Hunter – Australia 2025

wouldnt be surprised if the nats finally pick this up though it might be a very marginal retain. cant see them holding in it in 2028 though

I predict a Labor retain. I sense he has a personal vote and might get a sophomore boost. Newcastle is gentrifying and many white-collar professionals commute from a Central Coast and Newcastle Line station to Sydney for work at least one day a week and working remotely for the rest.

There’s no Nationals candidate yet which might suggest they’re not that keen here. Many safer Labor seats and teal seats in NSW already have coalition candidates. It might be time for a Liberal, instead of a National, to run at a future election.

@votante they’re better off running both in places like this Richmond and whitlam. It costs them nothing but a couple grand to nominate which they get back anyway. They then hedge their bets and any vote comes back anyway. I think it will be a Labor retain but reduced margin in line with state wide swing expected.

The Nationals candidate is Sue Gilroy, a businesswoman, former president of the Singleton Business Chamber and the SFF candidate for the 2022 Upper Hunter by-election.

@James yet another SFF candidate has left the party.

It looks like the SFF’s vision of a Katterist party in NSW is well and truly dead.

I actually think the coalition have a good shot at this. Labor only got a minor 1% swing in a good election year. Though Labor could hold it by the skin of their teeth.

The Liberals need to run here. The Nats don’t have any traction on the eastern end (the old Charlton) half of the electorate.

I read somewhere that Dave Sharma says the libs will be announcing candidates for the Hunter seats.

Electioneer, you have a good point about the Liberals running. The electorate has shrunk and is less rural thanks to the redistribution. The western shores of Lake Macquarie attract retirees and a lot of whom moved from capital cities. Perhaps the Liberals would be a better fit given the demographics.

I wouldn’t say the Nationals don’t gain traction. They don’t do too badly in the southern part of Lake Macquarie Council, south of Toronto.

Muswellbrook was basically a 50/50 split with a slight advantage to Labor anyway

@John “the Hunter seats” probably refers to the other three seats (Newcastle, Paterson and Shortland).

Interestingly the actual Newcastle metropolitan area overlaps with all four of those electorates, yet only one is entirely in Newcastle (Newcastle) and another is majority in Newcastle (Shortland).

No way Dan Repacholi loses yeah? He exudes he’s an active local MP on social media at least, but does that translate to direct voter contact?

i dunno Kent i wouldnt be surprised if the coalition wins hre

@Kent Davidson, Dan Repacholi does come across as active, at least on his socials. He’s an ex-tradie and coal miner and pro-coal so he is in the right seat for a start.

Hunter is a prime Dutton target – very anglo, lower income, blue collar and mortgage belt in areas around Cessnock, the PHON primary could be a key factor if it bounces back, there will be no UAP and presumably no Stuart Bonds this time and we are expecting more like a 2019 preference flow.

Probably enough margin for a well-liked incumbent to hold on though

I think he’s got a great chance of holding on, he’s a blue collar larrikin bloke who connects well with his electorate. From what I’ve seen, he’s got a strong local following on social media and seems to be well liked.

Absolutely, Repacholi will hold on.

Unlikely to happen but should Labor lose both Macnamara and Hunter it would be a really bad look – one held by Labor since 1906 and the other since 1910.

They will lose macnamara I think they may hold hunter though. Lcoalition should get it eventually maybe 2028

Hunter shows that it’s important to have the right candidate is important and the ability to connect with the community. This was necessary for Labor in 2022 following Joel Fitzgibbon’s retirement and the massive swing against Labor in 2019. In 2019, the Adani Carmichael mine was a pivotal election issue in coal mining seats and One Nation performed strongly in Hunter, perhaps their best showing outside QLD since relaunching in 2016.

I think the hunter seats are especially vulnerable given the proper ircumstances. Given she was relegated to the unsinkable 4th spot and she’s the senator for the hunter region why doesnt hollie Hughes run here

Are people in the Hunter so desperate that they would vote for Hollie Hughes?

I’m simply asking why she doesn’t run there since the 4th position is unwinnable

If she loses, rather than resigns, she’ll get a nice golden handshake or resettlement allowance. There is no incentive for her to get off the senate ballot to run in Hunter.

Isn’t that what what’s her name is doing in Braddon from the Tasmanian senate to get her golden handshake?

And Amanda Rajah from Higgins to the unwinnable Victorian spot

Yes. I gave my criticism of the golden handshake in the Braddon thread. It’s a rort.

So wouldn’t hollie Hughes be able to do the same here

Of the Hunter seats
Paterson alp hold
Hunter alp hold
Shorthand alp hold
These seats may go close but by no means a happy hunting ground

@Mick, how certain are you re Paterson

I will be most surprised if Paterson if the Libs do not win Paterson – Meryl Swanson is a weak MP who has been lucky to hold on. On the other hand, I would not be surprised if Hunter swings to Labor – Dan Repacholi would seem the ‘horse for the course’. Shortland will also be an ALP hold but it does seem to be moving inexorably toward the Libs over time.

I am reasonably. Certain like Parramatta the margin does nor tell the story. Paterson ‘s boundaries are very pro Labor.
Alp has held the seat since Mr Baldwin retired

In Parramatta the margin doesn’t tell the whole story because the parachuted candidate got off to a shaky start and over time the area is becoming more friendly to Labor due to the younger, more diverse population who increasingly work in the public service. What secret about Paterson are you sitting on (other than this weird fascination for the boundaries as opposed to the voters) that explains why a mostly white, mortgage belt, blue collar, outer suburban seat that trended Liberal in a bad cycle for them is going to stay Labor while it sits on a sub-3% margin without a decent incumbent?

Libs will win Paterson and come close in hunter Shortland and parramatta. Good chances in all 3 though. Paterson is one of the high stress seats and the libs will win.

The leader of Trumpet of Patriots, Suellen Wrightson, will run here. Clive Palmer called her “the next prime minister”.

Why the he’ll would working class people vote liberal or national?

Why would they want to vote ALP as they are trying to destroy their jobs

@Mick because they’re entranced by faux-populist propaganda, culture wars, and the pie-in-the-sky Australian dream.

@Mick because the media is trumpeting Peter Dutton’s trump-style agenda, ignoring the LNP’s lack of any economic or workers rights policies rights by focusing on something as insignificant as culture wars.

Clive Palmer always thinks big he claimed one year they would win the election.

@because labor is becoming the party of the elite and the activist they are focusing on the woke agenda rather then the needs of everyday working people. Working clas people don’t care where there power comes from just as long as it is cheap and reliable without the risk of rolling blackouts. They can’t afford to be driving electric vehicles. They care about the cost of groceries not if we are meeting our climate targets. They want to be able to put a roof over their heads not the fact trans people should be allowed to go into whatever bathroom they want or play in whatever sportingleague they identify as. They want jobs in places like Blayney and Macquarie Harbour not the fact some well off people in the Sydney CBD care about some damn being in the wrong place because a select group of people say it connects to some mythical visions or some species that lives in the same waters as the salmon.

I would also add that the Union movement is now dominated by professional government employees, not private sector industrial workers. Case in point are two of the prominent ACTU wins over the term – the right to disconnect and the right to work from home. Industrial workers can’t work from home and disconnect when they leave work anyway. This can only benefit the professional class, to some extent at the expense of the workers. This was laid bare during COVID where a state Labor Government decided to protect office workers at the expense of fairly low paid workers in the transport, retail, food production etc sectors.

The working class are also a lot less comfortable with high levels of low skill immigration, as the immigrants are both dumped into WC areas and compete for jobs which helps keeps wages down.

In the current climate though, with a huge COL issue under Labor, there will be a lot of ‘just give the other mob a go’.

In this post truth world feelings seem to matter more over facts

John is right, Labor are abandoning their old working-class base, so this is causing a shift to the Coalition, and the ones who still vote Labor in those areas are either quite progressive or unhappily voting Labor because they don’t like Dutton.

As for the Liberals, their more moderate voters aren’t really shifting to Labor at the moment, it’s just the centrist swing voters that are. But their voters are shifting to the teals because they don’t like Dutton or Albo but are fine with the teals, or unhappily voting Liberal because they don’t like Dutton but can’t stand Albo or the teals.

This is why on the state level things look different for the Coalition. The only actual teal seat in NSW is Pittwater, which was won by them at a by-election where the Liberal candidate was parachuted in and where the ex-MP was charged with a extremely serious crime. Despite the Liberals holding all those affluent moderate seats on the state level they don’t hold any seats on Sydney Harbour on the federal level, except Bennelong on notional results due to the redistribution.

As for the media, the Australian media is actually mixed. There are plenty of neutral outlets here unlike in the US, though there are still plenty of partisan or partisan-leaning ones (to clarify, Sky News is partisan for the right-wing populists, while The Australian is partisan-leaning as it leans to the Coalition, but the difference is Sky News engages in disinformation, The Australian doesn’t).

seems like people can’t stand Albo for unknown reasons – but they don’t like Dutton but are going to vote for him anyway

I don’t know it is unknown reasons bazza, did you see the valentines day poem? The kind of cringe only a PM or opposition leader could find.

The liberals do not look after working class people or their organisations.. the trade union movement .
Always anti..union laws
Work choices
Get
Look at the level of corruption of the Morrison govt.
Limited ie no tenders everywhere
Paladin
Leppington triangle
Sale of water rights to dry river beds
Robo debt

Oh I forgot about Morrison ‘s secret ministries
And Stuart Roberts Internet TV station
Paid by electoral expense claims

Should read Gst

And labor are better? The unions are useless and most re in bed with the companies. I told my union the ads I was being discriminated against by Woolworths because of my disability. They told me I didn’t I have mental illness because he knew people with mental illness. He then told me it was unfair to my manager to increase my hours and give me my lawful entitlements until I met the conditions the company was setting. When I continued to press it he simply told me “i don’t care”. When Woolworths made up allegations of theft against me they simply told me they weren’t making them up and abandoned me.

GST was basically a replacement tax that removed state taxes and simplified them into one tax there was an election held in 1998 on it and the people spoke.