ALP 5.2%
Incumbent MP
Sally Sitou, since 2022.
Geography
Inner Western Sydney. Reid covers suburbs along the southern shore of Parramatta River from Drummoyne to Homebush Bay. It covers the City of Canada Bay and parts of Auburn, Burwood and Strathfield council areas. Major suburbs are Drummoyne, Five Dock, Croydon, Homebush, Strathfield and Burwood.
History
The seat of Reid was created for the 1922 election, while Lowe was created as part of the expansion of the Parliament in 1949. Reid had been held by either the ALP or Jack Lang’s Labor breakaway parties for its entire history, while Lowe had a history of alternating between the ALP and Liberal Party. Since the two seats were effectively merged in 2010, Reid has gone to the party of government.
The seat of Reid was first won in 1922 by Labor candidate Percy Coleman. Coleman was re-elected in 1925, 1928 and 1929, but at the 1931 election he was defeated by Joseph Gander, candidate for Jack Lang’s breakaway NSW Labor Party. Gander was re-elected as a Lang Labor candidate in 1934 before rejoining the ALP when Jack Lang reconciled with the federal ALP.
Gander was re-elected as an official ALP candidate in 1937, but in 1940 Jack Lang again split away from the ALP, but with less of his former supporters in NSW following him. Gander followed Lang out of the ALP, but lost at the 1940 election to official ALP candidate Charles Morgan.
Morgan held the seat until the 1946 election, when Jack Lang himself ran in Reid and defeated Morgan. Lang was a former NSW Premier who had led a breakaway Labor party in NSW on a number of occasions.
The 1949 election saw the creation of the new seat of Blaxland, and Lang ran in that seat unsuccessfully. Morgan regained Reid in 1949, holding it until 1958.
Charles Morgan was defeated for ALP preselection by Tom Uren before the 1958 election. Morgan ran as an independent, but was defeated comfortably by Uren.
Uren served as Minister for Urban and Regional Development in the Whitlam government. He served as a Deputy Leader of the ALP from 1976 to 1977, and became the leading figure in the ALP’s left in the late 1970s. He opposed Bob Hawke’s leadership and thus was excluded from Cabinet when Hawke was elected Prime Minister in 1983. He served as a junior minister for four years before moving to the backbench in 1987.
Uren retired at the 1990 election, and was succeeded by Laurie Ferguson, who had been the state member for Granville since 1984. Ferguson has held Reid since 1990.
Lowe was first created for the 1949 election, when it was won by William McMahon (LIB). McMahon was elevated to Robert Menzies’ ministry in 1951, serving in a variety of portfolios over the next fifteen years. Upon Menzies’ retirement in 1966 McMahon became Treasurer in Harold Holt’s cabinet.
When Harold Holt disappeared in December 1967 McMahon was the presumptive successor, but Country Party leader John McEwen refused to serve with McMahon as Prime Minister. McMahon withdrew and Senator John Gorton was elected leader and moved to the House of Representatives.
McMahon served as Gorton’s Foreign Minister, but challenged Gorton for the leadership following the 1969 election unsuccessfully. In 1971 McEwen retired and Gorton’s leadership was undermined by the resignation of Malcolm Fraser from the cabinet. Gorton called a party meeting, and the ballot was tied between Gorton and McMahon, which led to Gorton’s resignation and McMahon’s election as leader and Prime Minister.
McMahon led the Coalition into the 1972 election, and was defeated by Gough Whitlam’s Labor Party. McMahon served in Billy Snedden’s shadow cabinet up to the 1974 election, and then served as a backbencher until his retirement in 1982.
Lowe had been marginal for most elections during McMahon’s service, particularly since the 1961 election. He had only held the seat with a 1.1% margin at the 1980 election, and a swing of 9.4% swing saw Labor candidate Michael Maher win the seat at the 1982 by-election, one year before Bob Hawke defeated Malcolm Fraser at the 1983 election. Maher was a state MP for Drummoyne from 1973 until the 1982 by-election.
Maher was reelected in 1983 and 1984, but was defeated in 1987 by Bob Woods (LIB). Woods was reelected in 1990, and defeated in 1993 by Mary Easson (ALP). Woods was appointed to the Senate in 1994 and served as a Parliamentary Secretary in the Howard government’s first year before resigning from the Senate in 1997 following allegations of abuse of parliamentary privilege.
Easson only held Lowe for one term, losing her seat in the 1996 landslide to Liberal candidate Paul Zammit, who had been a state MP for first Burwood and then Strathfield from 1984 until 1996. Zammit resigned from the Liberal Party in protest at aircraft noise in 1998 and contested the 1998 election as an independent, polling 15%. The seat was won in 1998 by the ALP’s John Murphy, who held the seat until 2010.
In 2010, John Murphy was re-elected in the redrawn seat of Reid, while former Member for Reid Laurie Ferguson moved to the seat of Werriwa.
Murphy lost to Liberal candidate Craig Laundy in 2013 with a 3.5% swing. Laundy was re-elected in 2016, and retired in 2019.
Liberal candidate Fiona Martin won Reid in 2019. Martin was defeated in 2022 by Labor candidate Sally Sitou.
- Grange Chung (Liberal)
- Sally Sitou (Labor)
Assessment
Sitou won Reid in 2022 with a big swing, and it’s possible much of that swing might go back again. But she will benefit from being the incumbent MP, and the absence of her predecessor’s personal vote, which could help Labor in Reid outperform the national trend.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Sally Sitou | Labor | 40,768 | 41.6 | +4.4 |
| Fiona Martin | Liberal | 37,126 | 37.9 | -10.4 |
| Charles Jago | Greens | 9,184 | 9.4 | +1.3 |
| Natalie Baini | Independent | 2,994 | 3.1 | +3.1 |
| Jamal Daoud | United Australia | 2,530 | 2.6 | +0.7 |
| Edward Walters | One Nation | 1,997 | 2.0 | +2.0 |
| Andrew Cameron | Liberal Democrats | 1,824 | 1.9 | +1.9 |
| Sahar Khalili-Naghadeh | Fusion | 1,553 | 1.6 | +1.6 |
| Informal | 6,800 | 6.5 | +0.4 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Sally Sitou | Labor | 54,076 | 55.2 | +8.4 |
| Fiona Martin | Liberal | 43,900 | 44.8 | -8.4 |
Booths in Reid have been split into three parts. “East” covers booths in the former Drummoyne council area. “South” covers booths in the Burwood, Strathfield, Cumberland and Inner West council areas. “North-West” covers booths in the former Concord council area and the Parramatta council area.
The ALP won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 51.4% in the north-east to 60.1% in the south.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 8.8% in the north-west to 10.2% in the north-east.
| Voter group | GRN prim | ALP 2PP | Total votes | % of votes |
| North-West | 8.8 | 53.9 | 21,530 | 22.0 |
| South | 9.9 | 60.1 | 15,461 | 15.8 |
| North-East | 10.2 | 51.4 | 14,188 | 14.5 |
| Pre-poll | 8.7 | 56.2 | 28,182 | 28.8 |
| Other votes | 10.1 | 53.9 | 18,615 | 19.0 |
Election results in Reid at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, the Liberal Party and the Greens.
Labor hold
Agree. I do not see this going back to the Liberals – especially not if they put Fiona Martin again. Her refusal to accept that she mixed up Sally Sitou with Tu Le was incredibly souring for many.
They are not running Fiona Martin. They are running Grange Chung – candidate list has been updated, I’m just working through the profiles putting the information in.
Fiona Martin quit the Liberals several months back.
Hi Ben, no worries at all.
I was wondering if Grange Chung is related at all to Craig Chung, the previous Liberal candidate for Kogarah in 2023?
Thanks @Votante – probably the best for her and the Liberal Party.
Just a correction on Fiona Martin and the Libs losing the seat in 2022. This was in large part due to Martin crossing the floor and voting against the Safe Schools Bill; she had reservations that the legislation did not go far enough in protecting LGBTQI students.
She was subsequently abandoned by conservative members of her branches, who did not assist during the campaign.
The Tu Le comments were largely overblown, and I think you’ll find the Asian community were influenced more by the above actions than comments on talkback.
Interestingly, Sitou could not even vote in her own preselection as she was a member of the Fowler branches until a few months prior- indicating that both her and Tu Le were going to run for the Fed seat. Sitou then moved to Strathfield/Homebush to run for the state seat of Strathfield but this was circumvented by Jason Yatsen-Li’s candidacy (after Burwood Mayor John Faker refused Chris Minns’ offer to run)
Nonetheless, I think Sitou holds, albeit with a very reduced margin- normalising the seat’s actual margin hovering between 0.5-2%.
She hasn’t done herself many favours; Martin at least had the pandemic to blame. Sally has been a largely invisible and ineffective member during the last 3 years. There are many locally and externally who considered challenging but were discouraged by Head Office.
Grange Chung for the Libs is largely seen as a sacrificial lamb who has no chance of winning the seat but will help reduce the margin for the next candidate, likely Frank Alafaci or Anthony Bazouni in 2028.
In 2022, the swing to Labor was probably the largest outside WA. The swings were more pronounced in the southern and western parts where there are larger Chinese communities. Because of the size of the swing, there might be some calibration next election.
The Drummoyne part is interesting. The state seat of Drummoyne was Labor-held for many decades until Labor was wiped out in 2011. It was gentrifying at the turn of the century with white-collar professionals moving in, likely because of the waterfront and proximity to the city. This bolstered the Liberal vote over several election cycles. In more recent years, it has become teal-ish. Drummoyne may swing to Labor due to this trend.
@Wombater, Fiona Martin was a moderate Liberal. In the old Reid thread, someone said she tweeted about her resignation and tagged Simon Holmes a Court. This suggests she is more teal now.
Fiona Martin got into a lot of trouble especially in her final few months. She was involved in various controversies. For example, a dozen or so of her staff walked out. An ex-Liberal ran as an independent and preferenced Labor ahead of her. She copped a lot of flack from The Australian of all news sources. For these reasons, the size of the swing didn’t surprise me.
@Votante yep of all the seats Labor gained from the Coalition, the highest swing outside WA was in Reid. However some of the seats that switched to become non-classic contests had bigger notional swings from Liberal to Labor than Reid did.
Drummoyne was Labor held for ages because of Coady Maher and Murray.
The demographics have changed against Labor and that is half the seat.
I think Labor will keep this seat. This and Chisholm will be indicative of who forms minority govt
I was in Lidcombe yesterday, in an area near the train station with a lot of Korean restaurants and businesses. I saw around 5 posters in the window for Grange Chung, not a single one for Sitou, despite Sitou being the incumbent and the Labor vote around there being quite strong with a large Asian community.
Thought I’d give some local insights.
There are teal signs for Steven Commerford everywhere. Apparently his wife lost the liberal preselection to Grange. Unlikely to win but could run 3rd and his preferences will be very influential.
The Greens aren’t running Jago for the first time since I was old enough to vote. Not exactly sure who the new person is.
Overall, I think Sally is very likely to hold. She is much more visible and well liked than Fiona Martin was, particularly among the fast growing Asian communities of Burwood and Rhodes.
I think sitou should hold on here Reid is on a 5% margin and is not as under stress from CoL as Werriwa and the outer suburbs. Other then A landslide which I can’t see happening.
@Chris
I’ve heard of an Independent running in Reid but I haven’t been able to find any info on him even on google. Afaik he doesn’t claim to be a Teal nor does he get funding from Climate 200 so for all ik, he might just be an Independent like Dai Le (before joining WSC) or that guy in McMahon.
Re: Independent in Reid
I haven’t met the guy or heard anything he’s said, but his signs are certainly coloured teal. He also has a website with a teal colour scheme. https://stevencommerford.com.au/
The main thing I’ve heard is that he decided to run after his wife lost Liberal preselection. So not really a Dai Le sort of situation of a local with a pre-existing profile (I’ve never heard of the guy), more a Natalie Baini situation with a candidate arising from Liberal in-fighting. I also heard that he sought funding from Climate 200 but was apparently too late to get backing.
All this info comes from the local ALP chats I’m a part of. They’re usually pretty reliable when it comes to local, on the ground knowledge.
His website suggests that he is pitching to the Drummoyne / Abbotsford end of Reid rather than the Burwood / Strathfield end. Libs would need to be in landslide territory to win Reid at present. Labor hold in 2025.
I do candidate list updates once a fortnight on a Monday and last did it on Monday. This independent missed the cut but I’ve noted him for the next update.