IND 1.4% vs ALP
Incumbent MP
Dai Le, since 2022.
Geography
South-western Sydney, in particular parts of Liverpool and Fairfield council areas. Fowler covers the Liverpool CBD and the suburbs of Cabramatta, Canley Vale, Lansvale, Bonnyrigg, Chipping Norton, Warwick Farm and Bossley Park.
Redistribution
Fowler slightly expanded to the north, taking in part of Wetherill Park from McMahon. On paper this reduced Le’s margin from 1.6% to 1.4%, although Le was not on the ballot in these new areas so she did not receive any votes there.
History
Fowler was first created for the 1984 election as part of the expansion of the size of the House of Representatives. It had always been a very safe Labor seat until 2022.
The seat was first won in 1984 by the ALP’s Ted Grace. Grace held the seat for fourteen years, retiring in 1998. He was succeeded by Julia Irwin, also from the ALP. Irwin held the seat until 2010.
In 2010, Irwin retired and he was replaced as Labor candidate by Chris Hayes. Hayes had held the neighbouring seat of Werriwa for five years, but had been forced to change seats to make room for Laurie Ferguson, whose seat had effectively been abolished. Hayes had been re-elected in Fowler three times.
Hayes retired in 2022, and the ALP ended up preselecting former premier and sitting senator Kristina Keneally. Keneally was set to lose her Senate seat and was seen as a leading figure in the party. Hayes had instead supported Tu Le, but the party chose Keneally. Keneally ended up going on to lose to Fairfield deputy mayor Dai Le, running as an independent.
- Jared Athavle (Family First)
- Tu Le (Labor)
- Dai Le (Independent)
- Tony Margos (One Nation)
- Victor Tey (Libertarian)
Assessment
Dai Le is an incumbent MP and history suggests she is likely to strengthen her hold on this seat. Labor has now preselected the candidate they turned down in 2022, but this might be too little too late.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Kristina Keneally | Labor | 30,973 | 36.1 | -18.5 | 36.6 |
| Dai Le | Independent | 25,346 | 29.5 | +29.5 | 28.3 |
| Courtney Nguyen | Liberal | 14,740 | 17.2 | -12.9 | 17.6 |
| Lela Panich | United Australia | 5,512 | 6.4 | +2.1 | 6.6 |
| Avery Howard | Greens | 4,191 | 4.9 | -0.7 | 4.9 |
| Tony Margos | One Nation | 3,047 | 3.5 | +3.6 | 3.6 |
| Peter Ronald Runge | Liberal Democrats | 2,094 | 2.4 | +2.4 | 2.4 |
| Informal | 10,098 | 10.5 | -2.6 |
2022 two-candidate-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Dai Le | Independent | 44,348 | 51.6 | 51.4 | |
| Kristina Keneally | Labor | 41,555 | 48.4 | 48.6 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Kristina Keneally | Labor | 47,864 | 55.7 | -8.3 | 55.9 |
| Courtney Nguyen | Liberal | 38,039 | 44.3 | +8.3 | 44.1 |
Booths have been divided into three parts: central, south and west. The “south” area covers all those booths in the Liverpool council area, while those in Fairfield council area have been split into “central” and “west”.
Dai Le won a majority of the two-candidate-preferred vote in the centre (52.1%) and west (51.6%) while Labor won 52.7% in the south.
The Liberal Party came third, with a primary vote ranging from 12.1% in the centre to 23.6% in the south.
| Voter group | LIB prim | IND 2CP | Total votes | % of votes |
| Central | 12.1 | 52.1 | 15,879 | 17.7 |
| West | 18.8 | 51.6 | 10,162 | 11.3 |
| South | 23.6 | 47.3 | 8,149 | 9.1 |
| Pre-poll | 16.9 | 49.8 | 42,961 | 48.0 |
| Other votes | 22.2 | 45.0 | 12,442 | 13.9 |
Election results in Fowler at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-candidate-preferred votes (Independent vs Labor vs Labor), two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, independent candidate Dai Le and the Liberal Party.
there is also the fact that both the greens and teals want to cancel the $30b expansion to gas project in WA and that would tank labors vote state and federally
@john March 5, 2025 at 12:43 pm:
Katter’s voters in Kennedy didn’t rate his performance during the 2010-’13 Parliament too highly. He only just staggered over the line with 29.36% PV, no doubt helped by 80.6% of Labor preferences and 23.04% of direct Green pregerences Labor and Green preferences
https://results.aec.gov.au/17496/Website/HouseDivisionDop-17496-167.htm
So, Labor and The Greens thought ol’ Bob had dome well, while he lost 13, 479 voters from his 2010 result though the Division expanded by 2,559 voters.
Most teals will reelected …. their reason to be is liberals are hopeless..Katter is the only certain coalition supporter in a hung parliament…and even he is unpredictable.
Support the party with the most seats not sure? If alp or lnp get an absolute majority they govern all bets are off…
Wilkie and Greens cannot back a lib – nat govt and keep their seats.
Rest in thre laps of thr Gods
@Mick Goodenough would back the Coalition. He won’t win thoigh
No
Moore either alp or liberal
Most likely liberal
@redistributed I don’t think that minority government will see things run into chaos. The Gillard government managed to get plenty of things through parliament. The biggest issue she faced was the white anting by her own party and Tony Abbott complaining about everything.
The other main “mistake” as far as the electorate saw from Gillard was bringing in policies that weren’t raised at the election such as the carbon tax and SRRT.
NSW currently has a minority ALP government with a large cross-bench and are no worse than if Labor had a lower house majority. They had no “deals” to get into government but had a big enough gap to the LNP (about 9 seats) that it just made sense to support them
@gympi this was because he was seen as being too close to KRudd after his return to power. labor and the greens also did this as a anyone but the lnp move as they usually do. also the lnp had a very good candidate in Noelene Ikin who some tipped would have beaten Katter in 2016 if she ran again but pulled out due to an aggressive brain tumour that ultimately killed her in early 2017.
@mick chaney will lose curtin and i think the libs are almost over the line in goldstein. and i think ryan is in troubl e in kooyong. all nsw teals will be reelected with a chance in Bradfield. Sharkie has already stated that she will negotiat first ith Peter Dutton as her constituents would expect her too.
the greens the only certainty for the greens is in elb as those qld seats are marginal. though the greens will never support the libs regardless. Wilkie has already stated he wont support anyone but will instead vote on legislation on its mmerits
Sharpie Mayo
Notional 2pp about 3% alp
@mick expect that to change. and thats a notional 2pp btw not exact
Is exact based on the same ballot she was elected in
mick look up the meaning of notional
Fowler is another one to watch.
Tu Le has been campaigning like hell for Labor in Fowler. She has campaigned like it’s a marginal seat (which it is). She has appeared at various events, often the same ones as Dai Le, though not together.
Politik made some good points in the Bennelong thread. Politik thinks Labor’s primary vote will modestly recover, because their candidate is more engaging and appealing and has community-level support. It was normally a safe Labor seat prior to 2022 backlash against a parachuted candidate.
Dai Le ran because of backlash after KK got parachuted in as a captain’s pick. Dai Le was a very well known council figure at the time and as a previous state election candidate. At the time, a lot of angry Labor loyalists switched to Dai Le and the rest is history.
@votante actually it was because she was put into the unwinnable 4th spot on the ticket and as a powerbroker she needed a seat so they retired the member in Fowler. Kind of like the member for Moreton and whitlam
@John, in 2021, Deb O’Neill, a Labor right member got the top spot and Jenny McAllister from the left faction got the second spot. I believe KK, as a Labor right member, was going to get third place. She thought was unwinnable and sought safety, believing she was a shoo-in for Fowler.
Keeping a close eye on this seat – there’s been some tentative movement to Labor on Sportsbet.
Tu Le is campaigning hard (and doing so while pregnant and having just given birth I reckon earns brownie points). Suspect that some Labor voters will return to the fold with a much better choice of candidate, and prominent bread and butter policies on energy bills, Medicare and childcare.
Equally, Dai Le has had a whole term to ensconce herself, and her mish-mash of views is arguably a good fit for this electorate. Dutton’s courting of Assyrian community voters will probably also assist her.
All in all very interesting.
Southsider, I think the contest will be similar to Indi in that Dai Le is a respectable and well established independent who has sort of entrenched herself into the district after one term. She should hold with a small swing (up to 5%) in her favour.
@VOTANTE exactly and it was unwinnable given NSW almost always return 3 left and 3 right seats and given the greens have enough to win one left seat she knew she would miss out. the same reason Hollie Hughes knows 4th spot is unwinnable. labor thought a safe labor seat would get her in and dai le went up against her given she was a parachuted candidate. similarly Andrew Charlton was parachuted into Parramatta overriding the 3 local indian candidates vying for the preselction.
will be interesting to see if Labor primary picks up now they have a proper candidate or people have gotten out of the habit of voting Labor. Also will Dai Le pick up votes from the Liberal primary
Dai Le did better in the Western Parts of the electorate than Cabramatta against Keneally. Wonder what would happen this election
@Mitch – there is a decent Liberal vote in suburbs like Abbotsbury, Cecil Hills and Chipping Norton. Their votes would have obviously flowed to Dai Le as she is an ex-Liberal and KK was a parachute.
I will say that for her to hold against Tu Le, she’ll need to increase her vote in Cabramatta to tone down a swing to Labor as a result of a strong candidate. She’ll have to absolutely thrash Labor’s vote in Liverpool otherwise.
Le’s primary vote was highest around Cabramatta. She performed better in the west on the 2CP because the Liberals perform better against Labor there.
Last election, there were big swings (>25%) in the Labor primary vote in Cabramatta, Canley Vale & Lansvale where there’s a much larger ethnic Vietnamese presence. These parts used to have primary votes of over 65%. There was more room to move. The western suburbs had stronger Liberal primary votes but had swung strongly away from the Liberals. There was tactical voting in favour of Dai Le as Liberal voters got behind a more winnable candidate.
I think the Liverpool LGA part, south of Cabramatta Creek, will see swings to Dai Le as she is now known in that area whereas previously she was associated with just Fairfield LGA.
Will be close.
All the opinion polling in this seat has shown both the labor and ind votes slightly down liberal, onp and greens up and others virtually non existent. However all still show Dao le retaining the seat. This is one of the most under stress seats in the country and people are gonna blame that on labor. Dao le should comfortably retain here.