LIB 0.1%
Incumbent MP
Jerome Laxale (Labor), since 2022.
Geography
Bennelong covers western parts of the north shore of Sydney. The seat covers the entirety of the Ryde, Lane Cove and Hunter’s Hill council areas, along with small parts of the Willoughby and Parramatta council areas. Main suburbs in the seat are Ryde, Eastwood, Gladesville, Hunters Hill and Lane Cove.
Redistribution
Bennelong shifted east, gaining the Lane Cove and Hunter’s Hill council areas from the abolished seat of North Sydney, along with a small part of the Willoughby council area. To compensate, Bennelong lost most of the suburbs within the City of Parramatta, namely Ermington and Epping. These changes flipped the seat’s margin from 1.0% for Labor to 0.1% for Liberal. With the uncertainty in estimating vote for each part of an electorate, it is not possible to be certain as to whether this is a notional Labor or Liberal seat, but my estimate came out as Liberal 0.1%.
History
Bennelong was created in 1949, and was held by only two MPs between then and the 2007 federal election. Bennelong originally covered Ryde, Hunters Hill and Lane Cove, but not areas such as Eastwood and Epping that were later added to the seat.
Bennelong was first won by John Cramer (LIB) in 1949. Cramer served as Minister for the Army under Robert Menzies from 1956 to 1963. During his time holding Bennelong the seat was never a very safe seat, and in 1961 Cramer only held on by 1832 votes. His largest margin was 15.4% in 1966.
Cramer retired at the 1974 election and was succeeded by John Howard (LIB). Howard went on to serve as a minister under Malcolm Fraser, including as Treasurer from 1977 to 1983. He then served in a variety of roles on the opposition frontbench after 1983, including as two stints as Opposition Leader (1985-1989, 1995-1996). He was elected as Prime Minister in 1996 and served until 2007.
The seat of Bennelong had gradually shifted to the north-west over the decades, taking in Epping. The 1992 redistribution saw the last parts of Lane Cove removed from the seat, and Howard’s margin was cut in 1993. After recovering in 1996 to a margin over 10% it gradually declined to a 4.3% margin in 2004, when the Greens ran high-profile former intelligence officer Andrew Wilkie against Howard.
The 2006 redistribution saw Howard’s margin cut slightly and the ALP decided to target the seat, running former journalist Maxine McKew. McKew won the seat with 51.4% of the two-party vote.
In 2010, McKew was defeated by former tennis champion John Alexander. Alexander was re-elected in 2013 and 2016.
John Alexander was found to be a British dual citizen in 2017, and resigned from his seat to recontest without any citizenship concerns. He was re-elected at that by-election, despite a swing to Labor. Alexander was re-elected in 2019 and retired in 2022.
Bennelong was narrowly won in 2022 by Labor candidate Jerome Laxale, a former mayor of Ryde.
Assessment
Bennelong is an extremely marginal seat. The seat could easily go to either Labor or Liberal. It would be easy to assume that any swing to the Liberal Party nationally would see this seat flip, but the loss of Liberal Party incumbency in this electorate could see this seat buck the trend. Laxale now has a personal vote (admittedly just for the two thirds of the seat contained in Bennelong back in 2022), and the entire seat (both the areas previously contained in Bennelong and North Sydney) no longer has a personal vote for a sitting Liberal MP that was defending each seat in 2022. The third of the electorate added from North Sydney has also had an independent MP representing the area for three years which may benefit Laxale in a close race.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Simon Kennedy | Liberal | 41,206 | 41.4 | -9.5 | 41.2 |
| Jerome Laxale | Labor | 37,596 | 37.7 | +3.7 | 31.8 |
| Tony Adams | Greens | 11,395 | 11.4 | +2.0 | 10.3 |
| Independent | 8.2 | ||||
| Rhys Ian Collyer | United Australia | 2,915 | 2.9 | +1.0 | 2.6 |
| Victor Waterson | One Nation | 1,664 | 1.7 | +1.7 | 1.5 |
| Dougal Cameron | Liberal Democrats | 1,539 | 1.5 | +1.5 | 1.4 |
| John August | Fusion | 2,125 | 2.1 | +2.1 | 1.4 |
| Others | 0.9 | ||||
| Kyinzom Dhongdue | Democratic Alliance | 1,208 | 1.2 | +1.2 | 0.8 |
| Informal | 6,130 | 5.8 | +0.6 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Simon Kennedy | Liberal | 48,847 | 49.0 | -7.9 | 50.1 |
| Jerome Laxale | Labor | 50,801 | 51.0 | +7.9 | 49.9 |
Polling places in Bennelong have been split into three parts. Polling places in Hunters Hill, Lane Cove and Willoughby council areas have been grouped as “east”, while the rest of the electorate was split into north-west and south-west.
The Liberal Party won 51.5% of the two-party-preferred vote in the east, while Labor won 50.9% in the south-west and 52.1% in the north-west.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 8.2% in the east to 12.1% in the north-west. Independent candidate Kylea Tink polled 23.6% of the vote in the east of the electorate, which lines up with the former North Sydney boundaries.
| Voter group | GRN prim | IND prim | LIB 2PP | Total votes | % of votes |
| East | 8.2 | 23.6 | 51.5 | 20,333 | 19.2 |
| North-West | 12.1 | 0.0 | 47.9 | 19,451 | 18.4 |
| South-West | 11.9 | 1.0 | 49.1 | 16,703 | 15.8 |
| Pre-poll | 9.6 | 7.6 | 49.6 | 29,893 | 28.3 |
| Other votes | 10.7 | 7.6 | 52.2 | 19,269 | 18.2 |
Election results in Bennelong at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, Labor and the Greens.
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).