LIB 6.1%
Incumbent MP
Melissa McIntosh, since 2019.
Geography
Western Sydney. Lindsay covers most of the City of Penrith, stretching from Londonderry in the north to Mulgoa in the south. The electorate also stretches from the Nepean River in the west to Colyton and Oxley Park in the east.
Redistribution
Lindsay previously covered those parts of the City of Penrith to the west of the Nepean River, including Emu Heights, Emu Plains and Leonay. These areas were moved to Macquarie. This change reduced the Liberal margin from 6.3% to 6.1%.
History
Lindsay was first created as part of the 1984 expansion of the House of Representatives, and had always been held by the party of government until 2016.
The seat was first won by the ALP’s Ross Free in 1984. Free had previously held the seat of Macquarie since 1980. Free served as a minister from 1991 until his defeat in 1996 by the Liberal Party’s Jackie Kelly.
Kelly won the seat with a swing of almost 12%, destroying Free’s margin of over 10% after the 1993 election. Kelly was disqualified from sitting in Parliament six months after winning her seat due to her RAAF employment and failure to renounce her New Zealand citizenship, and Lindsay went to a by-election seven months after the 1996 federal election, where Free suffered another swing of almost 5%.
Kelly served as a junior minister in the second Howard government and as John Howard’s Parliamentary Secretary during his third term. Kelly announced her retirement at the 2007 election, and the Liberal Party preselected Karen Chijoff, while the ALP preselected David Bradbury, a former Mayor of Penrith who had run against Kelly in 2001 and 2004.
Three days before the 2007 election, a ramshackle attempt by the Liberal Party to paint the ALP as sympathetic to terrorists was exposed in Lindsay, when ALP operatives caught Liberals red-handed distributing leaflets supposedly from an Islamic group praising the ALP for showing forgiveness to the Bali Bombers. The husbands of both the sitting member and the Liberal candidate were amongst those caught up in the scandal. The scandal dominated the final days of the campaign, and Bradbury defeated Chijoff comfortably, with a 9.7% swing.
Bradbury was re-elected in 2010, but lost in 2013 to Liberal candidate Fiona Scott.
Scott lost her seat in 2016 to Labor’s Emma Husar. Husar served one term, but fell out with her party after allegations about her behaviour in office. She ended up not running for re-election, and the Liberal Party’s Melissa McIntosh won the seat. McIntosh was re-elected in 2022.
- Chris Buckley (One Nation)
- Melissa McIntosh (Liberal)
- Hollie McLean (Labor)
- Michelle Palmer (HEART)
- Jim Saleam (Independent)
Assessment
Lindsay has a long history as a key marginal seat but the seat has had a noticeable lean towards the Liberal Party since 2019 that has made it much less crucial to the results of an election. The seat will likely stay in Liberal hands.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Melissa McIntosh | Liberal | 48,939 | 46.7 | +0.3 | 46.4 |
| Trevor Ross | Labor | 33,206 | 31.7 | -3.9 | 31.9 |
| Pieter Morssink | Greens | 8,404 | 8.0 | +3.1 | 8.0 |
| Max Jago | One Nation | 6,203 | 5.9 | +5.9 | 6.0 |
| Joseph O’Connor | United Australia | 4,272 | 4.1 | +1.2 | 4.2 |
| Rebekah Ray | Informed Medical Options | 2,075 | 2.0 | +2.0 | 2.0 |
| Gareth McClure | Liberal Democrats | 1,627 | 1.6 | +1.6 | 1.6 |
| Informal | 7,754 | 6.9 | -4.2 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Melissa McIntosh | Liberal | 59,003 | 56.3 | +1.3 | 56.1 |
| Trevor Ross | Labor | 45,723 | 43.7 | -1.3 | 43.9 |
Booths have been divided into central, east, north and west. North covers the rural booths including Londonderry, while East covers St Marys. West covers the booths on the other side of the Nepean River plus Mulgoa and a few other booths in between.
The Liberal Party won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in three areas, ranging from 52.3% in the centre to 60.3% in the north. Labor polled 51.8% in the east.
| Voter group | GRN prim | LIB 2PP | Total votes | % of votes |
| Central | 9.7 | 52.3 | 19,860 | 20.8 |
| North | 7.5 | 60.3 | 10,395 | 10.9 |
| West | 8.7 | 59.6 | 8,811 | 9.2 |
| East | 8.0 | 48.2 | 7,361 | 7.7 |
| Pre-poll | 7.0 | 57.5 | 36,616 | 38.3 |
| Other votes | 8.0 | 56.8 | 12,579 | 13.2 |
Election results in Lindsay at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party and Labor.
Interesting as this seat use to be key to whoever wanted to get into office, I believe that this is the first time along with the electorate of Banks where its not with Labor when they’re in office. Labor seem to be struggling with demographics like this and could be at risk with more seats like this with similar demographics in the future if they don’t reach out.
It was a bellwether up until 2016. Yes, you’re right that this is the first Labor government without it.
This used to be very associated with Howard Battlers – working-class people and mortgage holders who had swung to the Liberals. I agree that Labor is struggling with its old blue-collar worker base with the ongoing political realignment. Outer suburban electorates with fewer uni-educated, white-collar professionals are not voting for Labor as strongly as they used to.
I think there has been increase wealth among many former working class people in Lindsay hence it is probably explains how it turned Libs
I think Marh is correct in some respects that parts of this seat such as Glenmore Park has seen an increase in affluence as that suburb is more settled these days. Some compare this seat to Hughes, however Lindsay is more socially mixed and has areas of disadvantage and new housing estates something Hughes does not have. I am not sure Banks is a good comparison because that was not a bellwether it was moving towards the Liberals with increased affluence along the waterside suburbs. @Nether Portal calculated, Lindsay on state results and it would be 53.3% Labor only 1% worse than the state results. The issue for Labor is that areas like Lindsay, Petrie, Forde is that they are generally more interested in bread and butter issues rather than climate, voice, republic etc and Labor needs to have a message that is Economy based like in 2016. Kevin Rudd had an economy based campaign in 2007 with Workchoices and Interest rates and won. NSW state Labor had a campaign that focused on Toll Roads, Public sector wage cap etc.
Voting for LNP v ALP/Green is now more based on education levels rather than income – so unless a bunch of university educated people have moved into Glenmore Park and surrounds in the last few years, then expect this to stay with the libs
Interesting to see the Greens doing quite well in Penrith East and Penrith booths whereas further from Penrith One Nation comes third or United Australia.
A lot of the Teal hype against a perceived arch-conservative like Mundine seems to be drawing the same conclusions against what happened to Abbott in Warringah.
I’m still of the belief you could run any Liberal in Bradfield at this next election and win, purely because of the normalisation and swing against Labor and back to the Coalition. Particularly in high income electorates.
The Teal here isn’t as high profile as Steggall and Mundine isn’t as divisive or even as well-known as Abbott.
Whoever Libs run will have a swing to them, as the Teal movement has run out of gas.
All Dutton and co have to do is rehash the same lines Abbott did in 2013 against the perceived detriment cross-benchers pose in propping up a Labor-Greens-Independent government. And emphasise stability via majority government.
It’s also not like Mundine will be on the front bench, so any perceived damage or controversy he would cause is also grossly exaggerated
Whoops: above post is in the wrong page
I think SpaceFish that your and bazza’s comments line up – the closer your to Penrith and the station, the more likely you are to catch the train to a profession ‘degree required’ job in the city/Parramatta/North Sydney etc, so you are more likely to vote ‘progressive’.
‘Closer you are’
or you are a young professional, degree educated CBD worker in a new apartment around the station while if you got cheap housing in Glenmore Park 25 years ago you didn’t need a degree or professional job