Grey sky, blue seat: apathy and antipathy in the Fadden byelection

It’s Saturday July 15, polling day in the Gold Coast electorate of Fadden, and I’m here to gauge the voter mood in the blue-ribbon conservative seat.

First stop: Arundel State School, a voting booth nestled amid towering eucalypts and the reserve greenery of the district’s south. Party volunteers in coloured T-shirts drift amid the thoroughfare as early voters approach. It’s overcast and cool, the gloomy morning sky threatening rain.

“No-one likes to come out,” James, a public servant and Parkwood local, says. “People aren’t really interested.” Late middle-aged and wearing a faded flannel shirt, James is a homeowner and Labor supporter. He has lived in the area for more than 20 years, and thinks voters here are disengaged: “I’m quite sure a lot of people don’t know who they’re voting for.”

To his point: there are 13 candidates on the ballot for this byelection, almost double the number at the 2022 federal election. When I ask whether he’s aware why the byelection is being called, he says matter-of-factly: “Corruption, I think.” He seems unaware of Labor’s robodebt attack ads on social media and is reserved in his criticism of former MP Stuart Robert. The Voice doesn’t factor into his voting; he’s in the No camp, regardless of party. 

Contrastingly, Gabi, a young, athleisure-wearing conservative who works as a property manager for her parents’ investment properties, is concerned about cost of living, infrastructure and inflation. She’s a little annoyed about having to vote again so soon, and strident in her criticism of Robert: “[He] … has basically been a parasite off the taxpayer for the past 20 years.”

Refreshingly candid, but she’s no less critical in her appraisal of the Voice: “As soon as the government starts making rules regarding race, it’s basically a slippery slope to Nazi Germany.” Notably, Gabi doesn’t mention robodebt and hasn’t been influenced by either of the major parties’ campaign messages. She had made up her mind about everything already.

Popular independent candidate Belinda Jones, a writer for Independent Australia, takes a more optimistic view of voter mood: “There’s a real appetite for change on the ground … I think we will see history being made today.”

Second stop: Runaway Bay Community Centre, a voting booth on Fadden’s south-eastern coastal fringe, a suburb home to LNP candidate (now member) Cameron Caldwell. It’s early afternoon, still overcast. 

If Fadden is blue ribbon then Runaway Bay is the aspirational locus where the ribbon folds, tightening around Hollywell, Paradise Point, and Hope Island to the north, where the off-ramp subdivision housing of the fringes give way to gated communities, multi-storey mansions, marinas, canals and tree-lined median strips. 

There’s a local club soccer match on the field near the booth and a sausage sizzle set up under a team-branded marquee sponsored by Queensland state opposition leader David Crisafulli. I talk to voters as they exit the booth. Some reveal they didn’t know the byelection was on until receiving the AEC text message early in the week. Most have little to say about being called back to the booths so soon. The main issue for them is cost of living. 

It’s here I meet the president of the local soccer club. Originally from the UK, Leigh, 40s-ish, dressed in black-and-white soccer attire, has lived in Runaway for 15 years, and owns multiple investment properties in the Gold Coast area. A father of five, he’s also an avid supporter of Caldwell, who frequently visits the club. Yet Leigh avoids discussing any of the scandals surrounding Robert, ditto: robodebt, cost of living, and the housing crisis. So what matters to Leigh? 

“For me, it’s mostly whether the guys at the top are looking at the local sporting communities and distributing the funds equally and fairly,” he says.

Yet in contrast to LNP anti-Voice messages, Leigh is strongly in favour of the Voice, citing his club’s efforts to assemble an entirely Indigenous team from the community in consultation with local Aboriginal elders. When I press Leigh on how he can parse his stance with that of the LNP, he simply states: “We’re a soccer club … We have the luxury of being on all sides … We accept everybody.”

My final stop: Coomera Rivers State School in Fadden’s central west. Traditionally a working-class suburb just off the Pacific Highway, Coomera is among the poorer areas on the coast, along with Labrador, Pimpama and Ormeau, with vacant lots and subdivision housing set among tall scrub that brushes against the grey lid of sky. No rain, but no sun either. 

All the major party candidates are on show here, as well as several independents, and I talk to Labor candidate Letitia Del Fabbro. She notes fewer people have turned out this year: “I think overall … voters are disengaged … But of course, there’s always a spectrum.”

She says robodebt and the Voice have come up in her conversations, but that cost of living remains at the forefront of voters’ minds. On the prospect of Labor’s future campaigning in the seat, she remains a realist: “It’s still LNP heartland, 10.6% [margin over Labor]. There’s certainly a demographic change happening … We’ve got one of the fastest-growing suburbs in Australia [Pimpama] … There’s lots of young families and people moving in from interstate … That’s bound to change the way people vote eventually.”

The final voter I speak to is David, 40, a storeman who’s lived in Coomera for 12 years, and rents. A father of four, whose wife is recovering from a post-surgery injury, he is the sole provider for his family, and the cost of living, healthcare and education weigh heavily on his mind.

He’s fed up: “Considering the history in our country with people just backstabbing each other and taking each other’s positions … I’m a bit over all of them. They all basically seem to work for themselves, not us.”

While preferencing most of the major parties last, David’s seemingly unaware of who the independents are, their policies, or what they stand for. 

On Saturday night, the LNP was declared as retaining Fadden, with Sunday AEC polling results showing a 2.43% swing to the party. 

Author’s note: some of the names mentioned in this article were changed to protect their privacy.