LIB 2.5% vs IND
Incumbent MP
Paul Fletcher, since 2009.
Geography
Northern Sydney. Bradfield covers the Ku-ring-gai council area and most of the Willoughby council area. Key suburbs include Wahroonga, St Ives, Pymble, Turramurra, Killara, Lindfield, Gordon, Roseville, Castle Cove, Chatswood, Willoughby and Artarmon.
Redistribution
Bradfield shifted south, taking in about one third of the abolished seat of North Sydney. Specifically Bradfield took in most of the Willoughby council area, including Artarmon, Castlecrag, Middle Cove, Naremburn, Northbridge and Willoughby. The suburb of Hornsby was moved from Bradfield to Berowra, so the electoral boundary now mostly follows the local government boundary between Hornsby and Ku-ring-gai. The seats of North Sydney and Bradfield both had a teal independent in the final two-candidate-preferred count, and the changes reduced the Liberal margin against those independents from 4.2% to 2.5%.
History
The seat was created for the 1949 election, and has always been held by the Liberal Party.
It was first won by former Prime Minister Billy Hughes in 1949. Hughes had been an MP since he won election to the NSW colonial parliament in 1894, and had then held the federal seats of West Sydney, Bendigo and North Sydney. He had originally served as a Labor prime minister before leaving the party over the issue of conscription and leading the new Nationalist party. He eventually ended up in Robert Menzies’ Liberal Party and was the last remaining member of the first federal Parliameent to hold a seat.
Hughes died in office in 1952, and the ensuing by-election was won by state Liberal MP Harry Turner.
Turner held the seat for the next twenty-two years, and never rose to a ministerial role during twenty years of Coalition government. He retired at the 1974 election, and was succeeded by David Connolly.
Connolly also held Bradfield for twenty-two years, and was expected to take on a ministerial role after the 1996 election, but lost preselection to Brendan Nelson, former president of the Australian Medical Association.
Nelson won Bradfield in 1996 and quickly rose through the ranks of the Liberal government, joining the cabinet following the 2001 election and serving first as Minister for Education and then Minister for Defence.
Following the defeat of the Howard government in 2007, Brendan Nelson was elected Leader of the Opposition, narrowly defeating Malcolm Turnbull in the party room. His leadership was troubled by low poll ratings and being undermined by Turnbull and his supporters, and Nelson lost a leadership spill in September 2008. Nelson resigned from Parliament in 2009, triggering a by-election in Bradfield.
The 2009 Bradfield by-election was held in December, and was a contest between the Liberal Party and the Greens, with the ALP declining to stand a candidate, along with a field of twenty other candidates, including nine candidates for the Christian Democratic Party. While the Greens substantially increased their vote, Liberal candidate Paul Fletcher comfortably retained the seat. Fletcher has been re-elected five times.
Candidates
Sitting Liberal MP Paul Fletcher is not running for re-election.
Assessment
If the teal independents were to pick up an extra seat in 2025, Bradfield is a very clear frontrunner. The seat has taken in about a third of an abolished seat that has been represented by an independent for the last three years, and the previous form of Bradfield had a strong independent of a similar style and political ideology in 2022.
Nicolette Boele has been actively campaigning for Bradfield since her 2022 defeat. She will be a serious contender, but the particular circumstances that led to independents winning in northern Sydney in 2022 is not quite so present now.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Paul Fletcher | Liberal | 43,562 | 45.0 | -15.3 | 43.7 |
| Nicolette Boele | Independent | 20,198 | 20.9 | +20.9 | 22.9 |
| David Brigden | Labor | 16,902 | 17.5 | -3.7 | 17.7 |
| Martin Cousins | Greens | 8,960 | 9.3 | -4.4 | 8.6 |
| Janine Kitson | Independent | 3,018 | 3.1 | +3.1 | 2.4 |
| Rob Fletcher | United Australia | 2,496 | 2.6 | +0.7 | 2.3 |
| Michael Lowe | One Nation | 1,568 | 1.6 | +1.6 | 1.5 |
| Others | 1.0 | ||||
| Informal | 3,616 | 3.6 | -0.5 |
2022 two-candidate-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Paul Fletcher | Liberal | 52,447 | 54.2 | 52.5 | |
| Nicolette Boele | Independent | 44,257 | 45.8 | 47.5 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Paul Fletcher | Liberal | 54,685 | 56.5 | -10.0 | 56.2 |
| David Gordon Brigden | Labor | 42,019 | 43.5 | +10.0 | 43.8 |
Booths have been divided into three parts. Polling places in the Ku-ring-gai council area have been split in two while those in the Willoughby council area have been grouped together.
The Liberal Party won 55.8% of the two-candidate-preferred vote in North Ku-ring-gai, while independents won 50.7% in South Ku-ring-gai and 53.6% in Willoughby.
Labor came third, with a primary vote ranging from 14.4% in North Ku-ring-gai to 21.1% in Willoughby.
| Voter group | ALP prim | LIB 2CP | Total votes | % of votes |
| South Ku-ring-gai | 16.5 | 49.3 | 21,377 | 19.2 |
| North Ku-ring-gai | 14.4 | 55.8 | 19,083 | 17.1 |
| Willoughby | 21.1 | 46.4 | 16,671 | 15.0 |
| Pre-poll | 18.8 | 52.7 | 33,487 | 30.1 |
| Other votes | 17.6 | 57.2 | 20,709 | 18.6 |
Election results in Bradfield at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-candidate-preferred votes (Liberal vs Independent), two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, independent candidates and Labor.
and the declaration prepolls and absentees are barely favouring Boele. but this will be close
364 Absentees Votes – Net 6 Vote Gain to Kapterian
22 Provisional Votes – Net 2 Vote Gain to Boele
880 Declaration Votes – Net 30 Vote Gain to Kapterian
299 Postal Votes – Net 45 Vote Gain to Kapterian
This Puts Kapterian up by 138.
Seems the Lib retain projection by ABC was a bit premature, this is down to the wire
I’ll pose this question – if climate is what the Teals are all about (as some claim), and climate is becoming less relevant as an issue, then why did so many Teals get reelected?
@ Nicholas
I do not see climate becoming less of an issue this election far from it. Dutton said he would scrap the 2030 emissions target and the vehicle emissions standards. I was looking at a possible future scenario say 2031 (assuming Labor is still in power) where Labor has made enough progress on the energy tranistion/decarbonisation that it cannot be reversed so the Libs just reluctantly accept climate action and decide to move on. In such a scenario politics may revert to an economic divide rather than one of social values. At a NSW state level we see a bit of this. If we compare booth results for example Mosman and the lower Northern Beaches between Federal/status results. Also at a state level in NSW the Labor party is massively overperfoming the Federal party in the Hunter seats as there is no climate wars and the fault line is an economic one. If there are no Wedge issues politcs can revert to the socio-economic divide. The question is if climate ceases to be a wedge what can be the next wedge Trans issues, Republic, Changing the flag etc. Once upon the Vietnam War was a wedge, state funding of Catholic schools, Recognition of the Peoples of Republic of China these are no longer wedge issues.
@Nimalan
There are other comments on this thread which appear to suggest that climate is less relevant now than it was in 2022. I think VoteCompass also found a drastic change in public opinion on the question of whether the government should do more or less to combat climate change.
What I was really getting at in my question is whether there is more to the Teals – both in their platforms and why people vote for them – than climate. Or do people think the Teals will disappear in a world where we’ve moved past that issue?
@Nimalan, that is what I thought because if Liberals under Sussan Ley (or any other future leader) ever attempts to allow t to do a descent climate policy that is similar/competitive to Labor, it would have angered the National Party and Maverick Liberals MP’s who may create threats to separate, and many rank-and-file members (including Conservative Influencers, Advance, Australia, IPA and Sky-after-Dark types , etc) who run a massive campaign to encourage conservatives to drop their loyalty to the Libs and move to One Nation and Libertarian Party instead.
@Nicholas ‘… , then why did so many Teals get reelected?’
Probable Liberal women voters bought into the fantasy WHY CAN”T WE ALL GET ALONG?/aka Consensus. Hawke won 4 elections spinning that while the economy went down the gurgler.
They’ll change their tune once they’ve gotta sell the house to pay that unrealised Capital Gains Tax. Serves ’em right.
On Hawke, Albo is Hawke, without the pomposity. If they’d given Bill a miss and gone with Albo in 2013, he woulda wiped the floor with either of Abbott or Turnbull, imo.
@Nicholas My view is that the teals are the proof of the cultural split that has occurred in the Liberal party. It is true that climate was less of a concern in this election but the direction of the Liberals overall has run totally against the small-l Liberal voter. As long as the Liberals continue to follow the direction of the US Republicans we will see the divide grow and the teal constituency will be embedded. If we consider where the US party coalitions are now, social liberals have left the Republican tent and that is the direction that the Liberal party in Australia, along with the conservative base and donor and media networks, are taking their cues from.
The Liberal Party is supposed to be a liberal party. It’s not possible to be any more moderate than a liberal.
Take the candidate who was disendorsed during the campaign for saying women shouldn’t be serving in combat – a pretty mainstream opinion, I woulda thought, but even that was too scary for Dutton or whoever he was listening to.
@Adda, I don’t a even more conservative Liberal Party would even be comparable to todays Republican Party though given under Trump, GOP already to another layer by being full on conspiracy theorists and right-wing extremism, putting Liberal Party on a parity to todays GOP would require the Australia Modest and Calm Society to be overthrown.
@Nicholas
It does not surprise me the vote compass shows less support for Climate i would say that is probably an issue in Middle Australia than the teal seats partly because of weaker economic circumstance. IMHO there is greater support for climate action when there is better economic circumstances hence 2007 was a good year for a climate election as it was a time of great optimism of Australia’s future.
What would it really mean for politics to realign along economics nowadays? The platform the Liberal Party took to the election could hardly be called fiscally conservative or economically liberal – especially on energy policy.
@ Marh
I do concur with you that in the forseeable future a Liberal leader moving towards convergence for climate change will draw a backlash from Sky After Park, IPA, membership etc. Regarding the Nats, south of the Tweed (except Barnaby) they are more pragmatic. However, at some point climate action may be irrevisable for example % of electricity generated by renewable energy and coal fired power stations that have closed cannot be reopen due to market viability. By 2028 Australia would have reduced emissions signficantly and it is not possible for Australia to start increasing it emissions. We need to see where Australia is at by 2028 in terms of % Renewable electriity and % emissions drop from 2005 levels.
If you look at the chart below pretty much all developed countries are lowering emissions while growing their economies. During the Howard era Australia’s emissions were still increasing but now it is decreasing over time and i dont think that can be reversed.
https://ourworldindata.org/co2-gdp-decoupling
Lol, the ABC just moved this to back in doubt
News update this evening from ABC – “A fresh batch of votes today has delivered Nicolette Boele an unusually stong flow of preferences and cut Liberal Gisele Kapterian’s lead back to just 59 votes. There are around 1,500 votes left to be counted. While The Liberals are still favoured to win, the ABC has put the seat back in doubt reflecting the current count.”
Source – https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/federal/2025/guide/brfd
Looks like Bradfield will go to a recount or even a court battle. If the Liberal Party loses after a recount, it may well challenge the result in court.
@Gympie how is saying women shouldn’t be allowed to fight in the army a mainstream opinion?
@Nicholas @Nimalan I don’t think it’s becoming less of an issue as action is still needed, I just think climate isn’t the main thing on people’s minds. In 2007 we had a great economy though at the time we knew less about climate change so it wasn’t on as many people’s minds. This is what people who criticise Howard for being conservative seem to forget: A. he had a perfect balance and had a broad church party without culture wars and B. at the time Australia was more conservative than it is now.
As for Bradfield being in doubt it’ll probably go to a recount but the Liberals should win it either way.
@ Nether Portal
Agree Howard was able to have a broad church party. The other thing is that that he focused on economic reform such as reform of waterfront, GST, IR laws future fund etc which united the Economic Right irrespective of social values. However, i disagree that there were no culture wars back then for example Republic, Australian Flag debate, the History wars, Multiculturalism/shared national idenitity. Howard used the word Polical correctness a lot. It is just that it seemed that Howard won most of those culture wars
@Nimalan, I do agree there were culture wars they just weren’t the same though.
I’m also still confused why someone thinks banning women from the military is a mainstream position.
A counting question – the votes that are “rejected at preliminary scrutiny” – are these re-examined and ever readmitted to the count? Even in a recount?
@ Np
I am with you i actually missed the comment about women and military service. I support the right for women to serve in the ADF, as i do for gay people and transgender people. Barry Goldwater who was a Conservative Republican said decades ago ‘you dont need to be straight to serve in the military you just need to be able to shoot straight”
@Nimalan exactly. I’d much rather have an experienced willing person in the military (regardless of who they are) than one who doesn’t want to do it and is inexperienced.
im not against women or gay people in the military but the bar shouldnt be lowered
The margin is back out to 80. There are about 800 votes left. Boele would need to get 55% to win. Based on outstandings and past patterns the final margin would seem to be in the 90s but on a small sample could go either way. Hard to see a recount not happening.
@john
What about transgender people in the ADF
The coment was about women serving in combat roles, less than 5% of Army/military roles.
Let’s take it a step further: why should disabled/people in wheelchairs be denied serving in combat if they’re willing and can shoot straight?
Botto line: Outside echo chambers on the internet, it’s mainstream that women shouldn’t be serving in combat roles.
Following up on my earlier question: For me personally, climate is virtually a non-issue. But I would still have voted for a Teal over both major parties had one run in my electorate. Maybe I’m just weird.
@ Nicholas
Interesting, I presume you are Economically Right wing. Are there other Social policies that make you not want to vote Liberal apert from Climate?
@nimlan again idc as long as they meet the fitness requirements who cars
In this case surely the mainstream position is that women shouldn’t be in frontline combat roles, not in the military or even combat roles per se. The kind of roles that are elite in terms of speed and strength that women can’t possibly achieve.
its a case of its not only your life your risking but everyone elses.
Before anyone jumps up, this would also exclude the vast majority of men too.
@ John
Neither Nether Portnal nor I have ever suggested lowering fitness requirements it is about excluding people who are willing to serve. For example Trump has banned transgender Americans from serving their nation.
@Nimalan
For what it’s worth, VoteCompass placed me as in line with Labor on the social axis and in line with the LNP on the economic axis. Maybe that provides some insight.
The social conservatism and economic nationalism in the Liberal Party is what puts me off.
On the economy, I didn’t see the Liberal Party’s platform as reflecting the “economic credentials” they purportedly have, or may have once had. Most of their were interventionist (e.g. nuclear, gas, supermarkets), short-sighted (e.g. temporary fuel excise cut, mortgage interest tax deduction), or vague (e.g. defence spending). And then there was the revelation that they’d be running larger deficits than Labor. I like that the Teals have been pushing for more meaningful tax reform.
On social issues, I suppose my views are rather libertarian. “Live and let live.” Many social “issues” I believe ought to be political non-issues. As you allude to, I find the way that some in the Liberal Party talk about society and culture (and, importantly, its intersection with politics) to be very off-putting, to say the least.
Latest Update (on current trends):
Absentee Votes – 170 left. Estimating a gain of 4 votes to Kapterian
Provisional Votes – 22 left. Estimate a gain of 2 votes to Boele
Declaration Votes – 473 left. Estimate a gain of 15 votes to Boele
Postal Votes – 262 left. Estimate a gain of 36 votes to Kapterian
This ends up producing a gain to Kapterian of 23 Votes, a winning margin of 103.
This is almost in automatic recount territory.
@ Nicholas
Great points. For what it is worth Vote Compass but almost right in the middle for both social and economic access not really a big difference in my social/economic views but i can probably be best descrived as Centrist rather than belonging to a party.
Let me put it another way, imagine for a minute i had the wealth to live in a waterfront property in Clontarf. I would have voted for James Griffin at a state level but Zali Steggall at a Federal level. Why? At a state level, NSW Coalition is running a traditional centre right government focusing on the economy and service delivery. Yes Dominic Pereottet is personally conservative and the state electorate of Manly has some of the highest % of people with no religion. Yet Dominic Perrottet is no DLP style figure he is very much economically rightwing and see the Libs as the party of Castle Hill and Hunters Hill not Castle Hill and Rooty Hill, he is not trying to achieve some realignment over values. He was actually interested in economic reform such as reform of stamp duty. While he maybe conservative on abortion, Euthanasia they are matters of conscience not party policy. The issue for the Federal Liberals is that some on the right flank are more interested in social policy than economic policy and feel the loss of the teal seats is actually a blessing so they can focus on winning Rooty Hill/Meadow Heights this why they now put more interventionist economic policy along with Conservative Social policy to win Red Wall seats. However, to get someone to vote against their economic interest you need Wedge issues. Menzies did that with the DLP but eventually that became a moot point (Labor accepted funding Catholic Schools, Nixon visited China and the Vietnam War ended). The point that Redistributed and I made is that Climate may cease to be a wedge issue sometime in the future (not guranteed) in that case the right flank will need to find another wedge to convince traditional Labor voters to convert if that does not succeed then the Liberal party will realise that Hunters Hill and Dover Heights are its urban heartlands.
@nimalan don’t ask don’t tell. If noone knows your transgender they can’t ban you same as the old policy on lgbt people
@ John
my view is dont ask but if someone tells i will not silence them or restrict their freedom of speech so people should be free to express themselves
@Nicholas similarly my economic policies are Liberal but socially I’m in the middle somewhere, environmentally definitely a right lean but not much. I’ve always voted Liberal or National though.
Now 80 votes apart according to AEC. Liberals leading.
Nicolette Boele didn’t do that well on absent votes and declaration pre-poll votes. Even Labor beat her on primary votes.
@Votante – Boele really did under-perform on Absentees and Declarations.
It really does look like Boele’s weak spot hit her again, being the St Ives-Turramurra section of the seat, where she only one the two smallest booths in that part of the seat. Boele also lost both Pre-Polls in the area.
When the full distribution of preferences is done it will be interesting to see the preference flows from Andy Yin and possibly how much damage he did to the Liberal vote in flows. Will be also interesting to see where he goes from here as he obviously still does fancy himself as a political player.
Interesting discussion @Nimalan. I tend to look at this from the Labor side of things. To take climate policy as an example, Labor want the climate wars to end because to end means they win (so to speak), and climate policy reminds everyone that Labor have become the party of Hunters Hill not Rooty Hill. It is Hunters Hill who can afford to buy solar panels and batteries, it is Rooty Hill who rely on cheap reliable electricity. It is Hunters Hill who can afford a new electric car, Rooty Hill who are buying from dodgy used car dealers. What I want is not just a bunch of parties that are of Hunters Hill, I want at least one party that not just appeals to Rooty Hill, not just is ‘for’ Rooty Hill, but is of Rooty Hill.
I suppose that is why I am a lot more accepting of Trump/MAGA, for all Trumps flaws (and he is uniquely unsuited to be President) at heart the MAGA movement it is ‘of’ the old industrial working class in the mid west/upper south.
@redistributed informal got more votes than Andy Yin – but I guess that may have been lower too if Andy wasn’t on the ballot
@ MLV,
You are correct, Labor sees it in its interest for the Climate wars to end and for politics to return to normal that was a scenario that both @redistibuted was alluding i dont know if the climate wars will end tbh but it is possible that it some point too much progress has has been made for example Coal fired power stations have closed etc that rightly or wrongly we cannot press the rewind button at best we can press pause. I also agree that the climate wars/Voice/Republic can rightly feed the perception that Labor is interested in Hunters Hill and Dover Heights compared to Rooty Hill/Meadow Heights. Regarding Rooty Hill and climate i would say people like you say want afforable power but i would say the agnostic of how it is generated and if for arguments sake renewable energy became cheaper/goverment gave generous rebates then it may overcome some of that. I think the Greens want the climate wars to continue and they often argue that Labor could actually compete with the Teals. In the Wentworth thread it was mentioned Labor is missing out on winning that seat by @James. I was quite blunt and said no it is probably not in the best interest to win the Made in Bondi set and it may not be a good look. For example, Victorian Labor had no interest in holding on to Hawthorn (contains Scotch College) but they were super keen to win Bayswater (middle Australia seat) i remember a Greens supporter saying Labor that Labor shoud have focused on holding that seat. i think it is great for Labor to hold Aston than Higgins (if still existed)
I agree the Labor party should be of Rooty Hill however, tbh i dont think that is enough for government as they would need to win a middle Australia bellwether suburb like Forrest Hill (VIC) to form a majority government.
The point i was trying to make to Nicholas if in a hypothetical scenario that climate wars ended what is the next wedge issue. I am hoping for that to be articulated rather than saying Social Consevativism
https://www.tallyroom.com.au/aus2025/wentworth2025#comment-842703-my coments on Wentworth
Interesting discussion on why relatively low income suburbs have embraced cheap reliable rooftop solar to a far greater extend than wealthy suburbs, such as Hunters Hill.
The Sydney Morning Herald published an article on this topic in September 2024. It even includes maps of Sydney and Melbourne showing solar rooftop density by postcode.
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/rich-families-don-t-need-to-save-money-why-wealthy-suburbs-are-less-likely-to-have-rooftop-solar-20240916-p5kavz.html
margin currently 43 votes to Libs
WW
The issue in the inner city could be house orientation and in more established suburbs trees often overshadow. We have that problem – we have looked into solar panels and we have been told by the solar companies we have too much overshadowing so we could never generate enough to make it worthwhile.