Boothby – Australia 2025

Would love to know why this is voting Yes, demographics don’t add up to a Yes victory, this is a marginal seat.

Boothby seems to have a relatively strong teal/Green element that’s been masked by Labor being competitive.

Agreee Boothby, has very wealthy ends on its coast and on its Eastern Fringe close to the Adelaide Hills. The Centre of the seat is working class though

Currently Boothby is slightly in favour of No. Adelaide has the highest Yes vote in SA. Postals and large booths haven’t been counted yet.

Boothby is changing, with one of if not the best on the ground local yes23 team, Boothby is a political powerhouse! The new MP Louise Miller-Frost given her experience brands herself as a independent – appealing to that voter block, she is an active member and always has new material distributed in the letterbox.

It is one of the most geographically diverse seats in the country, with the coast, hills, working class middle corridor, incredibly wealthy areas all fighting to define the region.

The next LIB candidate will have to be a woman from the Moderate faction again like Rachel Swift. I wouldn’t be surprised if she runs again given she tried to take the third SA Senate spot but lost to Liddle who went on to win, also rumors she was going to run for the vacated state seat of Bragg but got so stressed out with Boothby she alienated her vollys.

Louise Miller-Frost will retain but it’s debatable whether of not she achieves a swing towards or against her.

I’ll give my mid-term thoughts. I don’t know much about Louise Miller-Frost but I sense that at this rate she will hold unless there’s a major stuff-up. She may get a sophomore surge, following a retreat in votes for the Greens, who overperformed in 2022, the teal candidate and UAP/ONP. It’ll be interesting to see if Liberal-turned teal voters will vote for Labor next time.

I agree with the above comment that Boothby is very diverse in socio-economics and demographics. For example, Glenelg and surrounds have a large retiree population and high median age. Netherby over in the east is quite affluent, small l-liberal and “teal”. Both aforementioned areas are strongly Liberal-voting.

Some interesting news today Nicolle Flint, the former MP appears to be making a comback to the seat of Boothby stating she’s ruled out a tilt at MacKillop, a South East seat in which her family has farmed for generations.

Liberal sources said she had been declaring “my heart is in Boothby”, opening the prospect of her standing again in the southwestern Adelaide marginal federal seat.

What are the thoughts of a Nicolle Flint v Louise Miller-Frost match?

She won’t win, Flint was unpopular and she has continued attacking moderates within the party and blaming them for the state election loss in 2022.

Flint will be a gift for Labor and will cause Labor to hold this seat and may cause the Liberals to be in trouble in Sturt due to resources being diverted.

@Kent Davidson I thought Flint retired because she got “bullied and harassed” (this may have something to with the Friendlyjordies video about her). Friendlyjordies (Jordan Shanks) is a Labor puppet but not only that, he’s like a mujahideen for the Labor Party: he did all he could to destabilise the Coalition government federally and in NSW. Even me coming from a Liberal family (my father has vited Liberal all his life) I at least sometimes give credit to other parties in addition to praises (and occasional criticisms) of politicians from across the board, and at least I’m not destabilising a government and interfering with democratic principles like Shanks. Not to mention his self-proclaimed “centrist” mate Isaac Butterfield (politically a dickhead). That’s a different story.

@Daniel T the SA Liberal Party will be mostly trying to defend Sturt as it’s the only Liberal seat in Adelaide. Any remaining resources will be used in Boothby.

Interestingly South Australia seems to be full of people who vote two different ways on the federal and state level, since the NSW/SA Liberals are more moderate than the federal Liberals and NSW/QLD/SA Labor are less progressive than federal Labor. Hence why Giles is a Labor seat (note that it’s mostly based on Whyalla, an industrial city that still voted Labor albeit nowhere near as much as it used to), while some of the state Liberal seats in Adelaide overlap with federal Labor seats; for example, SA Opposition Leader David Speirs’ seat of Black is a marginal Liberal seat that overlaps with the federal seats of Boothby (a marginal Labor seat) and Kingston (a safe Labor seat).

Nether Portal, I’m curious as to what Shanks did that was “interfering with democratic principles”. I’m not a fan of his so I don’t know what’s being referred to here.

Fun fact is this seat swung to Labor five times in a row on a 2PP basis which is fairly rare I think – 1998, 2001, 2004, 2007, and 2010. Boothby looks like it’s gradually been becoming more Labor-leaning and now sits around the Labor 2PP in SA. SA is generally a Labor-leaning state and with this seat aligning with Labor’s state-wide support, Labor should be somewhat favoured here unless they have a fairly bad election in SA like 2013 or like things were in the Howard years.

Wilson from what I read shanks got into trouble for defamatory remarks against many coalition mps.

If Boothby, due to its multitude of variables including Flint possibly running, what seats, irrespective of margin, are of concern for the ALP?

AKD,

Lyons, Lingiari, Blair, Hunter, Shortland, Werriwa, Paterson, Dobell, Robertson, Hasluck, Tangney, McEwen, Bennelong and Richmond (Elliot likely won’t lose but the coalition need all the regional seats if they cannot take back Higgins or teal seats)

Flint’s nomination is also not formally confirmed. If she gets nominated, I will then wonder if there’ll be a spillover effect and f it’ll surpress the moderal liberal vote in Sturt – a seat on a thing margin and quite teal-ish.

Regarding Friendly Jordies, he is a bit of a loose cannon but I don’t think he’s a Labor stooge. For example, he sided with Troy Stolz, an anti-gambling whistleblower. Troy Stolz ran as an independent against NSW Labor leader Chris Minns in his seat of Kogarah in 2023. He also featured Helen Dalton (a NSW independent MP) on his channel. He goes off on various politicians and business people and he got into a legal battle wih John Barilaro and got threatened with one from Clive Palmer.

FJ despises organised political movements to the left of Labor, especially if they’ve clashed with him (I e. on Twitter). I think he takes more issue with frequent Green aligned Twitter posters than the actual MPs but same effect. Dalton and Stoltz would get a different treatment if they were an actual threat to Labor, but the former isn’t in her electorate, and the latter was never an actual threat to Minns.

I think Labor will retain Boothby – it’s really not Dutton territory and has fairly strong Green/teal vibes for an SA seat.

@Daniel T another seat I’d add to that list is Gilmore. It’s the most marginal federal seat in the entire country and in 2022 the Liberals (Andrew Constance) came within 300 votes of gaining it back from Labor (Fiona Philips).

Constance is a popular local figure and I think centrists should want him to win Gilmore since he’s a possible contender to replace Dutton as leader.

The Liberal state executive on Tuesday opened nominations for Boothby preselection, declaring they will close on April 2. Former Liberal Boothby MP Nicolle Flint is said to recontest federal politics in old seat. Thoughts?

@Meyer last time Flint held the seat she held it on ever dwindling margins (2.8 in 2016, 1.8 in 2019). The people of Adelaide are smart enough to see through that she’s a fake and fraud in her outrage against the likes of GetUp and Labor whilst accusing them of bullying. Boothby on the other hand is becoming more progressive (the liberal sections are more small-l than big-L) with a working class chunk in the middle. Louise Miller-Frost, barring a major balls-up, should also receive a sophomore surge and should have no problem keeping the seat.

I agree with @Tommo9, I feel this similar to Higgins and that it was one of Small L Liberal demographically Tealish is many parts that fell to Labor. i have mentioned before that pretty much all the seats the Libs lost in 2022 can fall into 3 categories Tealish/Small L Liberal (Teal seats, Brisbane Green seats, Higgins/Boothby), Chinese community seats (Chisholm, Bennelong, Reid) or WA seats. The one exception was Robertson. Tangney is all 3.

@Nimalan is Reid also a bellwether?

I mean historically it isn’t but could it be in the future?

@ NP
Reid was actually becoming stronger for the Coalition, relative to the rest of the country according to Ben’s analysis prior to the 2022 election. That makes sense as the waterfront areas in Canada Bay LGA were trending Liberal and we can see this at a state level. This similar to the case of Banks. The current Reid is really the Old seat of Lowe with the addition of Silverwater and Lidcombe which has been held by both parties. For this reason, i am not sure if is really a bellwether and if the Chinese Community had not been alienated and some small l liberal voters around Strathfield (private school territory), whether it would have fallen. Labor won a majority without Banks for the first time ever in 2022, if Labor can someday maybe not in 2025 win seats such as Petrie, Forde etc maybe Labor will win majority without Reid, i think it is too early to tell. Alternatively, population growth in North West Melbourne will create another strong Labor seat which means Labor will not need Reid.

https://www.tallyroom.com.au/47432

@Nimalan the Liberal Party still holds the state seat of Drummoyne albeit marginally. It has a large Chinese community. Same as Ryde which they also hold albeit ultra-marginally. Drummoyne overlaps with Reid and Ryde overlaps with Bennelong, and both Bennelong and Reid are federal Labor seats with large Chinese communities.

As for Forde and Petrie, I don’t think they’ll fall any time soon.

Stathfield is a state Labor seat though, I should note.

@ NP
Agree with you, if we compare state and federal results. The State Libs actually over performed the Federal Libs in Drummoyne, Ryde, Epping, Northern Sydney, areas contained in the Federal seat of Greenway and Vaucluse. Drummoyne, Ryde and Epping will all be Labor seats on Federal results. The State Libs have not used Hawkish rhetoric towards China so maintained better support among this community.
I also agree with you i think it is unlikely they will fall in 2025, However, if Labor is thinking long term even if Labor does not any seats to the coalition for enlargements sake they could loose Richmond, Higgins and Macnmara to the Greens and maybe loose a seat through a redistribution and they are already in minority.

*Petrie, Forde will fall

Nicolle Flint will attempt a return at politics after being preselected as the Liberal candidate to take on Louise Miller-Frost in her former seat.

I look forward to Flint having a sulk if she’s defeated. Her political stances (ala hard conservative) is becoming increasingly out of line for her electorate that is becoming more progressive.

@tommo given the current state of labor she stands a good chance oof winning

Even if Labor loses government in 2025 they will very likely hold on to Chisholm, Reid, Swan and Boothby they are very demographically unfavourable to Dutton. Just had Rudd held on to Kingston, Makin etc in 2013.

@nimalan labor will fall into minority on their loses in wa alone. they will lose seats in nsw to redistribution and will probably lose lyons in tasmania and lingiari in nt. they probly wont make any gains in qld and vic will probably be neutral if not 1-2 either way at most. this govt cannot make majority govt at the next election and i think it is for that reason labor will wait until may 2025 to hold the election

@ John
I am not saying the Libs cant win government in 2025 but i mentioned those 4 seats are out of reach. They are more likely to win a seat like Werriwa , Lyons, Blair, Pearce, Hasluck, McEwen etc from Labor but not Boothby, Chisholm, Reid or Swan. These seats are demographically hostile to Dutton so they should look elsewhere.

@john Don’t want to sound combative but it seems every post you’ve made you seem to have a pro-Liberal stance towards winning and saying it will be doomsday for Labor next year. There’s still over a year to go and whilst Labor support has slipped they’re still ahead of the Coalition and the reality is many of the seats the Liberals lost won’t come back in one term unless if Labor balls-up majorly in the next year (which is a possibility). Seats like Chisholm, Reid, Bennelong, Boothby and even the WA seats you refer to like Swan, Pearce and Hasluck are trending more Labor as the time goes by, and they don’t like Dutton so that will play a factor.

Are you suggesting that Liberals with their culture warring and constant negativity will be a winning factor even though they’ve been nothing but unproductive policy-wise?

@il agree to reid and chisholm which will probably be made safer by the redistribution but i wont rule ou swan and boothby, swan is gonna get a redistribution that may favour libs. Id bet on them winning werriwa lyons blair pearce and mcewen but not hasluck as hasluck is most likely gonna be made safer by shedding the more rurual and regional parts and focusing on the city of swan. remember that CoL is gonna be the central issue of this election and if interest rates go up as much as three times tipped by some economists that will hurt the govt. if the AEC is bold enough to abolish grayndler reid will be lost to the coalition almost indefinitely. personally as much as i want to win government in 2025 i dont think the libs will be able to get enough seats without taking some teal seats back. i think having them back a labor minority govt will help the coaltion in this regard

@ John
Boothby is quite tealish and socially progressive and Swan has a lot of inner city tealish areas, there is a university and also there is a large Muslim community as well. Reid and Chisholm have large Chinese community which is hostile towards Dutton

Agree Nimalan, the demographics which are shaping up to be good for the Coalition are white working-class voters in mostly rural settings (Lyons as the prime candidate but could also include Gilmore and Eden Monaro) and then the rest of the outer suburban districts with low proportions of electors from minority/CALD backgrounds (seats like Werriwa, Macarthur, Pearce, Hasluck and McEwen to name a few).

Boothby doesn’t fit the bill of the typical outer suburban, working class electorate that Dutton and LNP are targeting. It is quite teal towards the south, especially in the foothills and near Flinders Uni. They will be put off by Flint and the lead Liberal Senate candidate, Alex Antic.

Libs might be better off sandbagging Sturt or rewinning their third Senate seat.

I wonder if moderate or small l liberal voters will swing away from the Senate Libs simply because Alex Antic is their lead candidate.

@ Votante, i would also add the beachside suburbs are quite affluent as well and a bit like Goldstein, just like Yoh an said as well this is not really friendly demographics for Dutton.

@nimalan you forgetting that swan was held by the libs until the last election when they lost it on a retiring member, ant the western australia factors so i think its doable because albo isnt exactly hot stuff in wa he only won on the back of the anti morrison, covid and mark mcgowan vote of the seats lost in wa i think the libs can win 4 of the 5 plus the new division and could possibly win cowan thank to the redistribution as well i think hasluck is gone because of te redistribution though

@ John
I agree that Swan was held until the last election and is in WA. However, even compared to WA it is much more labor leaning than WA as whole, i agree the margin is inflated but it is a bare minimum gain for Labor. Also think about Swan demographically, it is not really mortgage belt, the South Perth part is tealish well educated private schools etc, there is a University (Curtin) in Swan and ethnic working class voters especially Muslims in the eastern part. I think the Libs have a much better chance in Hasluck even with an unfavourable redistribution as it is mortgage belt, more White, Outer Suburban. Labor may suffer a 7% statewide swing in WA and can hold on in Swan as the swing will be higher in the mortgage belt outer suburbs and lower closer the city.

@Votante The point you make about university-educated people is really important I think. I have friends who are either uni-educated or are in university and they said that depending on the policies of each party they’re happy to vote for either side based on their trajectories in terms of political agenda, but as soon as the name Peter Dutton is mentioned pretty much all of them go ‘Ewwww Peter Dutton’ and just refuse to vote Liberals.

I think even for the supposed target seats that the Coalition is going for, Dutton’s still too toxic for even the swing voters to consider as leader. Maybe Lyons, Gilmore, McEwen and at a stretch Blair might be in-line for a takeover but places like Werriwa, McMahon are very multicultural and Dutton would certainly not be a favourable leader to them. They’d be more likely to fall to Dai Le’s party rather than the Coalition anytime soon.

@ Tommo9
I dont think McMahon will fall at all tbh. Chris Bowen is no KK and he has strong links with the ethnic communities. I think Blair is more likely than McEwen as McEwen includes affluent well educated areas like the Macedon Ranges and Nilumbik which are tealish. However, other parts of McEwen are mortgage belt so will be sensitive to interest rates. Werriwa has been underperfoming for Labor for sometime and i think it maybe in the best interest of Labor to have a new MP as i think Anne Stanley is underperfoming. However, Palestine may hurt Liberals in Werriwa.

@Nimalan Gough Whitlam would be spinning in his grave if Werriwa ever fell to someone other than Labor. Agree that they do need someone high profile and preferably local in that seat otherwise they could be in trouble.

Labor would be hoping for Shayne Neumann to hang on in Blair next election and they’d also be praying that the next redistribution will carve out Esk, Kilcoy, Jimna and other Somerset council areas and be exclusively Ipswich/Springfield-based which will seal the seat for Labor. As for McEwen, it’s such a bits and bobs electorate it’s really hard to tell whether Labor would do well or not. There isn’t that much rural countryside that leads Coalition in that seat anymore and it’s mostly just outer-fringe of Melbourne so given that outer Melbourne swung to the Liberals over the pandemic a correction vote should help Mitchell retain it.

Back to Boothby, I can already sense the saltiness of Nicolle Flint in trying to run for this seat again in the name of wanting Dutton as the PM more than anything else. Labor really just has to stay the course with Louise Miller-Frost and work hard in this year and she’ll retain it no problem. Flint is just a massive political liability who’s becoming more and more out of touch with her constituents on both sides.

@Tommo9
Agree with you commentary with just add a few more points.
I agree the loss of Werriwa will be devastating for Labor symbolically as well it almost a mirror of the loss of Higgins for the Libs. Werriwa on current boundaries is more socially mixed than say Fowler, Chifley or Blaxland but Labor should be doing much better in the working class core along the rail line and Green Valley. A more high profile and local MP would do much better and this should be represented by someone who will be a future minister or even leader.
I agree Shayne Neumann is a good fit for Blair and longer term the prospects are promising for Labor especially the growth of Greater Springfield and if Somerset Region is removed. Fun Fact, the Somerset Region saved Dutton in 2007 when it was in Dickson.
Regarding, McEwen i agree there should be a pandemic correction in Outer Melbourne. Only thing is as parts of this seat are mortgage belt there could be a swing here on interest rates etc.
Finally, Back to Boothby, Nicole Flint is not a good fit for this seat. She would be better off as the member for Barker. It is generally socially progressive and the Libs would be better of with a more moderate MP.

@Nimalan I think Labor had their Higgins moment when they lost Fowler and Griffith back in 2022, but then again it’s probably somewhat saved by the fact that they lost it to Dai Le and the Greens rather than the Liberals who lost Higgins to Labor of all parties (and apparently they’re running Katie Allen again in that electorate).

Today Dutton also announced that Amy Grantham (Adelaide candidate in 2022) and Irena Zagladov has been endorsed as the candidates for Adelaide and Makin respectively. With Adelaide being much safer for Labor thanks to a strip of Western suburbs on the west and Tony Zappia being a popular member up north I don’t see how the Liberals are going to get anywhere near those seats. Not to mention there’s a big ethnic Middle-Eastern/Vietnamese population living north of Regency Road in Adelaide who would find Dutton’s previous records toxic and that area’s as red as it gets.

Boothby will be competitive I suspect but I reckon Miller-Frost will still win. Sturt on the other hand will be the biggest competition in a while. I can see Labor and Liberal going hard in that seat, the latter might be diverting all their resources there and leave Flint on her own devices.

@Tommo9
Certainly, Fowler was an embarrassing loss for Labor in 2022 which is why i think KK won the Sophie Mirabella memorial prize as someone else mentioned. Griffith is probably not has much of a Higgins moment while it has been held by a former PM. It has also been held by the Libs as well and maybe Rudd’s tenure masked a demographic shift that was taking place. Griffith is similar to Macmnamara in many ways and not the seat it once was. I dont think Hindmarsh, Adelaide, Makin, Kingston are in play at all eventhough they were held by the Libs during the Howard era by the Libs. I think Sturt is a good prospect for a Labor pick up.

@Nimalan You can put Spence in that category too. From people that I’ve heard in that area people might not be happy with Labor but they refuse to vote Liberal and consider Labor to be the lesser of the two evils. On the other hand if Sturt falls to Labor then the Liberals will hold no seats in metro Adelaide and only 2 in the entire state. How embarrassing if that ever to fruition. That of course is contingent on Labor holding onto Boothby as well, but given Miller-Frost currently holds it on a higher margin than Flint ever did she’d at least win one more term if that trajectory followed.

With Griffith I always thought that being Rudd’s old seat it would’ve been at least fairly safe for Labor but IIRC they haven’t won the primary vote since 2013. It was either the Liberals or the Greens (2022), the latter of whom pushed Labor into 3rd place which was unthinkable even 10 years ago. I thought with a sort of high-profile MP in Terri Butler they would’ve been able to hold on and she’d be a cabinet minister today, but even then she got gazumped by MCM and lost completely even though I don’t see what she did wrong in that area. Either the Greens overperformed or the Labor name in Queensland is just dodgy for some reason.

Tommo, I would say some of the suburbs covered by Griffith are more affluent in nature which means voters there prefer a moderate, small ‘l’ type Liberal candidate. I believe that explains why Labor isn’t performing strongly there, and why the Liberals and Greens tend to perform better.

As a rough analogue, some suburbs like Bulimba and Morningside might be like the affluent inner northern suburbs of Sydney such as Cammeray and Mosman (albeit considered less ‘elite’ and attractive).

For Sturt, the heavy swings are due to are larger “Tealish” demographic and Scott Morrison’s Anti-China stance which doesn’t fit well with a sizable Chinese community there (especially around the Southern and Eastern parts).