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.
Andy Yin is pushing pretty hard right policies – which is no surprise – he is the furthest most right candidate in the contest. He states that proudly. His slogan is a load of nonsense, Sadly, any Labor leaning Chinese voters that fall for it will be voting against the positions they really support, and there will be some
@Dan M, he will send (recommend) his preferences to Boele – that’s why he is in the race.
@Leon – agree – many do, but I’m not thinking they are generally the Labor inclined chinese voters. Can’t see him having many booths covered on election day, but he will flood the chatswood ones. Notably the large Chatswood booths will be joint booths with Bennelong, so its going to be a pile one..
– Slogan is “not right not left just forwards”
– Policies are hard right
– Preferences Boele who is further from “hard right” than at least Kapterian
Looks like things are everywhere with Yin if all are true
He’s a former Liberal who seems to be running due to a grudge, so it’s not that surprising if all those are true.
Andy Yin tried to get preselection for the state seat of Strathfield. He missed out on preselection and then made a formal complaint alleging it had something to do with his race.
He appears to be a blow-in who doesn’t live in Bradfield. I wonder why he isn’t running in Reid which is two electorates away. Maybe he’s a spoiler candidate with a grudge against the Liberals as some of you suggested.
I’ve noticed that the Liberal branches in Reid have had issues in recent years with ex-Liberals running as independents or quitting loudly.
What are hid policies and why are they “right-wing”?
I work in Chatswood. The main strip is full of Andy Yin signs with only 1 Gisele sign as far as I remember… I wouldn’t be surprised if the Chatswood booths and suburbs with a reasonably high Asian population (like Pymble) have a larger than expected proportion of votes for Andy Yin, as they (from the “feel” of the area) would not be as inclined to vote for either Gisele (due to Dutton) or Boelle (who hasn’t campaigned that hard to the Asian community).
Judging by his history with the Liberal Party in Strathfield, I would suggest that his preferences will mostly go to Nicolette Boele – which might actually cost the Liberals the seat as a result. Gisele should be fighting harder to make stronger inroads with the Chinese community if she wants to win in my opinion.
@Wombater
Out of all the seats where the Chinese population could be the voting bloc to determine the final results, I was not expecting Bradfield. This probably adds a bit more motivation for me to find out how the Chinese-Australian community views the Liberals and Dutton and whether they’ll go back to voting for them.
Ik u openly support the Liberals and have stated something along the lines of the Liberals regaining support with the Chinese community given that seats with a high Chinese population like Aston, Bennelong and Chisholm are going to be Liberal gains; however I’m a bit more cautious on how I’d answer this question given that Dutton’s past hawkish comments on China can easily be dug up during campaigning and at least within my circle of friends and family (wow the guy from Tangney is Chinese?!), they’re still distrustful of Dutton and the Liberals.
I think that due the fact that Andy Yin is well known and potentially popular (idk if frequency of signs are a good indicator of a candidate’s popularity) amongst the Chinese community in Bradfield and has directed his preferences to Boele (most of whom are probably going to preference Boele over Kapterian according to Wombater), I’m reconsidering whether Bradfield would be an LNP retain or a IND gain in my predictions.
@Westie same here. I was not expecting Bradfield to be one of the electorates that would be influenced heavily by the Chinese Australian community, however due to the nature of the electorate (LIB v IND) both candidates in the 2PP would be heavily reliant on preferences. This is where Andy Yin comes into play – just like how Lupton’s preferences to the Liberals basically cost the Greens their seat in Prahran. They both (Lupton and Yin) capture a group that wouldn’t really vote for either party – that’s why their preferences matter so much.
How I see it – there are more conservative Chinese Australians (e.g. Banks, Chisholm, Aston, Bennelong) who only swung away from the Coalition due to their livelihoods being actively threatened by the Morrison Government at the time. Not only were many Asian Australians being targeted and abused due to the anti-China sentiment that Morrison did nothing about, the constant hostility with China economically also tightened up Australian Chinese trade relations which directly affected this group of business-conscious, conservative Chinese Australians. Yes, Dutton is not innocent – however, the economic trade war with China has eased up under Albanese, and Morrison was largely seen as the cause of the problems that Australia had with China.
On the other hand, there are the more Labor-leaning Chinese Australians, in seats like Tangney, Reid and Barton. However, in Bradfield, the rise of a prominent Asian candidate has completely changed the Bradfield game in terms of voting patterns. In my opinion, I think that many Chinese Australians in the Bradfield electorate do not really see themselves very well represented by Gisele – although she may be pro-business, she is no Alan Tudge or David Coleman in the sense that these two MPs actively worked with and for the community as a whole.
Like you, I am now seriously reconsidering the LIB vs IND toss up, as I did not expect Andy Yin to get this much traction/coverage in such a short time.
I really appreciate your interest in the Chinese Australian community and how they vote, so thank you 🙂
I wonder how many of the people that give testimonials on Andy Yins website know that they are being used. Tony Abbott, Andrew Stoner, the Principal of Pymble Ladies College, former minister Geoff Lee. I think a few ‘cease and desist’ letters might start flying soon.
According to his Linkedin page, Andy Yin is still president of the Five Dock branch of the Liberal Party. Is he a stalking horse for the Libs?
@Wambater – Bradfield is a 3 way contest (Ben has updated his candidate list).
The Chatswood booth were very much Liberal v Labor contests in 2022.
I wouldn’t overplay Andy Yin influence – he has a few signs up. Not a big deal. We are talking about it on here by no one else is.
@redistributed. he told me to my face tat he had resigned from the Liberals, but he is very a stalking horse for one side of the Libs. I doubt it will be long before the whole charade comes out into the open.
so Andy would rather anyone win the seat except for a “moderate” liberal?
Nicolette Boele, said on her socials, she has 1000 volunteers.
Based on what I’ve heard and seen, Boele has been quite Ku-Ring-Gai-focused. She’s from there and also campaign there, not just in 2022 but also ever since. Some commentators called her a “shadow member for Bradfield”. The southern part only got added in due to the redistribution.
The Chatswood/Willoughby part is interesting. I’m not sure if Kylea Tink was a popular MP this term and whether her voters will convert to Boele voters.
“Boelle (who hasn’t campaigned that hard to the Asian community).” – Wombater.
I agree. It seems like she hasn’t connected all that well with the ethnic Chinese and Korean communities. This is where I think the Liberals have an edge over her.
2% margin
Sitting mp not recontesting
Votante- I live in this electorate.
Boelle’s volunteers have been very active at railway stations,smaller shopping venues and community centres.
It should be noted that they are all retired and white.I have been approached by her volunteers about 15 time already-compared to about half that by Liberal volunteers.
There have been swings away from the Liberals of 15.2% over 2 elections,so notwithstanding the effort being made,she has her work cut out to obtain any further swing.
Mick Quinlivan-the loss of the sitting member may mean an improvement in the Liberal vote in my view.Fletcher was not popular.
I’d say it’s more likely then not that Boelle wins this seat over the Liberals.
3.2% margin, retiring incumbent and Dutton is extremely unpopular in affluent, socially liberal seats like this. I think the Liberal primary vote will hold up but I think Boelle will win.
@AB23 – How’s she going to win if the Liberal primary vote holds up? She already got a strong rate of preferences last time…
@Sabena – seems like there are several of us that live in this electorate. There comes a point – pretty early – where being approached by campaign volunteers that many times just pisses people off.
@Votante – basically agreed. People in Willoughby Council already invested in Tink – now they have to transfer to another IND – may not happen at neat 100%. She does come across as very upper north shore
@Sabena @High Street, There’s 1000 of them as I mentioned. I believe Zali Steggall had over 1000 volunteers as well in 2019. I’m not surprised by the over-promotion in Bradfield. I get that it’s a marginal seat and her volunteers are out there and enthusiastic but when overdone it would piss people off.
I think many people overestimate the number of voters from specific ethnic groups. A lot of residents are not citizens (so unable to vote). Also, given the age demographic, the number of children at school etc might be a higher percentage than the general population.
I took a look at census data for Bradfield (old boundaries) and Willoughby LGA.
Bradfield had a about 197,000 citizens aged 20+, of those 6% had a father born in China. (they were 19% of non-citizen)
Willoughby had about 43,000 citizens aged 20+ of those 14% had a father born in China, (33% of non-citizens).
For all this talk about “over-promotion” of a candidate, I would imagine it’s considerably important to introduce yourself as a candidate to people who had a different independent as an MP. I highly doubt that this is losing more than it gains – it’s certainly better to err on the side of “over” than “under” promoting your presence.
Also, the notion that the Liberal vote here doesn’t have further to fall seems rather baseless. I definitely remember similar sentiments surrounding all the now-teal held seats in 2022, plus the ACT senate seat, as reasoning for why Liberals wouldn’t lose those seats.
For all this talk about “over-promotion” of a candidate, I would imagine it’s considerably important to introduce yourself as a candidate to people who had a different independent as an MP. I highly doubt that this is losing more than it gains – it’s certainly better to err on the side of “over” than “under” promoting your presence.
Also, the notion that the Liberal vote here doesn’t have further to fall seems rather baseless. I definitely remember similar sentiments surrounding all the now-teal held seats in 2022, plus the ACT senate seat, as reasoning for why Liberals wouldn’t lose those seats.
I’ve been back in Sydney the past week. I’ve mostly been hanging out on the North Shore. I’ve seen lots of signs – for Kapterian, Boele, and Yin. It actually feels like there’s an impending election here. Crazy to think that even only one election cycle ago (and going all the way back to this seat’s inception) this was considered one of the most irrelevant and uninteresting seats in the country.
I didn’t take note of this seat last election so I’d be interested to know how different the campaign here is this time and also, compared to Mackeller or North Sydney in 2022.
According to Climate 200 polling reported in the Saturday Paper, Bradfield is the second most likely seat to flip to a teal, after Cowper. It shows a 40% primary vote for the Liberals but Boele would win 52% after preferences.
I take seat polling (especially ones with a political motive) with a grain of salt.
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2025/03/22/polling-shows-teals-support-growing-coalition-base
As Kevin Bonham has pointed out several times now, Climate200 drops should be ignored until they release the full details of their polling. What was the IND and Labor primary in this Bradfield poll and what were the assumed preference flows?
And don’t forget Votante, much of the old North Sydney is now in this seat, so there will be a lot of similarities to North Sydney 2022, as many of the players involved are the same.
@David “I think many people overestimate the number of voters from specific ethnic groups”
IMO 6% – or more likely 3-4% as it would be wrong to assume all voters would vote the same – is more than enough to swing an already tight election between Kaptarian and Boele.
Sophie Scamps won nearby Mackellar in 2022 at 52.5% TCP compared to Falinski’s 47.5% – a difference of 5%.
It’s the marginal vote that matters here – if Boele can convince the other candidates to direct their preferences to her, it’s more than likely she will juuuuuust scrape past Kapterian given the current political climate.
@High Street, yes, I agree that there’s a lack of detail in Climate 200’s polling. It’s why I take it with a grain of salt.
I was referring to the differences between the old North Sydney and the old Bradfield in 2022. According to the AEC transparency register, Kylea Tink and Sophie Scamps had well over $1.5 million in disclosed fundraising and over $1 million in expenditure each. Boele wasn’t as cashed up.
Votante – she is now. People are totally over it and the campaign hasn’t even started yet. She’s crying poor that the major parties have so much money to spend but then she send fundraising notes out asking for donations quickly so she can get another billboard truck…..
@Wombater – candidates don’t direct preferences. They recommend them. And many people ignore the recommendations.
The Greens recommended Teal IND over Labor in North Sydney in 2022 but the preferences were still only 55/45% to Tink (excluding those that went to the Liberal, which means even less followed the HTV)
@High Street OK, thanks for letting me know. 🙂
Votante,
Boele is so well cashed up that she has an office in the electorate on the Pacific Highway at Lindfield opposite the station.I can’t think of any other independent candidate who has been in a similar position,before they were elected to the seat.
Some of her activities are a bit over the top eg.volunteers flashing boards at intersections,which I came across on Tuesday(6 volunteers involved).
The volunteers on street corners happened in Mackeller during the 2022.
Think even the libs tried to give it a go though they seemed to have lower numbers than Scamps
Certain liberal loss to teal
From my sources, Andy Yin was a former member of the Liberal Party and was very closely connected with the Roseville Branch, arguably one of the most conservative branches in the North Shore.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he is running as a stalking horse by the Hard Right of the Liberal Party, given how many of them despise anyone connected with Gladys.
Gisele is working the south-end of the seat HARD! She needs to be careful because she risks becoming complacent with where Paul Fletcher won last time against Boele, being the Mona Vale Road Run from Gordon to St Ives.
That’s exactly what two separate sources have told me, Hawkeye_au. I am not sure what the connection with Roseville branch is, as when I spoke to him, he could not come up with any connection to the Bradfield electorate other than playing against the schools in private school sport! I think he will just move in the same conservative networking circles as key people in the branch. I believe there was an article in the Australian about this of whole play, this past weekend.
I live in the southern end and haven’t seen Gisele that much yet…..
@High Street – The Roseville Branch is incredibly active within the Right Wing of the Liberal Party and is often a gateway to establishing conservative credentials within the North Shore, along with Killarney Heights/Forestville (Tony Abbott’s Branch).
He didn’t live in the area. He grew up around Five Dock and went to Trinity College but he got brought into the area through events run by Roseville.
He’s authorized address for material is a unit in Roseville that he just purchased – like 3-4 weeks ago.
He told me that straight up.
So it looks like Roseville branch have a new recruit…
I am told the Australian report mentions Tony Abbott speaking to him to get him to preference Giesle. Surely from what you say above, Tony was in on the whole thing from the beginning? Sounds like there is arm twisting on Abbott to get him to call Andy off….
Looks like Boele is in a bit of hot water over a disgusting ‘joke’ she made at a hairdresser in Bradfield.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-01/federal-election-2025-live-campaign-trail-tuesday-april-1-blog/105119762#live-blog-post-163866
https://thenightly.com.au/politics/federal-election-2025/independent-nsw-candidate-nicolette-boele-banned-from-local-salon-after-making-sexually-explicit-joke-towards-teenage-hairdresser-c-18225101
Not a good look for Boele.
Not sure if it’s just me reading the article or if she actually speaks like that but the comment sounded very formal. But nevertheless still not something you say to anyone.
The headline might be a bit misleading as the hairdresser isn’t a teenager, she’s 19. But still, regardless of age, that’s not something you should say.
@NP NineTEEN
I know what you’re trying to say, but I can assure you that 19 is still in the teens. 😀
The context is pretty lacking but if all that is being quoted is that line alone, it sounds like a clear attempt at a joke. I’m doubtful this will be judged harshly by the electorate. Specially when it’s at the hairdresser, which is where conversational boundaries tend to be looser in the average person’s life.
This should be a nothing-Burger, but I think it will get blown up.
To clarify, I’m in agreement with Adda in terms of context.
@Adda and @hawkeye-
Its going to be more than a one day wonder given this story in the Australian today:
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/election-2025-teals-accused-of-double-standards-over-nicolette-boeles-double-entendre/news-story/93c46c92d08380267a6e32e88c852b4c
The Australian attempting to make hay is no surprise. The news cycle as a whole appears to have moved on. Whether this actually is having any lasting impact is unrelated to what engages their subscribers.
People still read the Australian?
Sorry, this is not a nothing burger. Can you imagine if Dutton said that to a young man who had just cut his hair? The Conversation alone would have had 35 articles in the first 3 days about how toxic misogyny is out of control.
In particular, I am sick of the double standards that are used to excuse the actions of the so called left when the same people would spend hours banging on about the issue if it was someone on the right. A good example is the number of climate change activists telling us how we have to change our lives while they take their private jet to Davos.
Just apply the same standards all around, no ‘Two Tier Kier’ stuff here please.
I am sure that news corp will milk this for as much as they can
Agree not a good thing if you are standing on a platform of “integrity” as some of the successful Teals have
Applying partisan double standards isn’t an argument against this being a nothingburger. Commenting that something is “better than sex” is an extremely common colloquialism. This is presumably an attempt along those lines that got mangled, as far as the (minimal) context appears to show.
No one knows for certain how the electorate will respond but an article in the Australian is not an indication that it is biting. This made the news 2 days ago across most outlets but it hasn’t appeared since. As for the voters of Bradfield, until there’s some on the ground reports then it remains a mystery.
No one is calling it a good thing but there is no reason to be hyperbolic either.