Bennelong – Australia 2025

Quite an achievement for Labor and Jerome Laxale to turn the now advantageously-Liberal Bennelong into a near safe seat in one stroke. Clearly Laxale’s appeal was better than Scott Yung’s despite the latter’s Chinese heritage which usually plays well with ethnic Chinese voters. But whoever thought it was a great idea to run as a ethnically Chinese candidate under Peter Dutton and think they have a shot at winning would be kidding themselves anyway. Grange Chung and Howard Ong were both emphatically defeated in their electorates despite their heritage.

@Tommo perfectly said. It was undeniable that despite the background of the above candidates, Asian Australian voters could not vote for a Dutton government when he has consistently shown vitriole towards CALD groups (African communities in Melbourne, the Biloela family), especially when push comes to shove.

I just had a squiz at Yung’s how to vote card on his website.

He preferenced Greens dead last for the seat, behind ToP and ON. In a seat which absorbed former teal areas i think that was a masterful mis-step. For the Senate, well these are party orders, but having Pauline Hanson as 4th out of your 6 numbers… thats a big FU to the Chinese-Australian electorate.

He also only won 1 booth – Hunters Hill. How Labor wins 2P in an area like Greenwich… well the Libs have a lot of soul searching to do.

Hopefully the failure of Yung will put to bed some of the lazy analysis of voting intentions of ethnic groups that have some sort of hive mind that means they will vote for a candidate based on what they look like rather than what their policies might be

When you look at the booths lost by Scott Yung rather than what he won it is quite an achievement – Longueville or Lane Cove South for goodness sake!! There are obviously a lot of people in Bennelong who cast their first Labor vote ever. In the circumstances of what happened it would be interesting to speculate on how well Kylea Tink would have gone – I suspect that she would have done well enough at the eastern end to possibly make the last two as she would have picked Lib votes from the rest of the electorate. It would seem that every last Tink voter from 2022 went straight to Labor or the Greens.

What went so wrong with Scott Yung? No Liberal should ever be losing booths like the Lane Cove and Ryde PPVCs given prepolls favour the Liberals and both Lane Cove and Ryde are state Liberal seats.

@Nether Portal There is a pleothra of comments above that would justify why Yung (Deservedly) lost this supposed Liberal heartland. John Alexander would be ashamed at the current state of the Liberal party, given this seat was won by him multiple times.

I guess the people of Bennelong don’t have as high opinion of Scott Yung as he has of himself

At this stage, I don’t think most of the seats like this have results like that due to the candidate. Probably more to do so with the fact that Labor’s main campaign in this sort of seat is a vote for whoever the Lib candidate is is a vote for Peter Dutton with signs about that plastered everywhere.

The only thing Yung got right was saying that Dutton won’t be there forever.

I don’t think Scott Yung did himself any favours, but his campaign is a very small part of the big swing here. It’s simply been a consistent trend across the North Shore that Liberal voters have swung hard towards Labor. Dutton and his stances on WFH or past anti-China stances explain a lot of this, but it’s also showing the continued brand damage of the Liberals in the last few years.

@Tommo9 I can’t really be bothered to go back far enough, all the comments seem to suggest is he was a dickhead unless I’m misreading them.

@Mitch
How would you say this has been gerrymandered for Labor?

If anything, I’d say the redistribution here favoured the Liberal party as the committee removed solid Labor booths in Epping and added Hunters Hill and Lane Cove, reducing the ALP margin by at least 1%.

Yeah the fact that a 1% Labor margin in 2022 turned into a national 0.1% Liberal margin post-redistribution kinda contradicts the notion that the boundary was “gerrymandered” in Labor’s favour. It notionally moved 1.1% in the Liberals’ favour.

I think if Scott Yung did not face controversy, the margin would have been maybe around 55% TPP for ALP, given it’s Melbourne parallel equivalent of the Newly Redistributed Chisholm is around that margin.

@Marh, I’m still tryna work out the full story about Scott Yung. Why was he so bad?

No way this was gerrymandered. This was the only logical way to draw this seat and im happy to say was pretty much what i suggested.

This is your first and final warning Mitch. Anymore baseless accusations of gerrymandering and I’ll ban you permanently.

Mind you I’m fairly close to closing down the comments permanently.

Looking at the way the votes have turned out you could be forgiven in thinking that Jerome Laxale has become the new John Alexander in this electorate. He seems to have a huge personal vote in the western end and he’s done quite well to flip the Lane Cove and Louganville booths which used to be solidly blue.

His margin’s almost at John Alexander’s best margin as well which was dating back to 2016. Clearly he’s liked and resonated with the electorate.

It probably had more to do with people voting ag8nst the liberals tbh. Even u admit they ran out of steam right as the campaign started. To do so well for nearly 2 years to fail at the finish line.

This had perhaps the biggest Labor swing in NSW, if not Parramatta. It’s over 9%. Based on my gut feel, I’d like to offer some guesses on what micro-level factors drove the swing. A lot of these have been mentioned or alluded to pre-election by myself and others.

1. Candidate quality. Even before the redistribution, it was on a thin at-risk margin. Jerome Laxale couldn’t take it for granted. He had every reason to defend the seat from day 1. It looks like he did. Laxale is a former mayor of Ryde whereas Scott Yung was parachute from outside. I mentioned before something from Pollbludger. There was a bit of a tussle for Liberal preselection.

2. Ex-teal vote. A large chunk in the east of the electorate used to be a part of North Sydney before it got axed. A lot of them, east of Pittwater Road voted for Kylea Tink and switched to Labor. Dutton had nowhere near Morrison’s level of popularity. Previous Liberal voters who have deserted the party then moved to Labor.

Trent Zimmerman was moderate Liberal who lost in 2022. A lot of Liberal voters in 2022 only voted because of him even though they didn’t like his party. Once he was gone and North Sydney got abolished and Kylea Tink’s term finished up, there was no other alternative. Scott Yung couldn’t capture Trent’s personal vote. The swings in Lane Cove and Chatswood West are in the double-digits – all above average!

3. Over-exposure and over-campaigning. I mentioned the big, expensive billboards. There’s also mention in this thread of the millions of Scott Yung corflutes. I even saw some outside this electorate. Liberals went too hard too early and the later-than-expected election date really exposed Dutton and Scott Yung.

4. Chinese-Australian voters’ disdain for the Coalition. This one was been mentioned before.

With 20/20 hindsight, I wonder if Kylie Tink regrets not running in Bennelong. It would seem that she could have polled about 20% of the vote and possibly even gone higher as some of the Liberal voters may have voted for her rather staying with the Libs. Labor in particular and to some extent the Greens benefited from her absence. If she had run, it would seem that the Labor primary vote might have been about 30% and she might have just been able to get over the top on Greens preferences and others (assuming they were directed to her). However, she didnt run so we will never know.

Coulda woulda shoulda but yes your probably right and she probly woulda got close. But noone could have predicted the crappy liberal campaign she would of got green preferences got over scott yung and won on lib preferences. But as seen in other teal seats teals do very poorly among chinese voters. They arent concerned with things like net zero.

If we’re talking 20/20 hindsight the libs dontpreselct Scott yung and run a decent campaign. I might ask doc Brown and Marty mcfly if I can borrow their Delorean to find out

Now that Scott yung has crashed and burned could Warren mundine run here? He had the backing of former ,ember John Alexander which could help his campaign

@John – I’m pretty sure if Warren Mundine ran then Labor would probably win Hunters Hill and have an even larger primary than they did this time around. He would repulse even more small-L Liberals than Scott Yung did. And considering his remarks towards Gisele Kapterian when she won preselection for Bradfield, he would go down like a lead balloon here.

His only hope would be if Laxale punched a nun in central Ryde, or if he retired. Even then the seat has become much more left-wing than when John Howard and John Alexander held it.

@John if voters didn’t want a parachute candidate in Scott Yung, they certainly won’t want a parachute in Warren Mundine. He’s already failed at two seats. And his hard right culture war focus would go down poorly in a seat like Bennelong.

@John Warren Mundine would be electoral poison everywhere. If he ran in Bradfield he would’ve lost it in a landslide for the party and he was a failure in Gilmore in 2019 when the Liberals should’ve kept the seat.

Yes I agree with both of those. He lost Gilmore because the Libs already had a candidate and no-one knew who he was. He would of lost bradfield too.

Just realised some interesting facts:

– Jerome Laxale is the first Labor member to be re-elected in Bennelong in nearly 80 years. Maxine McKew won in Kevin 07 but was definitely the underdog in 2010 and lost convincingly to John Alexander.

– Every person who was re-elected into Bennelong had a first name starting with J (John Cramer, John Howard, John Alexander, Jerome Laxale). Maybe if the Liberals want to win this again they need to pre-select someone whose first name starts with J for starters (just kidding lol).

@Tommo9: “Jerome Laxale is the first Labor member to be re-elected in Bennelong in nearly 80 years.” He is the first Labor member ever to be elected in this seat in the seat’s 76-year history. Considering the margin he now enjoys, his local popularity and the deep disdain of the Liberal Party amongst migrant communities, I will argue he will hold Bennelong for as long as he likes.

What’s interesting is Bennelong is almost on the same boundaries as it was in 1969-75.

Labor came very close to winning in 1961 and the majority in 1972 was under 2.5%. I always got the impression that John Howard always felt he had to be on his game or it could get tricky as it turned out to be in 2007.

Yes with even Labor winning the Primary vote in 1961 but was likely Democratic Labor preferences that hurt them there. Bennelong was close in 1972, 1974 as well as 1993. Bennelong has been a super safe seat which makes me wonder if Labor had put more effort here in the past that maybe they could’ve pealed Bennelong off.

This seat went to labor for the same reason every other did

During the first half of John Howard’s tenure, Bennelong included Lane Cove. It was exclusively west of the Lane Cove River when he was PM. During his time as PM, it shifted westwards all the way to Ermington. This made the seat winnable for Labor in 2007.

The latest redistribution and abolition of North Sydney shifted it back to include Lane Cove.

Given the current boundaries have shifted Bennelong more towards the inner city, teal heartland areas – the Liberals do need to select a more moderate candidate in future cycles (2028 and beyond) to have a chance of winning the seat back.

Laxale as the incumbent with a fairly secure margin (9% now) is favoured to be returned in 2028 assuming the swing against Labor will be modest (max swing of 3-4% in 2PP terms nationwide).

@Votante, ironically Labor are now leading in TPP at pretty margins in polling booths around Lane Cove which was once considered impossible even 10 years ago. I think it is due to educated professionals moving away from the Coalition and many apartments densifying the area.

*Pretty High Margins

There will be a massive correction back to the libs in 2028. The libs absolutely failed this year and they basically went from within a whisker of government to back to the drawing board for the next 2 elections

Though it wasn’t just them there was a big factor in Trump who decided to make people hate conservatives and Labor put him on the ballot paper. That’s why something similar happened in Canada.

@Yoh An: “The Liberals do need to select a more moderate candidate in future”. It’s not about selecting a moderate candidate, it’s about making the federal Liberal Party a moderate party, which is almost impossible to achieve. Former Liberal MP for North Sydney Trent Zimmerman is a well-respected moderate Liberal, but still was decisively defeated in 2022. The same thing happened to moderate Liberals Fiona Martin in Reid and Katie Allen in Higgins in 2022. Moderate Liberal candidate Gisele Kapterian failed to win Bradfield in 2025.

@joseph to be fair she barely lost in a year when they went backwards majorly in the rest of the country. Had the party not screwed itself federally she likely would of won. Maybe Zimmerman should have ran in Bennelong?

Even if the Liberals somehow form government in 2028, I doubt this seat will be in their repertoire.

They won’t be forming govt in 2028. They can hope for minority at best

Not only are they at least 5% away from winning the TPP, 83/150 seats now sit left of the national centre (whereas in 2016, only 71/150 seats did).

Best they can do, barring a ridiculous implosion within the ALP, is force Labor into minority.

That sounds about right. There are 22 seats in marginal status that could be lost to the one inds and grns if the tide is roght. There are also enough seats like Pearce Hawke etc that could fall but as you said the alp would need to implode. The libs really screwed the pooch this year. They had a chance to overthrow a first term govt but they messed that up. First thing the libs need to do is get rid of Susan ley bring on Andrew Hastie in about 6-9 months time. He would really help them out in some of those wa seats. Pearce Bullwinkel would probably be shoe ins. Tangey. I think Tim Wison as deputy would placate the moderates and eastern states power brokers. As and Vic are 2 states the libs can hurt labor if they can get their policy position into gear.

The political laws of gravity dictate that the Liberals will likely pick up seats in 2028, primarily with Labor on 94 seats, which is a historic high. That said, it would be short-sighted to assume that any lost Labor votes will go to the Liberals in a 1:1 fashion. Demographic changes, shifts in issues, and the leadership of the Liberals make it easy for me to foresee Labor losing left-wing votes to the Greens or possibly another party, such as a Teal-like candidate in a traditionally Liberal seat. As Millennials and Gen Zs become the largest voting bloc, if only by plurality, the Liberals will have to modify their policy offer considerably if they want to take advantage. Primary vote identification with the two majors among those <45 declines as you move down the age ladder, but the Liberals are doing poorly on preferences with them. That does not mean the Liberals have to go left substantially, but the center of the political universe is nowhere near where they are at the moment.

I am not sure Andrew Hastie would want to lead the party in 6-9 months. Even with favourable winds, they won't pick up 33 seats. They possibly may be able to deny Labor a majority, but I tend to think that if that happens, the crossbench would continue to expand. The problem is that IMO at least any growth in the crossbench will likely not favour the Liberals. They would almost certainly have to get a clear majority in seats, and that is assuming the Nationals do not go ballistic in the meantime. If Hastie was the leader at the end of 2025, does that mean he would still be the leader by 2031? That is an incredibly tall ask for a non-incumbent PM.

The other outside factor is that 2028 is a Presidential election year in the US. Although Trump is technically ineligible to run again, the race will likely dominate the world news cycle. Not the least of which is the fallout from whatever he has done over the last few months and what he may do in the remaining three years. Rumour has it that the economy may be going into a recession – the jobs reports have been flat since "Liberation Day" and Canada is probably already there.

The US election is in Nov whereas the last date for the Aus election is in May 2028. That’s if labor doesn’t go early. He can as early as August 2027 when they won’t even have chosen candidates. Trump won’t be a factor.

Craig he doesn’t need to win he only needs to get close. Look at Abbott in 2010 and shorten in 2016 both came close and then led their parties to the next election. Abbott romped it home in 2013 and Shorten was actually telling people In 2018 “I’m gonna be the next prime minister” as he told Arnold Schwarzenegger but then he went big at the election and people decided no thanks. Pegging labor to minority govt after such a big win would be an amazing achievement and guarantee Hastie another crack

I don’t get the appeal of Andrew Hastie, and don’t see him ever becoming PM, he is one of those politicians that suits being a head kicker scoring points in parliament and exciting the base but they hardly ever make good leaders.

Sussan Ley is doing a solid job, reflecting good approval numbers, and while the Liberal vote remains virtually unchanged since the election, that should be expected, and if the Liberals can avoid losing the plot, as the government ages and issues arise, then the Liberal vote should improve enough to start talking about seat gains.

The new funding rules will act as a headwind for the Teals, so they might have peaked, and continue to lose seats as the gloss wears off.

Surely “the laws of political gravity” would also have dictated that the Coalition shouldn’t have gone backwards at the last election.