Tangney – Australia 2025

Labor hold, reason being that Labor has a better relationship with the Chinese government and Dutton’s past actions and remarks won’t help them here. Also an area like this seems to be better off so mortgage rise have as much of a impact here.

If this was before a redistribution that put Canning Vale into the electorate I would’ve said Liberal gain. However, Canning Vale being a newly developed area in recent times is strongly Labor, added with the positive sentiments towards Labor working to rebuild China-Australia partnership should help Labor. Not to mention Sam Lim being actually quite popular in the area, particularly during COVID as a police officer who translated information into 10 different languages for the community. The northern part by the Swan River is tealish rather than deep blue ribbon and Dutton will be unpopular there because he’s hard conservative.

I sense that Labor has a chance to hold on, like Bennelong for similar reasons. Whilst the consensus about Gilmore, Paterson, Lingiari, Bullwinkel etc I agree will be Coalition gains, this could be one that holds on based off personal vote and a diverse demographic.

Not really sure China relations would be a big issue here as the Chinese Community in Perth mainly hails from Malaysia unlike other Capital Cities mainly hails from the Mainland.

Sam Lim likely will have a strong personal vote, possibly the strongest out of any recently elected MP. That could be enough for him to retain since Labor seems to be holding firm in WA in contrast to other states. Either way I expect any anti-ALP swing to be less here than in other WA seats.

You’d think the Libs could overturn the defrceit here if they have any hope of winning the overlapping state seats

@Marh Sam Lim himself is from Malaysia in any case.

A general correction swing in WA should in theory be enough for the Libs to comfortably win this seat. However, Sam Lim is a tough opponent with a strong personal following so the swing will be less than in other WA seats. The question is whether Sam Lim will be able to minimise the swing enough to hold on. The Libs have done themselves a favour to switch out their original trainwreck candidate to Howard Ong but Dutton seems to be appealing less to the sort of demographics in Tangney: affluent + large Chinese community.

Tangney was the surprise win from Western Australia. I would have thought Moore would have been a more likely win. Who knows Sam Lim may hold on.

Maybe people from Perth would know better but this seat looks like the WA equivalent of Menzies and Bennelong. Big Chinese population, lots of university educated people, similar median income. Considering Labor won Bennelong, and came pretty close in Menzies (and would on new boundaries) the win actually makes a lot of sense given how well Labor did in Perth.

I actually think the Labor vote here doesn’t look as inflated here as it does in other Perth seats. It’s only really 2-3% more Labor than Bennelong/Menzies. Unlike the rest of the country, in WA the swing was on with every demographic. In other states it was mainly in inner city/well educated seats.

I actually think Labor will win this.

I don’t think the China issue is much of the issue for the Chinese Community of Perth compared to other major cities as Perth’s Chinese Community tend to hail from Malaysia/Singapore (most are apathetic/indifferent to the issue) rather than from Mainland China. On 2021 Census, 3.7% Tangney is born in Mainland China which would even below average for Greater Sydney (4.6%) and is only slightly higher than Greater Melbourne (3.4%). Even Adelaide and Brisbane has has seat with higher percentages born on Mainland China than Tangney with 4.7% for Sturt and 6.3% for Moreton.

One of my good friends lives in this seat, and has for most or all of her life – she said that Sam Lim is well liked as an MP, especially compared to Dennis Jensen or Ben Morton.

That, combined with the fact that the north of the seat has teal tendencies (the old Alfred Cove state seat being a good example of that 2001-2013), means Lim could hold on here.

I’ve lived in Tangney for the majority of my life and I can attest to Sam Lim’s popularity in the seat. Out of all the seats Labor could lose, Tangney is certainly one of these seats that it can retain due to a huge personal vote for Sam Lim.

He also has experience in appealing to CALD communities as he has knowledge of ~9-10 languages (afaik, Mandarin, Hokkien, Hainanese, English, Burmese, Malay, Indonesian, “Dolphin” if you count that according to some news articles) and has previously assisted such communities as a Police officer; something crucial for him as iirc, he did win Tangney due to preferences, especially from the Chinese community.

That being said though, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Liberals regain Tangney as it is a traditional safe Liberal seat.

Tangney, unlike the other target seats for the Liberals, isn’t an outer-suburb. In fact, it’s quite likely that after Curtin, Tangney is probably the 2nd or 3rd most affluent inner-city seat in WA and its proximity to the Swan River/Perth City suggests that the demographics aren’t the ones affected by the same issues in the outer suburbs, such as interest rates and mortgage stress. Add in the big CALD community, and it is pretty much all the worst demographics for Dutton to appeal to.

Sam Lim is someone who was elected as a ‘representative of the community’ having worked as a police officer and doing all the translation during COVID. This coupled with the relative strength of Labor in WA, and I would be feeling confident that Tangney could be a fairly certain Labor hold this coming election. Out of the seats targeted by the Liberals, I’d say Tangney and Bennelong are the two seats that have the best chance of being retained by Labor for similar reasons, whilst I’m fairly confident in predicting that the likes of Paterson, Lyons and Gilmore etc are going to be directly in the firing line.

Most times this seat has been a reliable liberal seat. If this seat is retained by Labor then there is no chance of any lib pickups in wa.
Moore would also be in play.

they will lose this mick

Most of the overlapping state seats are on low margins and will likely flip back too

@tommo I’ve got libs winning tangent and Bennelong along with those others.

I’ve got this as a toss-up. In any other circumstance I’d say Liberal win but Sam Lim does seem popular. I don’t know if that will be enough though

For me it was pretty much a toss up until that Newspoll question about whether Albo ‘deserves another go’ or not (something like that anyway) showed WA voters beginning to sour on Federal Labor. That plus a generic swing to the Liberals after a high water mark year for Labor is probably enough even with a decent local MP to wash Labor out

Sam Lim will be feeling very confident with the state results. How involved was he in the state campaign? It may be possible his strong personal vote is flowing through to his state counterparts.

Doubtful remember his margin is a lot smaller

And the federal liberals are absolutely gonna tie him to albo

All six state seats overlapping Tangney, namely Bicton, Bateman, Bibra Lake, Riverton, Jandakot and Southern River, have all been retained by Labor, including the seat of Bateman that most would have expected to fall to the Liberal Party, and Riverton that was considered at serious risk of falling to the Liberal Party.

@Dan M: I don’t think it’s Sam Lim’s personal vote flow through to the state campaign, but rather the members of these state seats have built up enough personal votes to withstand the expected correction swing, especially the first term Labor MPs of Bateman and Riverton. Sam Lim will definitely be buoyed by the state result, because it shows that personal votes could help Labor MPs retain seats that Labor normally wouldn’t win in the first place. If the members of Bateman and Riverton can do this, he can do it as well.

@Joseph March 9, 2025 at 1:14 am
I’m familiar with the seat of Riverton and still have lots of friends living there, but from what I’ve seen and heard from them, Jags Krishnan is an active MP whose at least popular with the Indian community in Riverton. His popularity plus Amanda Spencer Teo’s lack of campaigning (the last time I was there at least) was probably what led to Jags Krishnan retaining Riverton rather than Sam Lim’s popularity trickling down to him.

I suspect Jags Krishnan being the main face of the development in Willetton and Rossmoyne Senior High School might’ve also helped boost his popularity considering a lot of people move to the area in order to get their kids enrolled in some of WA’s best public schools.

I would also hesitate to suggest any link between the results tonight and the likelihood of Labor keeping Tangney. As Dan M commented, the Liberals being forced to switch to Howard Ong will do them a favour.

NOTES: I meant MLA, not MP, bit of a typo, and by “main face” i meant that he was the Politician mainly linked to these projects, at the very least, Krishnan was more involved in that project than Sam Lim.

In addition, I still question how much of this state election results can be used to help predict the Federal results for Tangney considering that the State and Federal elections are fought on different issues and that the popularity of the MLAs in the 6 seats and Sam Lim are at different levels and that these people have different reasons for their popularity and who they’re popular with (e.g., I’m unsure if Krishnan was popular with Chinese community, and idk if Sam Lim is popular with the Indian community)

@North by West March 9, 2025 at 1:33 am
Howard Ong being preselected for Tangney was a good move bc at least on paper, Sam Lim’s appeal to the Chinese community might get cancelled out. However, I’d still give Sam Lim the edge in terms of personal vote. Ik Howard Ong has been doing some campaigning and I’ve heard he’s been visiting the houses of Liberal voters for a chat, but other than that, idk much else about him.

However, considering that Labor has managed to keep all 6 state seats overlapping with Tangney, with the 3 main state seats of Riverton, Bicton and Bateman somehow being Labor hold on swings from 2-4% should be cause to have some careful consideration on Tangney’s result.

Rn my prediction has Tangney as a LIB flip (has been since I found out Ong was the candidate) but lately, I’ve been reconsidering my prediction considering I might be underestimating Sam Lim’s popularity and the surprisingly good results for ALP tonight (I was surprised they managed to keep Bateman)

Whilst I acknowledge that state and federal are two different stories, if let’s say what happened tonight across the six seats that span the length of Tangney is replicated federally, then I’d probably rate Sam Lim’s re-election into parliament as pretty favourable. if they can’t win Tangney then they won’t be winning any more inner-city or Teal seats except maybe Curtin and even then it’s not certain. Sure there might be a swing but it won’t be the same scale as outer suburban areas.

Tangney, along with all the other state seats within it, seems to be experiencing a fair evident shift in voting demographics. Once Liberal heartlands have now got red painted all over it on the state level. The people who used to vote blue unwaveringly are now starting to favour more progressive parties like Labor and Greens, even in places like South Perth, Bicton (which experienced the smallest swing out of all) and Bateman. We could well see a scenario in the future where the Liberals regain government federally but without Tangney, in the same way that they formed government in 2019 but without Corangamite, Dunkley or Gilmore.

While they still remained in labor hands there was a swing against them. Federally labor have a much smaller margin to play with in tangey

@Tomm9: In 2008 and 2013 WA elections, the six state seats that now overlaps Tangeny were all held by the Liberal Party with the exception of Bibra Lake (then called Willagee) being held by Labor and Alfred Cove (whose territory now split between Bateman and Bicton) being held by independent Liberal Janet Woollard in 2008. Realignments seem to be undergoing in the inner urban areas of many capital cities including Perth, Melbourne and Sydney, where people of higher education levels and high incomes turning away from the Liberal Party. For example, in the 2022 federal election, Higgins elected its first Labor MP after being held by the Liberal Party since 1949, Labor won the area within the current boundary of Chisholm that it would not have won since at least 2004 and Labor came closest to winning the area within the current boundary of Bennelong since at least 2004.

Labor has a chance of retaining Tangney at the federal election with such a strong state result that may indicate a trend of realignment away from the Liberal Party, especially considering that Labor managed to retain the Liberal heartland seat of Bateman (an area that had not been won by Labor between 1977 and 2017). Due to the realignment Labor has a chance of retaining Chisholm as well.

Chisholm isnt an inner city seat in any way though. Its very much middle ring

@Up the dragons:Yes, I acknowledge that. I just used Chisholm and some other seats as an example to illustrate realignments that are happening in many urban seats with high education levels and high incomes. Most of such seats are in inner urban areas, but there are also some that are middle ring or outer suburban.

On ABC’s WA election night coverage, Tony Barry mentioned Bullwinkel as the only WA seat he’s putting in the Liberal gain column. I think he mentioned Pearce as potentially swingy due to the outer-suburban mortgage belt there.

There may be signs of a political realignment with traditionally Liberal WA state seats, like Bicton (formerly Alfred Cove) and Bateman, remaining with Labor at the state election, albeit with a smaller margin. Sam Lim might have a personal vote that could save him. He’s quite a character.

@Votante As I mentioned before I could definitely see a situation in the future where the Liberals can potentially form government, but without the likes of Tangney, Sturt or Bradfield which would be unprecedented in the 21st century, much in the same way that I’d have never imagined Labor holding government without the likes of Hunter, Shortland or Whitlam (Throsby previously). It would be a massive realignment and frankly the Liberals (and Labor in those areas mentioned) only have themselves to blame for this realignment.

It’s quite possible come the 2030s/40s that Labor will be the party of the middle/upper class/professionals/inner city elites and Liberals being the party of the battlers and hold seats they’ve never held before previously.

Joseph, Chisholm has been a marginal electorate for decades, and for that reason, there isn’t any evidence of any realignment at this stage. However, despite Chisholm being classed as a marginal, it doesn’t swing back and forth, and that is why I am surprised the ALP has reportedly given up on it when its margin of over 3% looks defendable.

Keep the Sheep are putting out a lot of signage here. Given how close the margin is, I gather they reckon it’s worth their while to try and win over people with the ‘stand with our rural communities, Labor is hurting WA’ message.

Well the Nationals did run some candidates in Bateman in the state election so it’s not the first time a rural oriented organisation has tried campaigning in Tangney suburbs

I doubt they’ll sway many CALD voters, they’re usually apathetic towards rural people. I think the main target of this campaign might be older, affluent white people who live near the coastal suburbs north of Leech Highway and Canning Highway. They’ve always been open minded, nice people from experience. But this is just my opinion, I might be wrong here.

@Pencil: On Chisholm’s current boundary, Labor would not have won it even in the 2007 federal election where Labor won by a landslide, however Labor won the area within Chisholm’s current boundary with a margin of 3.3%, the first time Labor has won this area since at least 2004. In particular, part of the current Chisholm that is West of Warrigal Road has seen a huge shift towards Labor since 2016. Therefore there’s definitely a realignment occuring within the current boundary of Chisholm, in particular the part West of Warrigal Road.

12 days of campaigning left! I had Tangney down as an obvious flip to the Libs, but now I’m not so sure. I think the national swing will be less than 2.8%, and I’m not even sure I buy the narrative anymore that WA will sour on federal Labor in any way that’s stronger than the rest of the country (barring VIC). Lim is genuinely an incredible candidate (it’s rare I can say that about the major parties these days) although his popularity with minority communities doesn’t prevent losses among white mortgage-stressed people in the more traditionally suburban bits of the electorate like Bateman. Still, the northern half of this electorate seems closer to a Teal seat these days, or so it feels. Howard Ong seems like a nice enough candidate but I’m not sure the Michaelia Cash/Peter Dutton vibe will be overly helpful. Interesting to me that the ‘Keep the Sheep’ campaigners are targeting the area, yet is that really going to sway anyone’s vote outside of rural areas? Over the last year, there have been two or three days when they drove convoys into the city from all directions, holding up traffic. From all the conversations I had about those convoys, including with a few people who live in or near Tangney, it was a mix of bemusement and polite consideration; people might have mixed feelings about how we manage animal welfare vs. rural profits, but it’s still an issue happening to someone else, sad though it might seem. (On the other hand, no-one is annoyed at them the way they get annoyed at climate protestors blocking traffic, so that’s something…)
There’ll be a bit of a swing back to Libs but I suspect they’ll only be saved if more of the cooker preferences go their way, now that they’re not the party of government so are less unappealing to low-status/libertarian types.

I think the Libs will need to grab this sooner or later. The seats south of the swan are trending labor but the libs have hope in the seats north of the swan

I think I’m pretty confident to say that Tangney will be a Labor hold (which hasn’t happened in eons). Sam Lim’s well received in the area and seems to have broadened his appeal across the electorate. Howard Ong might be of a similar background to Sam culturally but he doesn’t have the same name recognition and personality wise he seems to be a cookie cutter Asian candidate for the Liberals to demonstrate they’ve got some ‘diversity’ in the same way they’ve got Scott Yung in Bennelong (though Ong is far less controversial).

As mentioned, though Tangney and Bennelong are naturally Liberal seats, I could see both of them hanging on (or in Bennelong’s case, flip narrowly) to Labor this time round, as they’re both inner-city/middle ring areas that Labor appears to be doing fairly decently in and there’s no Teal to leech off the progressive/Liberal vote. Outer suburban areas will be a different story but these two seats I can see Labor holding even if they lose government someday.

The Libs sure should be glad they still don’t have Mark Wales as their candidate here. If he is still the candidate, this will be a definite Labor retain with a swing in Sam Lim’s favour.

And conversely, if Ong were up against anyone else I’d say he would be favourite to win. Two relatively strong candidates. They seem to respect each other as well – neither have tried to cast aspersions on the other or bring out any skeletons in the closet. Normally in a hard-fought campaign, the fighters will bring every mean trick they can think of to win it, but this one seems to be hard-but-fair. Lots of signs and doorknocking, but little mudslinging. If only every campaign were like this.

Incidentally, I was just reading that Ong’s brother is the health minister of Singapore, and they’ll also be going to the polls on the 3rd May.

I think the only crazy thing that has occurred in Tangney is that there’s a lot of activity this time around. Usually as a safe seat there aren’t that many corflutes. This time around there’s a lot more signs from Labor, Liberals and the Sheep campaigners.

Also it seems like the only mud-slinging in this electorate seems to revolve around corflutes. Seems to be some people vandalising them. RIP to the Sam Lim signs in Melville, and I’ve seen one or two Ong signs be defaced.

Safe seat? It’s very marginal, both parties are trying hard, I definitely wouldn’t say safe.

@Clarinet of Communists April 24, 2025 at 12:59 pm
Tangney was a safe Liberal seat until Sam Lim’s unexpected victory in 2022. I remember before then (and even during the 2022 campaign) that there was a lack of corflutes with the exception of a few Liberal ones. I was just comparing the campaign now to what it was back then.

it wasnt entirely unexpected. labor was exected to make gains in wa due to the previous morrison govts rhetoric on issues such and china and covid lockdowns and anger directed at wa by the pm.plus labor strong position and mcgowans personal vote. there was also the controversry surrionding christian porter nad his retirement.

@john April 24, 2025 at 1:23 pm
A lot of the factors you described there are easily explanations for Sam Lim’s victory in hindsight. Iirc, the only gains Labor was expected to make back in 2022 were Swan, Hasluck, Pearce. Even in the media, Tangney was overlooked. Not to mention that there was barely any signage except for a few Ben Moreton signs up in the foreshore suburbs.

At best Tangney was considered a black horse Labor win.

hence why its on such a small margin as opposed to the others

Even on a small margin I think Sam Lim could retain Tangney due to the fact that Dutton is losing appeal to inner-suburban voters, professionals and crucially, Chinese Australians. That combined with his popularity and encouraging results on the state level (whilst not fully translatable to federal result indicates good results for Labor, particularly in suburbs north of the Canning Highway) might be enough for him to retain.

This isn’t exactly a direct (nor good) comparison, but I think Lim might be in the same position as Bridget Archer, where even though she’s holding the seat on a tight margin, her personal popularity with voters is what keeps her in Bass.

Latesttseat poll has libs leading 49-45 in tangey, 46-41 in Blair, the greens 39-34 in Richmond but doest say against who presumably the nats. And Labor ahead 45-41 in hunter. Both Richmond and Hunter can be considered 3 way races though so those polls can shift. Also shows unusuallystrong levels of support in Gorton and Whitlam for the libs.

Also • Alexi Demetriadi of The Australian reports the pro-Palestine Muslim Votes Matter organisation has “volunteers already descending on pre-polling stations at its target seats across the country” — those named being Werriwa, Tangney and Rankin — to disseminate how-to-vote cards that put the Liberals ahead of Labor. The organisation is not to be confused with The Muslim Vote, which is supporting independent candidates Ahmed Ouf in Blaxland and Ziad Basyouny in Watson, whose how-to-vote cards favour Labor.

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