Port Stephens – NSW 2023

I saw results for Paterson Federal district were quite weak for Labor, with a small swing against them. Would this potentially result in Port Stephens also being at risk of being lost despite an overall swing to Labor state-wide?

I note that Port Stephens only recorded a modest swing of 1% to Labor in 2019, unlike other seats such as The Entrance and Gosford that had larger swings with first term MP’s recontesting.

This is a real pickup opportunity for the Liberals, federally in 2022 they would have won this by around 4%. With a popular candidate and a more popular premier than Scott Morrison, this could be won fairly easily. Remember the Liberals won in 2007 and when they lost in 2015, the sitting Liberal MP was quite scandal plagued. I think it could go either way, however the Liberals need to select a candidate soon for them to have a good chance.

Probably the wrong election for the Libs to pick this up, but I definitely see this as a pickup during the re-election of a Labor government (2027 or 2031) Lucy Wicks could jump to state politics through this seat even though it isn’t exactly Gosford (although this is more winnable than Gosford and would fall first)

If Labor lose any seat it will be this one, But I doubt it will fall. I suspect the margin will be unchanged after the election, with maybe a tiny swing to the Liberals but not enough to flip the seat.

Yes, probably agree Daniel. It is a seat that may be tilting more towards the conservative side, but with a decent incumbent and a favourable environment Labor will retain with negligible (maybe 1-2%) swing against them, similar to the result in Paterson federally.

@you a swing against them will make it a prime target in 2027 when labor are in minority

Barely 2 weeks until the election and no liberal candidate?

@scott announced today

So sad that no Liberal Candidate could be found to contest this seat. Sounds like a general malaise in the Party.

They are running, they’re running in every seat. I’ve just been doing my due diligence collecting candidate links before updating. Will get it done tonight. Finished up to Heffron alphabetically.

@noel announced on wednesday

The Liberals did lots of last-minute picks, even in seats that they held up until 2015 e.g. Port Stephens, Rockdale, Granville.

Paterson and Port Stephens is more Labor friendly than it was back in the Howard years (Due to the fact Labor lost both this and Paterson in 2007 despite forming government). But just because it was more Labor friendly doesn’t mean it’s trending their way. Liberals will only win this and Paterson federally if they are going for a decent working majority (but not landslide) maybe of around 55-60 seats state level and 80+ seats federally.

I don’t buy that the previous liberal member cost them the seat in 2015, the swings in this region in 2015 were enough to see a change of government. Look at the swings in Upper Hunter in 2015, even look at Maitland and Wyong. Labor barely recovered much in Sydney in 2015 which is confusing. I thought the then government’s power company privatation would have hurt them much more in Sydney and would have been more popular in these parts?? Libs only won the TPP in Terrigal in this region unless you count Upper Hunter

Is there an explanation why the swings were massive on the central coast against the coalition under Baird? Was O’Farrell just a strong appeal here or were there certain policies that cost the coalition here? ”Natural Labor territory” doesn’t explain why some battlegrounds like this seat, The Entrance (which was marginal after 2007) and Gosford went Labor in 2015 but not many traditional Labor or marginal seats in Sydney which stayed with the coalition?

@Daniel T

A large number (not all) of Liberal MPs in the Central Coast and Hunter got investigated by the ICAC, this in turn tarred the Coalition in those regions in 2015.

This would be at least part of the reason Labor did better there than in Greater Sydney at that election.

Daniel, for many seats in the Sydney area it is more a factor of demographic change. I would say seats like Oatley, East Hills and Drummoyne fit these criteria, as working-class voters have moved out and replaced with more middle class/affluent ones. Even those who remained (tradespeople) have become de-unionised and thus less likely to back Labor.

As a comparison, I think some outer Brisbane suburbs (Caboolture, Strathpine, Petrie and Aspley) may also be trending in this direction and thus Labor will not be able to win state seats in these areas as comfortably in the future.

Furthermore, the Central Coast had several MP’s who were under indictment when facing re-election in 2015, that is why many seats swung harder to Labor compared to the state average.

whoever wins this election wont win the next one. good time to lose if you ask me

@Daniel. The electricity privatisation matter really hit hard north of metropolitan Sydney. Also, at least four Liberal MPs from the Central Coast and Hunter became independents. Port Stephens has traditionally been Labor territory but the Liberals won it in 2007 with a 50.1% 2PP.

Can someone explain the method behind the madness with the Libs in Port Stephens? Would they have pre-identified this seat as no hope to win and therefore the result is a ghost candidate announced at the last minute? FYI when entering my friends Port Stephens address on the Liberal party website (to find your local candidate) you get redirected to a Central Coast dude running for legislative council!

@scott they have had trouble finding candidates for whatever reason. and sometimes tehy take till the last minute to announce one for tactical reasons

The 12.5% 2PP swing TO Labor took me by surprise. I knew that the Liberal nomination was last-minute but never expected a double-digit swing. One Nation scored 13% and perhaps split the right-wing vote and exhausted most of them.

The demographics of Port Stephens make it look like a Liberal seat. It has lots of small towns and villages, a large retiree population, religious, low percentage of migrants and uni graduates and high percentage of home ownership. It’s like Wide Bay or the northern parts of the Sunshine Coast. I can only hypothesise that many lifelong Labor voters who once held blue-collar jobs in the Hunter, Newcastle or Sydney have moved to Port Stephens for retirement.

Economically, there’s a mix of old-school blue collar workers (trades, transport, mining, manufacturing), public sector and defence workers and care economy (e.g. aged care, health) and tourism industry workers. Kos Samaras on ABC said there’s a new working-class base for Labor consisting of public sector workers. I feel that the essential services and care economy industries, where women and the uni degree holders are overrepresented, drove the Labor vote at the 2022 Fed and 2023 NSW elections.

What was up with the big swing to Labor here? It’s now a safe seat despite the federal seat of Paterson being a marginal Labor seat where many (if not most) Port Stephens booths recorded slim Liberal majorities and the Labor MP for Paterson (Meryl Swanson) had a small TPP swing against her? This should’ve been a Liberal target and likely will be at the next state election (or they’ll at least try and lower the margin). Also what was up in South Coast, another Labor seat the Liberals will target in 2027 given it’s small margin, the fact that the Liberals finished first on primaries, the fact that Labor gained the seat from the Liberals and the fact that Gilmore is a definite target for the federal Liberals in 2025? I know many Labor-voting Sydneysiders moved there during COVID but still. The NSW Liberals should also target the Central Coast, i.e gain back a lot of their margin in Terrigal and try very hard to win The Entrance. Any thoughts?

@ nether portal. state factors in play more then likely a outgoing lnp govt at state level a popular labor leader and the federal govt being in it s honeymoon and remember the seat of paterson takes in rural booths wchih strongly favour the lnp. the seat of paterson is likely to gain territory from lyne to north of lnp voting booths and will probably shed labor voting cessnock. this will most likely put it into ultra slim marginal status and possibly notional liberal. it will be one the coalition will hope to pickup and in my opninion one they will most likely get

Nobody will take me seriously here given the current margin but the Liberals need to target this seat, it’s crucial. The Liberals need to regain Port Stephens to have a seat in Newcastle. It’s just necessary for them to have a Newcastle-based seat. No more fielding candidates at the last minute.

I don’t live in Newcastle but if I did I’d be helping out with preselection (I’ve been a member of the Liberals since I was 19 and voted Liberal at every election). I do know people here though who do vote Liberal (Medowie is quite Liberal-friendly). Paterson will most likely become notionally Liberal in the next redistribution.

Although Paterson does include rural booths where the Liberals do well, in 2022 they seemed to do well in Port Stephens too. Give me a bit and I’ll make my boundaries for Paterson.

Also, one thing I should note is that Paterson in 2007 included Forster-Tuncurry (two twin towns) which are now in Lyne on the federal level and Myall Lakes on the state level, both safe Nationals seats. Forster-Tuncurry is comparable demographically to Port Macquarie except less migrants (most people from outside the area don’t know this but Coffs Harbour has always had a relatively large and growing Indian population and Port Macquarie is starting to see a lot of Indian migrants too, but they seem to vote the same as European/Indigenous people).

@ NP
I actually agree with you i do think Maitland & Port Stephens are the only potential gains for the Libs in the Hunter Region. I dont think Swansea is worth targeting as it is more working class and Charlestown is more urban. Unfortunately, for the Libs in 2015 they lost their sitting member due to ICAC in Port Stephens and Robyn Parker retired in Maitland which helped them flip to Labor. Having said that i believe they will only be in play when current incumbents retire.

One thing I’ve wondered is: Paterson is quite marginal, but Maitland and Port Stephens on a state level are quite safe for Labor. I can’t imagine that Kate Washington or Jenny Aitchison could carry THAT much of a positive to raise the 2PP, especially in Washington’s case, by 15% from federal to state election only 10 months apart. And on the flip side, Meryl Swanson isn’t (I can’t imagine) be that unpopular to drag the Labor vote down that much. I know/think that the areas around Lemon Tree Passage and Nelson Bay are a kind of retirement haven? It definitely shouldn’t be considered a shoe-in for the Libs, not that anyone is suggesting that, but I think Labor’s chances are perhaps better here than many people would assume based on federal figures?

@ Quiscence, part of the issue is that Labor at a federal level is underperfoming in the Hunter Region due to the climate wars which is not the case at a state level.

@Quiscence sorry I’m late but I do have a reason. I think for Port Stephens it’s not really about the climate wars, it’s about candidates. It’s northern Newcastle and Newcastle has traditionally been a solidly Labor city. Paterson contains rural booths too in towns like Hawks Nest and Tea Gardens which heavily favour the Liberals, and it previously included Forster-Tuncurry (now in the very safe Nationals seat of Lyne). But in 2007, the Liberals narrowly won Port Stephens despite not winning government thanks to a big swing against Labor. The member retired but still. In 2011 the Liberals easily retained it but the Liberal MP got caught up in the ICAC scandal that led to the resignations and/or defections of most Liberal MPs in Newcastle and on the Central Coast (plus the Liberal MP for Maitland retired in 2015), which meant Labor could gain every seat in the region except Lake Macquarie (very safe independent seat) and Terrigal (blue-ribbon Liberal seat, currently marginal but usually safe).

Port Stephens has become more competitive in recent times but the candidate and timing both have to be right for the Liberals to win. The Liberals fielded a candidate very late in Port Stephens and that’s never a good thing, especially in a key seat like this. That would’ve been the biggest factor. The other factor would’ve been One Nation. The majority of people who vote for the Coalition or a right-wing minor party (as well as a small majority of Labor voters) exhaust their preferences (meaning they only put a number one in their preferred candidate’s box since there’s optional preferential voting in NSW), the only ones who mostly number other boxes are Greens voters and teal voters. Therefore, because One Nation polled over 12% here suddenly, it wasn’t helpful for the Liberals since One Nation took votes of them and most of them didn’t give any other preferences.

As for the “climate wars”, how are they different on the federal and state levels? Climate action of some sort has bipartisan support everywhere, with Labor having a more progressive policy while the Coalition has a more economy/affordability-friendly policy. In NSW the Liberals are mostly Moderate (centre to centre-right) while NSW Labor is mostly dominated by the less-progressive Right faction (centrist to centre-left); federally the Liberals are more conservative than in NSW while federal Labor is more progressive than NSW Labor. Wouldn’t they still be marginal on the state level if they are federally (not talking about Paterson here, obviously that makes sense why it’s marginal, but I don’t get why Shortland’s marginal or even fairly safe)?

@Nimalan @Nether Portal Liberals winning this? You can’t be serious!

It’s a safe seat with a three-term incumbent Labor MP even through popular Coalition governments.

Federally the Liberals won some booths, at least in Medowie, Nelson Bay and Soldiers Point. But the state Liberals won no booths in 2023 and in 2019 they won only Nelson Bay and Soldiers Point.

Why didn’t the state Liberals win Medowie? Good question. But I don’t know.

And as for Paterson, they need this seat to win Paterson. A seat that votes >60% Labor isn’t voting >60% Liberal or vice versa.

@nether portal use some common sense if you can only win rural booths in port stephens and you lost nelson bay (explain that to me btw someone please) then how do you expect to win paterson like look at the margin here