of new here is different to going against the grain. There was definitely problems with Scomo and the China issue last time plus a sitting member retiring who likely would have held if he didn’t. Jerome not only has to convince everyone who voted for him last time to do the same but new voters. If even some of the Chinese vote comes back it still is a negative for labor. Plus Scott yung is the wonder boy apparently

@Lurking IMO, that dual citizenship proposal wouldn’t affect the Asian Australian community as much as you might think – from personal experiences, crime is heavily, heavily stigmatised and most Asian Australians value peace/safety more than other Australians as a generalised whole, making them rather indifferent to it or even more inclined to support harsher punishment etc.

@Wombater March 26, 2025 at 11:26 pm
I’m very aware that crime is heavily stigmatised in Asian communities as a whole and we’re very unlikely to be breaking the law. However, the majority of dual citizens in Australia are Asian immigrants, and they will be a group of interest to the powers proposed by this referendum. I’d rather not have any possibility this power will be used against Asian-Australians.

Even if the referendum fails, the campaigning will significantly affect Australian society. If the Voice Referendum managed to normalise/increase racism against Aboriginals, imagine what people will do during the campaign to deport Dual Citizens.

I know my opinion is not the main view of Asian-Australians on this proposed referendum, but that’s what drives my curiosity on what the general consensus of Asian-Australians (especially Chinese-Australians) on this referendum. If it’s positive/neutral, it might not affect the result of the several seats. If it’s negative, we could see Asian-Australians vote against the Coalition; this might be interesting for a seat like Bradfield where it’ll be a Teal vs Liberal race. After all, the Teals aren’t appealing to Asian voters and are generally met with apathy.

@Lurking Westie.

Good comments, apart from the error in the last paragraph.

…. Bradfield is NOT a Teal vs Liberal race. There are Labor and Green candidates on the ballot, plus another IND

@High Street, agree that this is not a Libs vs Teals seat. The new seat boundary would had only had narrowly voted Yes to the Voice and most likely even only had narrowly voted Yes to Same Sex Marriage as under the current seat boundary they both narrowly voted No to both.

@high street Bradfield will be a Lib v teal race.

@High Street March 27, 2025 at 9:01 am
I’m anticipating 2pp in Bradfield to be btw Boele and Kapterian, hence why I’m calling it Teal vs LIB

Also for some reason I thought I was typing in the Bradfield thread. To connect it back to Bennelong (as it should’ve been), even if Labor manages to get the majority of the Chinese vote, it’d still be difficult for them to retain this seat compared to Tangney or Chisholm. Everything has to go right for them to retain Bennelong as it’s held on a pretty tight margin and has a strong Liberal candidate.

I’m inclined to say this is a Liberal pickup but there are some wildcards that can affect the result.

Suburbs east of Lane Cover River, and Hunters Hill LGA used to be in North Sydney. These areas are wealthier and more likely to have degree holders and white collar professionals. There could be a political realignment where they are trending progressive. They are also not hit as hard by cost of living issues. Regardless of what they think about their teal MP, they may (or may not) put Labor ahead of Liberals.

There’s also whether Jerome Laxale would get a sophomore surge despite a notional Liberal margin and the likely nationwide swing away from Labor. How does he compare to John Alexander? When JA was the MP, his vote was way higher than the NSW average for the coalition.

This will be a Liberal notional hold which is a shame because Laxale is a great local candidate while Yung is a drop in like the Labor version of Keanelly who has barely been over the Parramatta River in his life. Yung seems to be doing a great job trying to build his name recognition though, you can’t walk through Eastwood Plaza without encountering a trip hazard with his face on it on the weekends.