Blue Mountains – NSW 2023

I predict that Trish Doyle will easily retain the seat for Labor. With the broader electoral tide seemingly turned in the ALP’s favour, I reckon she might even increase her 2PP margin versus the Liberal Party from its already record high despite the redistribution bringing in a couple of suburbs in the lower Mountains where the Liberal and conservative Christian parties do better than in the rest of electorate. Trish is a very visible and effective campaigner and a popular local member. Dumping her from shadow cabinet for her loyalty to Jodi McKay was Chris Minns’ loss.

As far as I’m aware, the Libs haven’t preselected their candidate yet, so at this point I would say they’re a total write-off. I’ve only received a single Liberal Party pamphlet in the letterbox so far, and it had Dominic Perrottet front-and-centre with no mention of a local candidate.

Overall, at all levels of government, the Blue Mountains Greens seem to do generally on-par with the party’s national vote (somewhere around 12% in recent elections). They sometimes outpoll the Liberals in some upper Mountains booths, where there is a larger ‘post-material’ constituency, although interestingly this is also the poorest part of the electorate. (I think it is a slightly different demographic to the affluent inner-city voter that supposedly makes up the Greens’ base, although there is some overlap, and I think such a strong focus on demographics as a predictor of politics is overly reductive). Even still, given how strong environmentalism runs in the community and the long history of left-wing conservationist activists and artists living in the Mountains, you might think that the Greens would do better. Hit-and-miss candidate selection has definitely played a part. In recent times, some examples that come to mind include Kingsley Liu, their candidate for Blue Mountains in the 2019 NSW election and unsuccessful lead candidate for Ward 3 in the 2021 local council election, later contesting the 2022 federal election as a Senate candidate for the anti-environmentalist and generally unhinged Citizens Party (the former Citizens Electoral Council) of all parties (!); preselecting Joel MacKay, a former vice-president of the Young Liberals, as their candidate for Macquarie at the 2022 federal election (until he withdrew just a few weeks before the election); and maverick Blue Mountains City Council (BMCC) Ward 1 councillor Kerry Brown, whose outspoken criticism of BMCC’s asbestos management was particularly controversial, and contributed to her being expelled from the Blue Mountains Greens in late 2020 while still a sitting councillor (although she maintained that she continued to serve as a Greens councillor and remained a member of the state party). In contrast, the local ALP often put up principled but disciplined candidates with longstanding connections to various community organisations. Combined with the seeming domination by the left faction (which I think suits the electorate), I think this at least partly explains how Labor have done very well in recent years while the Greens have perhaps under-performed. I’m guessing that the small but noticeable rise of the Animal Justice Party also takes perhaps one or two percentage points of the primary vote that might otherwise have gone to the Greens in their absence. In 2023, Jenna Condie seems to be a more typical Greens candidate, but I can’t see her making inroads into Trish Doyle’s personal popularity. Based on her online profile, it seems like Dr Condie might part of the Cate Faehrmann camp within the NSW Greens, for those who care about such peripheral things.

Short of a major scandal or 2011-style statewide wipe-out, I think Blue Mountains will remain in the ALP’s hands for at least as long as Trish Doyle is their candidate, and probably beyond.

Nice attempt at explaining The Greens in the Blue Mountains, but some clarification:
– MacKay withdrew due to health reasons two months prior to the Federal Election. To characterise his candidacy as “a miss” would be unfair to him and the local group that rallied around him. To call out his former involvement with the Young Liberals, and not his activism career is slightly misleading too.
– Dr Condie isn’t part of any “camp” within the NSW Greens. She is active in local environmental and community groups and was tapped on the shoulder by locals to run.

I largely agree with your summary though — but would perhaps add that a strong campaign from Condie this time, with potential follow-ups on Council and continued community activism and involvement, could put The Greens in better stead at future election.

To further substantiate why I think the Liberals don’t have a chance of winning this seat in 2023, a few high-profile local issues that are against them are as follows.

The Coalition government’s decision not to provide recovery funds to any Labor-held electorates, including Blue Mountains, after the 2019-20 bushfires will sting them. It feeds a narrative that is being effectively prosecuted by the Labor Party that the Coalition is prioritising their own political interests over objective assessments of community need. Add in that the scandal involves John Barilaro, and this is a clear vote-loser.

Widening the Great Western Highway west of Katoomba will inevitably be controversial locally, no matter which alternative is progressed, but I suspect the hugely-expensive long tunnel option, which appeared to be the state government’s preferred option, would be a net vote-winner for the Liberals in Blue Mountains (and any of the options would be winner for Paul Toole and the Nationals in Bathurst), and add another very large example for the state Coalition to point to as evidence for their reputation as a deliverer of transport infrastructure projects. As far as I’ve seen, Trish Doyle and the Labor Party have carefully avoided any outright opposition to the project, while expressing skepticism that it would go ahead as-planned, raised concerns about various aspects, and expressed in-principal support for alternatives such as freight on rail. The state government’s decision to delay most of the project by at least a couple of years (on the back of federal Labor declining to contribute funding, and a hot engineering construction industry nation-wide leading to skills and supply shortages, and hence cost increases and programme delays) means they no longer have that local vote-winner, and vindicates Ms Doyle’s skepticism.

The proposal to raise the Warragamba Dam wall is bitterly opposed by environmentalists and broadly unpopular in the Mountains. Trish Doyle has been vocally opposed, even if NSW Labor and the federal ALP have been slower to declare their opposition. (The issue was a much trickier calculation for the ALP federally, given that the federal electorate of Macquarie combines the Blue Mountains with the badly flood-affected areas around Richmond and Windsor. The Labor MP, Susan Templeman, openly opposed the project and in the end still did relatively well for a Labor candidate in the Hawkesbury end of the electorate in the 2022 election. Meanwhile, the Liberal MP for Lindsay, Melissa McIntosh, who has stated her support for raising the dam wall, also achieved a small swing towards her, which was no mean feat for a federal Liberal last year.) My guess is the Liberal Party is prepared to wear the pain in Blue Mountains, where they were very unlikely to win anyway, in the hope of picking up votes in flood-affected electorates on the Hawkesbury-Nepean River, such as the safe Liberal seat of Hawkesbury, but especially the key marginal seat of Penrith, who overlaps with Lindsay. Stuart Ayers, as the member for Penrith, has probably been the most high-profile advocate in favour of the project.

The last issue I’ll list is that Blue Mountains Line train services have been badly disrupted over the past year or two. Causes have included storm damage and landslides, COVID-induced staff shortages and patronage declines, and recently a freight train derailment. While it’s hard to blame the government for these, the disadvantage of incumbency is the you tend to wear the cost of whatever happens on your watch. However, the cause that has been the longest-running and most damaging for the government is industrial action by the RTBU and the government’s ham-fisted response. Industrial action can go either way in the court of public opinion, and I have seen the odd passenger shout expletives at railway workers over the dispute, but I don’t think this one is playing into the government’s hands. The safety concerns raised by the union over the New Intercity Fleet are genuine (even if it also meets the union members’ interest in protecting guards’ jobs). A more sympathetic and probably less politically-costly response from the government would have been to agree to modify the trains to address the union’s concerns (basically move the screens in the driver’s cab and fit a Dutch door to the guard’s compartment). That might have earned some goodwill on the EBA issue (the other half of the dispute) and let the trains enter service instead of sit around for years at Kangy Angy and Lithgow, but instead David Elliot came into the Transport portfolio and, true to form, quickly sabotaged the reset that Dominic Perrottet and others had tried to execute when they could see that they weren’t winning. Trish Doyle has consistently backed the RTBU, which could be contentious with swing voters, but probably fires up Labor’s base to help her campaign, and she has weaved the dispute into a larger narrative around the New Intercity Fleet and public transport procurement. Her slogan that the government accidentally ‘ordered foreign-built trains that don’t fit the tracks’ is a misrepresentation of a deliberate choice by the government/TfNSW to (for better or worse) standardise on a single loading gauge for suburban and interurban trains, but the message cuts through with the average voter, taps into public sentiment in favour of domestic manufacturing, and a photo of her holding up a tape measure across the front of an existing V Set train is a clever campaign image.

Local Green, thanks for providing a party member’s perspective! I appreciate the polite correction of a couple of unbalanced opinions that I’d formed as an interested but casual observer/voter.

I like Trish Doyle. I don’t like Minns. On policies that matter, Minns has no future vision. He is a weather vane.

We need a transport policy to relieve pressure on the GWH and the Blue Mountains rail line over the Blue Mountains to open the Central West to tourism and to services such as health, education and cultural activities. The Blackheath to Hartley tunnel to reduce road traffic flow through villages in the upper mountains is a beginning. A rail tunnel for freight trains from Lithgow to Emu Plains is the ultimate necessity.

I don’t know SAP or AJP regional transport policies.

Roads are necessary, but they are not the solution to regional transport development. Commuter and freight rail must be developed to reduce the hazardous overuse of roads.

The Liberals have nominated Dr Sophie Bruce, an osteopath from Warrimoo, as their candidate. Her candidate page on the NSW Liberals website (https://nswliberal.org.au/sophie-bruce) has an unfortunate copy-and-paste error:
“…Sophie Bruce knows our community and will be a strong voice for Prospect and ensure it is the best place to live, work and raise a family.”

Thanks for the detailed commentary, particularly Myles! Very much appreciated.

Not much to see here i expect the seat to drift further to Labor in 2023. The two blue booths were in Penrith last time and this time i expect them to turn Red as the Libs wont campaign there.

@nimalan happy to concur but expect to see that retract in 2027

I’m pleased to see that the Greens have finally offered a candidate with some good local credentials at the State level. Am tempted to vote for her myself 😉 For goodness sakes, may their candidate selection be more consistent in future – it’s the only way they will build their vote!
The Liberals candidate is not a contender.
I am not sure why Animal Justice is so popular for preferencing.
Trish Doyle will consolidate the seat.

This seat has flown below the radar because it’s so safe, but it’s remarkable to think this seat was Liberal not too long ago. Labor won the upper mountains by Saddam Hussein levels – with the Liberals potentially going below 10% primaries in Katoomba. Most booths west of Lawson have Green and Liberal primaries neck and neck.

@Andrew

There’s a handful of seats that were Liberal-held in 2011 and are now on margins above 20% for Labor – Blue Mountains, Campbelltown, Charlestown, Granville, Maitland, Newcastle, Port Stephens, and Wyong. How times have changed.

Just noticed that booth at Katoomba Public School you were alluding to – 88.5% for Labor (2PP)! That’s impressive.

I voted at Katoomba Public School. Admittedly, it was right at the end of the day (I arrived around 5pm), but the Liberals didn’t even have anyone handing out HTVs, just a tray of them cable tied to the fence beneath a Sophie Bruce coreflute with a single plastic sleeve on top to provide partially-effective protection from the rain.

@ Nicholas, yes it is very impressive. Blue Mountains was once seen as a bellwether now rock solid Labor i dont think it will even be won in 2011 style Landslide by the Libs ever again.

It’s the effect of having quality candidates at all tiers of govt – there’s a synergy that develops. I noticed the Liberals initially tried to put off potential Doyle voters by dragging her down in comparison to Templeman, but they gave that up near as I could see. I wouldn’t bet that the Mountains won’t vote Liberal again, but as long as Trish and Susan keep running (and the Liberals continue to embarrass themselves with their development mindset which is quite at odds with the setting) I think red will dominate.

Why is this a Labor seat? What makes the Blue Mountains a Labor-voting area? Can someone explain?

Note: I should point out that the Liberals do seem to do well in the far eastern suburbs of the Blue Mountains (i.e Glenbrook and Lapstone), but not in Katoomba.

@nether portal the people there vorpte Labor that’s why. It’s also why Macquarie is marginally Labor. Though I expect it Ti be in play federally after the redistribution

@Nether Portal – it has a lot of tree changer and “hippie” voters. My question always used to be why the Greens aren’t doing better here – it could come down to local branch politics and other silly things like that. Trish Doyle and Susan Templeman are both from the left of the ALP and have gone out of their way to avoid appearing hostile to Greens.

Nether Portal, I think the comment above yours by Glenbrook Local is illuminating.

It has been reported that the Blue Mountains will be renamed the Red Mountains as they always seem to vote red (Labor), not blue (Liberal).

Happy April Fools Day!