LIB 2.5% vs IND
Incumbent MP
Paul Fletcher, since 2009.
Geography
Northern Sydney. Bradfield covers the Ku-ring-gai council area and most of the Willoughby council area. Key suburbs include Wahroonga, St Ives, Pymble, Turramurra, Killara, Lindfield, Gordon, Roseville, Castle Cove, Chatswood, Willoughby and Artarmon.
Redistribution
Bradfield shifted south, taking in about one third of the abolished seat of North Sydney. Specifically Bradfield took in most of the Willoughby council area, including Artarmon, Castlecrag, Middle Cove, Naremburn, Northbridge and Willoughby. The suburb of Hornsby was moved from Bradfield to Berowra, so the electoral boundary now mostly follows the local government boundary between Hornsby and Ku-ring-gai. The seats of North Sydney and Bradfield both had a teal independent in the final two-candidate-preferred count, and the changes reduced the Liberal margin against those independents from 4.2% to 2.5%.
History
The seat was created for the 1949 election, and has always been held by the Liberal Party.
It was first won by former Prime Minister Billy Hughes in 1949. Hughes had been an MP since he won election to the NSW colonial parliament in 1894, and had then held the federal seats of West Sydney, Bendigo and North Sydney. He had originally served as a Labor prime minister before leaving the party over the issue of conscription and leading the new Nationalist party. He eventually ended up in Robert Menzies’ Liberal Party and was the last remaining member of the first federal Parliameent to hold a seat.
Hughes died in office in 1952, and the ensuing by-election was won by state Liberal MP Harry Turner.
Turner held the seat for the next twenty-two years, and never rose to a ministerial role during twenty years of Coalition government. He retired at the 1974 election, and was succeeded by David Connolly.
Connolly also held Bradfield for twenty-two years, and was expected to take on a ministerial role after the 1996 election, but lost preselection to Brendan Nelson, former president of the Australian Medical Association.
Nelson won Bradfield in 1996 and quickly rose through the ranks of the Liberal government, joining the cabinet following the 2001 election and serving first as Minister for Education and then Minister for Defence.
Following the defeat of the Howard government in 2007, Brendan Nelson was elected Leader of the Opposition, narrowly defeating Malcolm Turnbull in the party room. His leadership was troubled by low poll ratings and being undermined by Turnbull and his supporters, and Nelson lost a leadership spill in September 2008. Nelson resigned from Parliament in 2009, triggering a by-election in Bradfield.
The 2009 Bradfield by-election was held in December, and was a contest between the Liberal Party and the Greens, with the ALP declining to stand a candidate, along with a field of twenty other candidates, including nine candidates for the Christian Democratic Party. While the Greens substantially increased their vote, Liberal candidate Paul Fletcher comfortably retained the seat. Fletcher has been re-elected five times.
Candidates
Sitting Liberal MP Paul Fletcher is not running for re-election.
Assessment
If the teal independents were to pick up an extra seat in 2025, Bradfield is a very clear frontrunner. The seat has taken in about a third of an abolished seat that has been represented by an independent for the last three years, and the previous form of Bradfield had a strong independent of a similar style and political ideology in 2022.
Nicolette Boele has been actively campaigning for Bradfield since her 2022 defeat. She will be a serious contender, but the particular circumstances that led to independents winning in northern Sydney in 2022 is not quite so present now.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Paul Fletcher | Liberal | 43,562 | 45.0 | -15.3 | 43.7 |
| Nicolette Boele | Independent | 20,198 | 20.9 | +20.9 | 22.9 |
| David Brigden | Labor | 16,902 | 17.5 | -3.7 | 17.7 |
| Martin Cousins | Greens | 8,960 | 9.3 | -4.4 | 8.6 |
| Janine Kitson | Independent | 3,018 | 3.1 | +3.1 | 2.4 |
| Rob Fletcher | United Australia | 2,496 | 2.6 | +0.7 | 2.3 |
| Michael Lowe | One Nation | 1,568 | 1.6 | +1.6 | 1.5 |
| Others | 1.0 | ||||
| Informal | 3,616 | 3.6 | -0.5 |
2022 two-candidate-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Paul Fletcher | Liberal | 52,447 | 54.2 | 52.5 | |
| Nicolette Boele | Independent | 44,257 | 45.8 | 47.5 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Paul Fletcher | Liberal | 54,685 | 56.5 | -10.0 | 56.2 |
| David Gordon Brigden | Labor | 42,019 | 43.5 | +10.0 | 43.8 |
Booths have been divided into three parts. Polling places in the Ku-ring-gai council area have been split in two while those in the Willoughby council area have been grouped together.
The Liberal Party won 55.8% of the two-candidate-preferred vote in North Ku-ring-gai, while independents won 50.7% in South Ku-ring-gai and 53.6% in Willoughby.
Labor came third, with a primary vote ranging from 14.4% in North Ku-ring-gai to 21.1% in Willoughby.
| Voter group | ALP prim | LIB 2CP | Total votes | % of votes |
| South Ku-ring-gai | 16.5 | 49.3 | 21,377 | 19.2 |
| North Ku-ring-gai | 14.4 | 55.8 | 19,083 | 17.1 |
| Willoughby | 21.1 | 46.4 | 16,671 | 15.0 |
| Pre-poll | 18.8 | 52.7 | 33,487 | 30.1 |
| Other votes | 17.6 | 57.2 | 20,709 | 18.6 |
Election results in Bradfield at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-candidate-preferred votes (Liberal vs Independent), two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, independent candidates and Labor.
Here is an unknown
But this seat is situated in a area of declining liberal influence . The north shore of Sydney.
The resignation of the sitting lib Mp and the boundary changes. Maybe shift the vote a couple of % to the teal.
I don’t know if the resignation of the sitting MP necessarily does drag the Liberal vote here, if anything the preselection of a moderate aligned and younger female candidate might help buffer them against the teal vote.
It’s a combo of both
@Sabena,
Sorry I missed your comment on 29 Jan.
I am not sure what that list of data is (I note you gave a reference) but its looks to be movement in the Liberal primary vote, which is a bit moot in a preferential system – most of the data is ancient history. In making my comment I was relying on nothing more than the graph our esteemed blog host provides on each electorate preview. The last 4 results for Bradfield are:
2013: NSW LIB 2PP 54.4 Bradfield LIP 2PP 70.7
2016: NSW LIB 2PP 50.5 Bradfield LIP 2PP 71.0 (change -3.9 vs +0.3)
2019: NSW LIB 2PP 51.8 Bradfield LIP 2PP 66.6 (change +1.3 vs -4.4
2022: NSW LIB 2PP 48.6 Bradfield LIP 2PP 56.2 (change -3.2% vs -10.8%)
So yes, in 2022, they moved in the same direction, but with a 7% differential. In the previous two they moved in the opposite direction, with an average differential of approx 5%.
These area dances to its own beat nowadays
2016 & 2019 mirror a lot of affluent urban seats.
2016 (Turnbull) the Liberals copped a swing against overall, but generally had a positive swing in affluent inner-urban areas. The Liberals even had their best ever 2PP in Melbourne Ports / Macnamara in 2016.
2019 (Morrison) the Liberals had a small positive swing overall, but copped a pretty heavy swing against them in affluent inner-urban areas.
2022 is in line with that broader trend too. The Liberals did cop a beating across the country overall that year, but it was far more pronounced in affluent inner-urban seats than it was in outer suburban & regional areas.
How time changes… less than 10 years ago the endorsed liberal would have won any seat on the north shore except Ryde based. Ones.
Now this part of Sydney is a problem both in terms of elections and the reduction in funding available. This leads to serious competition in such area’s which tend to march to the beat of a different drum.
mick the same can be said for inner city seats for labor who are now not just under threat from the greens but from independents as well
@High Street-you are right to say that the seat is less safe than it used to be.
At this election the generic polls are indicating a swing to the Liberals and it seems unlikely that there will be a swing to Boelle in those circumstances,particularly given the 15% swing against Fletcher on primaries last time.If you do a search of Psephos you will find his site which cover all Australian elections and some overseas ones as well.
Boundary changes +1.8% teal
Less fletcher’s personal vote -1% liberal in
That gives roughly 1.5% liberal margin without any swing 2022 to 2025.
????
Are there really teal-curious Liberal voters who would switch based on Fletcher being swapped out for a moderate-aligned female candidate? If anything I’d have it the other way
@ maxim
I don’t know but he claimed to be a moderate.
Any thoughts on the campaign so far?
Boele mentioned on her socials that over 600 attended her campaign launch last Sunday. I think the sitting teal MPs had similar numbers of volunteers in 2022 but they were in different electorates at a different time.
@mick ive met him before and he seems to a nice guy and im dissapointed to see him go.
@Maxim – would agree. If the libs kept the same do nothing candidate then that would be a good opportunity to try something different. At least with a new lib candidate, liberal voters can tell themselves that this one might be different
@Maxim
I tend to agree with your skepticism about further bleeding from LIB to Teal – I think there is a strong chance the Teal vote has topped out and just because Boele has been active and has a lot more $$ to spend this time does not mean many extra votes. Tink spent 1.8M in North Sydney and barely got 25% primary, so it not like $$ are a guaranteed path to a high primary vote
What I would be interested to hear views on though (there is probably data) is what % of voters are deciding on local candidates and who looking at the Leader and policy? We’ve just had a long discussion above about relativity of state and seat swings over time and the factors at play – these aren’t primary driven by local candidate factors. With Dutton as Leader, I can’t see Kaperterian increasing the Liberal vote much on ’22 when the entire electorate has lost the Liberal MP incumbency factor (two MP’s relevant)
The advantage of a new candidate – i.e. Gisele Kapterian – is that they are invariably younger, hungrier and keen to make a mark. Fletcher would have been complacent last time – she will not be. She just has to hold the line to win.
I think we are seeing a new era where MPs in safe seats can’t be complacent. They will all have to work that much harder. MPs in marginal seats have always known this. It might see more churn too as they might just exhaust themselves.
@Redistrubuted – perhaps we need better quality Senators as more Ministers may come from the Upper chamber, with member of the House generally to focused on holding their seat. Any Party that has someone at the top of their Senate ticket that doesn’t have the stature and ability to be a Senior Minister really should be having a good look at themselves.
@High Street – usually the top skill of the top senate ticket is to convince members of the dominant faction to put them there. Not necessarily ministerial qualities. There seem plenty of plodders and outright terrible senators from the majors
High Street
I think the Libs may have already learned this – the opposition front bench seems to be senate heavy – Nats excepted. Labor does have a problem though, they have some high quality senators such as Penny Wong and Murray Watt but there are some timeservers / time wasters such as Helen Polley who (I don’t know this) do decent constituency work but have nothing to contribute to the national debate. They have too many timeservers and party / union hacks.
PS: I often listen to the senate when cooking dinner and the level of contribution from some Labor senators is at Year 9 or 10 level and obviously written by a staffer who is not much beyond Year 9 or 10.
PPS: You also get the absolutely bizarre from Malcolm Roberts, Gerrard Rennick or Ralph Babet but that is just at a different level altogether.
Redistributed, your last comment about the hard right senators like Malcolm Roberts and Gerard Rennick reminds me of the behaviour from some hardcore Republican Senators in the US such as Tommy Tuberville (Alabama) who frequently pulled stunts in Congress and made controversial remarks to the media. He and others of that background were generally ridiculed by others in the party who were more mainstream.
@YohAn
The converse,however,does not seem to be the case with the Democrats.
Interesting that the UGov MRP has the IND/s on 24% and Labor on near 20% with 10% for the Greens to be distributed before the final exclusion. The Liberal primary is below the 2022 result on the new boundarties, Other Teal seats show similar trends, as UComms polls have shown over the last 12 months (when dropped to friendly media).
The 2CP result is a bit odd though – states 2.3% swing to IND but still a margin 51.9 to 48.1 to LIB. This would mean the staring margin is 4.2%, however this was the result on the old boundaries – the general estimate on the new boundaries is 2.5%, which would mean the result of this poll is actually 50.2%, not almost 52%……
Perhaps a question to UGov is requried..
And off these primaries the 2PP would be expected to be 53/47 – approx 2.8% behind the 2CP, which would line up with 2022 results for close Teal IND & Labor primaries. But the UGov sheet says a 0% 2PP swing – the 2022 2PP result is around 5.5 – 6.5% margin, so there’s more like a 2-3% 2PP swing, not 0%…
@high street they have adjusted the swing based on the 2022 result the do data shows the real swing of 0.6%
The mrp despite its large total sample has only a small individual seat sample size. It predicts a swing by area then tries to” guess ‘ with adjustments for each indiv seat.
It use is only valid in its global figures and WAS NEVER INTENDED TO ESTIMATE THE RESULT IN ANY GIVEN SEAT.
in areas like here where the normal ” classic” result is broken it tells you nothing about the probable result
Also remember it assumes same preferences at last election and doesn’t take into account swing voters
Yes, yes, yes, we all know that Mick – but the point is it HAS polled lots of voters that are demographically similar to Bradfield (or any seat) and this is its seat prediction. They have gone to a lot of trouble to make a very nice user interface so I think we are entitled to discuss it. Based on its polling of similar demographic groups it has the Liberal primary flat lining or softening in most teal and teal like seats – not massive bounce back. And its not eh IND primary that is increasing but the Labor one – that a general trend across numerous seats.
@John, I really don’t know what you mean by saying “doesn’t take into account swing voters”. It appears you always have a ready made theory for why a poll result is less positive for the Liberals than the reality…..
@high street swing voters who voted labor or teal may decide to vote liberal this time. First you need to ask people who they voted for and preferenced last time and who they intends to vote and preference this time. These polls usually assume prefernces to act the same way as last time.
Why that can be assumed in a govt that stays in power or increases its vote when it goes the other way it’s harder to predict and account for
@high Street
They in that case need a good demographer.
How do you classify Greenway or Reid via demographics
@John, how people vote for first preference and how that group of voters for each candidate as a block will allocate their preferences are two separate things. I was told today at UGov have used respondent allocated preferences, rather than last election – even though as Kevin Bonham points out, last election preferences have a better track record. Maybe this election respondent will be better, maybe not – at this stage, we don’t know
And just for the record, swing voters may include voters who voted liberal or teal may decide to vote labor this time. I think you are displaying a bit of bias there to not acknowledge voters can swing in both directions.
BTW – Your initial point that it doesn’t take into account swing voters seems to be a total fabrication…
Of course actual preferences from 2022 will be more accurate. You are taking.a tiny sample (room for error there) then massaging the result to reflect a global figure or individual seat figures( this compound s the error)
There has been a distinct trend for sometime in polling that respondent allocated preferences have been consistently friendlier to the LNP than the 2022 result, backed up by real data from elections since (Fadden by-election and QLD state in particular). It is not a ‘tiny sample’ when considered in context.
Regarding the MRPs in teal seats I find they are likely understating the primary of the LNP and IND generally from what is likely to actually happen in the individual seats. In the recent YouGov one for example Kooyong has Ryan getting 29% of the vote with Hamer on 39%, that’s down from about 40% and 42%, with the excess flowing mostly back to Labor and the Greens – doubt we’ll see that…
I have to agree that you are probably right Maxim, but I think these figures tend to reflect what voters base underlying preferences are. Then the Teal IND’s and their groupies go to work on their “Labor can’t win so its a waste to vote for them/ tactical voting” stick and the Labor and Green primaries drop on election day. I think there is some of that being reflected in these figures, but not all of it.
However if Liberal got 42% in 2022 and a poll has them on 39% now, I don’t think that drop can be dismissed. Its been a consistent feature of seat polls in Teal held seats for a year now
It is almost a mistake that the seat by seat numbers are even published as there are so many holes that can be poked in them. It would better if they kept the headline figure only and possibly a state breakdown.
High Streeet
re; your question to @maxim:-
Former Speaker Watson, of Western Australia, was said by Antony Green to have accumulated a large personal vote. It doesn’t have to be a merely idiotypical vote – As it transferred fairly readily to his approved successor.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/wa/2021/guide/alba
The same dynamic applied to Cathy McGowan, who clearly won on the basis of her personal vote. She was then able to act as accoucheur to Helen Haines’ accession to Hoouse of Reps.
Labor candidate announced today.
Louise McCallum, a local from the Ku-ring-gai area. As local and as “Of the Community” as the Independent is.
Ben, Labor candidate announced last week and I understand a Green’s candidate got announced somewhere along the way too
@Phil (and anyone who lives in or is very familiar with Bradfield and the former North Sydney)
Do you think that Kylea Tink was popular in North Sydney to the point that her supporters would vote for Nicole Boele due to Tink’s support for Boele’s campaign?
The support Teal to Teal would be inter chageable.
Thanks High Street, I noted your previous comments. I do candidate updates once a fortnight.
No worries @Ben
@Lurking Westie – I live in Bradfield close to the old boundary with North Sydney. Kylea Tink received 25.2% of the primary vote in 2022, so “popular” is a relative term. I don’t feel she has got more popular by being the member. The campaign against the AEC redistribution decision was embarrassing. The assertion that they had picked on her deliberately because she was a female IND, was disgraceful..
It all depends on how many people of non English speaking background enrol. At our primary school in the electorate, around 65% speak some form of Chinese at home and 80% are non English speaking at home. Neither the Teal or Lib candidate would appeal to these voters, nor would the Labor Party. Some might vote for Andy Yin who has the slogan Not Right Not Left Just Forwards. We’ll see.
As a local of Bradfield, I can say that while I’m not sure of whether Paul vs Giselle will make a difference, I can say that it would be hard for many local votes to vote for a party led by Dutton…
Much like Albo is weighing down Labour’s vote at the moment, I would imagine that Dutton will weigh on the liberal’s…
Nicolette’s campaign has been very active thus far, more active than Giselle’s at Lindfield train station.
Juliet,
the Labor vote in local booths with high Chinese speaking populations was very high in 2022. The results from all over the nation demonstrated that Chinese voters backed Labor candidates in large numbers. Your statement: Neither the Teal or Lib candidate would appeal to these voters, nor would the Labor Party – is woefully inaccurate wrt to the Labor party.
Someone will eventually out Andy Yin as to why he has joined the race in Bradfield, given he a ZERO links to the area. I know that he doesn’t as I asked him face to face, and the answer I got was beyond embarrassing.
@James – the Teal backed Boele has a campaign office in Lindfield – it certainly does seem that she thinks the election will be one by votes of commuters at Lindfield train station……..
Whatever happened to Andy Yin’s legal action against the Liberal Party? Does anybody know the resolution?
With Andy Yin’s entry into the race, the Labor vote will collapse as he mops up much of the Chinese vote that swung against the Libs from last election. The teals seem to struggle with the Chinese community in the North Shore unlike in say Kooyong. He won’t win but if he sends his vote to Boele via preferences then it could cost the Libs the seat. The Libs will need to make a recovery with the community to avoid that situation.
Is there any evidence of Andy Yin getting traction? I doubt he is going to make an impact in this race one way or another. The guy has no existing link to the electorate and I’m not sure what he is even campaigning on.
Also I doubt he has much if any campaign infrastructure in place, or money to throw around. The teals all had long months of preparation before their successful 2022 campaigns and Boele has been continuing over the last term.
@Adda
I live in Bradfield, specifically Chatswood.
Caveat: I don’t go to the Ku-Ring-Gai area or the rest of Willoughby LGA that often (though I used to live in St Leonards and Northbridge)
A lot of the Chinese businesses around Chatswood has Andy Yin signs.
I think he will poll decent (20% maybe?) in the booths in Chatswood and *maybe* North Willoughby but absolutely flop in the rest of the seat, in both Ku-Ring-Gai LGA and the rest of Willoughby LGA (which is a complete demographic Frankenstein of an LGA despite not being particularly big).
I agree with @Dan M that Boele and Yin would appeal to different demographics, and while I doubt Yin will poll all that well, his preferences could easily be the deciding factor.