If North Sydney MP Trent Zimmerman is lucky, a large proportion of the voters in the NSW state seat of Willoughby will have made up their minds before last week’s shambolic events in Parliament over religious discrimination, in which Zimmerman was one of several “moderate” Liberals to cross the floor and defeat an effort to enshrine discrimination against trans kids.
If not, it’s no wonder the Liberals are polling his seat frenetically. Willoughby delivered an 18% swing against the Liberals, almost all of it to independent Larissa Penn.
Some specific factors are relevant: the loss of Gladys Berejiklian’s personal vote would have been significant. And in Tim James, the Liberals — or more accurately the preselectors of Willoughby — put up a wholly inappropriate figure: a doctrinaire right-wing male factional operator straight from the business-as-usual playbook that has seen the Liberals’ north shore heartland increasingly look at small-l liberal independents.
Penn didn’t have a high-profile campaign, but Zimmerman is up against Kylea Tink, who has been campaigning hard for months. Zimmerman and Prime Minister Scott Morrison will be hoping North Sydney voters noticed Zimmerman leading the way against the attack on trans kids last week. Zimmerman held North Sydney in 2019 by 13.6% against Labor.
As Michael Yabsley wrote yesterday, it’s Willoughby that points to real trouble for the Liberals in what is now a serious battle against independents who offer voters similar social and economic values to self-described moderate Liberals but who have the freedom to push for real action on issues like climate and integrity.
The loss in Bega — after another great moment of judgment for Andrew Constance — is squarely on the NSW and federal Liberals for failing to deliver much-promised bushfire recovery assistance. Running Fiona Kotvojs, a well-known climate denialist who has dismissed the link between climate change and bushfires, in a region still rebuilding after being immolated in 2019-20, wasn’t a smart move either.
The Liberals picked up a small swing — 0.6% — against Labor’s Jason Yat-Sen Li in inner-west Strathfield. Labor should have done better given the performance of the NSW government in the face of Omicron, suggesting the NSW Labor brand still has some way to recover after a decade of being in a richly deserved opposition, but nor does the result point to some seething groundswell of discontent that might deliver Morrison some Sydney seats.
Indeed, for a state that for much of the past two years has been held up as potential rich pickings for Morrison to stave off losses in other states, Saturday delivered a sobering message: he’ll need a lot of resources to hold off independents in wealthier areas of Sydney, and he can’t count on Constance winning Gilmore.
The most recent Morgan poll showed NSW continuing to be a real problem for Morrison, with Labor polling a 10-point swing on the 2019 result.
The byelections demonstrate how there’ll be no uniform statewide swing, but at the moment NSW looks a defensive operation, not the offensive one the government had hoped. Still, 12 whole weeks to go.
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Why does Labor get conflated with the Lib sins in so many comments ? They havent been in power in either state or federally for nearly a decade. I see dozens of people saying they won’t vote for LNP or Lab – their judgement is that they are as bad as each other – but there is no logical basis for that. Also the LNP campaign is ramping up the war drums and financial management superiority, when never has there been any indication that Labor would be soft under military pressure (although they would put infinitely more effort into seeking solutions to conflict than the LNP) – in the fiscal/financial sphere Labor has always proven far superior and fairer.
Have a look at the voting record – ‘Labor’ has supported ALL of the worst & most deleterious legislation, esp the Draconian security B/S.
Almost always in the teeth of principled & well reasoned argument & opposition from the cross benchers and anyone else with room temperature IQ.
Good government is impossible without competent and decent Opposition which is why the only hope is to look forward to minority government, rather than the usual empty suits playing musical chairs on the Treasury bench.
Fair enough. I’ve been very disappointed with Albo rolling on so much to present a small target and avoid the LNP Murdoch attacks. But why not fight for your principles and policies.
They’d have to find some first – if the skip in which they were dumped hasn’t been emptied.
Drandy, you’ve obviously forgotten the 2019 election. Shorten did exactly that and was unceremoniously rejected. Conservatives are uncomfortable with anything that threatens the status quo so why would you again paint a huge bullseye on your head? Albo is keeping his powder dry to avoid the same mistake again.
Yet another reprise of the self serving myth of Big Ideas being BAD, ‘Labor’ trying to pretend that they are not just B2 to Scummo’s B1 – just as with Krudd’s EMS being sunk by the perfidious Greens.
Shorten failed because he told different groups opposite things, depending on what focus group B/S his handlers had, on any given morning, implanted into his empty skull.
None of that tired tribe of time servers, apparatchiks and seat polishers believed a word of what they were saying, by rote as was obvious when the mental tapes jammed.
None of them, esp. Shorten, could speak off the cuff or ad lib an original thought or idea.
I see now sign that has changed, for the better. Only worse.
Tell me when and where the Coalition has ever done much of any consequence for ordinary working Australians.You won’t find much because all the policies that help working people over the last100 years have been enacted by the ALP. I don’t give a stuff about the semantics.
I think that you need to look up the meaning of ‘semantics’.
The uniformed and willfully ignorant electorate are frightened to death of BIG ideas. Change of any sort is viewed with skepticism, particularly amongst older voters. Notwithstanding clear and consistent messaging our MSM will always do its best to muddy the waters.
Possibly because Big Ideas ™ ® ‘\_(°~°)_/` are usually Big B/S, peddled by tiny minds attached to big egos & huge greed?
Labor are keeping their traps shut because the Murdoch monster is waiting to pounce.If elected they will do far more on Climate, federal ICAC and wages policy than the corrupt Coalition. If you can’t distinguish between the two after 10 years of Liberal denyalism tough.
If you think that ‘Labor'” will do far more on Climate, federal ICAC and wages policy…” then you have a very short memory even of the brief 2007-13 interregnum, entirely self inflicted – EMS, no federal ICAC or pokie reform and a worse than previously W/B law, despite Krudd’s 2007 manifesto promising reform following the Customs/airport case, etc ad nauseam.
If your memory extends slightly further, look back at the class traitors who gave us the Accord, privatisation of Commonwealth bank, Telecom, War Home Loans, deregulation and sucking up to the Big Ar$ed end of town.
I don’t vote for Jenny and the kids. Desperation smells so strong that the whiff of it is now everywhere in the Liberal camp.
Costello’s 9 puff-piece promo. I heard it was ‘either her and the kids or another lump of coal’.
You gave me a horrible start there – I misread your opening to mean ‘a 9 piece promo‘.
This would surely constitute ‘cruel & inhuman‘ if not a ‘war crime‘.
So true. “Desperation” accurately describes it. It is a source of constant amazement that Morrison, and his clone Boris, in the UK, seem utterly incapable of grasping the level of utter despair in the minds of the fair minded folk. The parade of constant lies, theft, lack of control of the underlings, and outright self-interested incompetence, all has a price to pay. The bulletproof arrogance (or unshakeable self-belief, typical of narcissistic behaviour), astounds me, not just with Morrison, but the majority of the LNP. I doorknocked in Dutton’s electorate for Getup at the last election. The public’s indifference, and the widespread underpriveleged’s willingness to tolerate the architects of their misery, was common. Most, of course, busy just surviving, have little time to think deeply about LNP policies, to connect the dots to their lot in life. Meanwhile, the gross incompetence just rolls along, gradually destroying the hearts of our belief systems, institutions, public service, and overall trust in Government. LNP “business a s usual”.
Well it’s more than the bushfire recovery. Kotvojs is already a proven non-starter in the electorate, great choice there. But the enormous issues with health are also a huge factor in this result. Michael Holland has been campaigning for the health service in the Eurobodalla to be upgraded from well below what is required for the region to something that is adequate and fit for purpose now for an extended period. The Liberals constant promises, regularly broken and crab walked away from repeatedly will have given him a huge surge in support.
It’s a great mystery why the LNP, so generous with the largesse in Coalition seats at both the Federal and State levels, failed entirely to provide any of that largesse to Bega electorate for improved health services. Makes you wonder why Constance kept getting elected if he couldn’t get some of the pork.
“Welcome to ‘4 for 1 Polling Day’ rubes! A vote for Trent Zimmerman is a vote for Scott Morrison, Peter Dutton & Barnaby Joyce running your country.”
“Jesus wept” or has srarted weeping already. What a tone-deaf, politically morals or honesty, empathy and compassion challenged trio they appear to be, together with most of their Coalition colleagues.
Klewso,
Possible misprint, didn’t you mean that the three amigos are ruining rather than running the country, as the notion that they are running it (other than into the ground) seems fanciful?
Running Fiona Kotvojs, a well-known climate denialist who has dismissed the link between climate change and bushfires, in a region still rebuilding after being immolated in 2019-20, wasn’t a smart move either.
She was also the Lib candidate for the federal seat of Eden-Monaro in the July 2020 by-election caused by the retirement of Mike Kelly. The ALP’s Kristy McBain won. At the time memories of the bushfires and the lack of federal government support were front of mind. Nothing seems to have changed.