Greenway – Australia 2025

Housing development in the north of this seat and cost of living issues will affect the outcome here.Expect a sizeable swing,although probably not enough to prevent Michelle Rowland from being re elected.
If there are any surprise on election night,this may be one of them.

How about Rowland herself? Not the face of the most popular legislation that came before the parliament I’d say – any potential impact?

I think there will be a swing against Labor but it would be much bigger if Rowland wasn’t running. She seems pretty popular in the last few terms and against the tide she held the seat when everyone thought this seat was going to go blue in 2013. Yes Jaymes Diaz was a dud but Rowland’s definitely got a personal vote particularly given she’s been an incumbent for 5 terms now.

The areas transferred into Greenway is from the Hills which is obviously Liberal heartland. So the fate of the seat will be determined by the southern end (Blacktown, Quaker Hill etc).

Michelle Rowland is quite a popular MP who has solidified her personal vote. She even held when the LNP won nationwide in a landslide in 2013, but to be fair, she was against a sloppy Liberal candidate.

The high Liberal margins east of Windsor Road, formerly of Mitchell but now in Greenway, might be misleading as Labor didn’t bother to campaign in Mitchell. I doubt the Liberals are serious about this seat this election.

Interestingly, this is in the middle of a mortgage belt but in many suburbs, the median incomes and uni degree holders per capita are high. I agree that cost of living will swing the electorate and this is mortgage heartland. Because of the higher household incomes, there is perhaps less mortgage stress than in SW Sydney.

Yeah according to Martin North’s mapping on mortgage stress (if I am reading it right) the problem is worse in Chifley and Parramatta than this seat particularly

I’d expect Michelle Rowland to hold on here, though I wouldn’t be surprised to see large swings away in some of the growth areas around Gables, Box Hill, Tallawong and Schofields.

I think her support will hold up in the more established suburbs in the north of the electorate, like Glenwood, Stanhope Gardens and Kellyville Ridge, where she has better recognition and has built up her profile. The demographic and the issues in these areas are a bit different to the newer growth areas.

I also wouldn’t be surprised to see larger swings in the working class areas around Blacktown and Lalor Park too.

The Liberal Party have botched campaigning in Greenway more times than they care to remember:
2010 – under-estimated the potential swing and left themselves short, especially with Louise Markus moving with her Hawkesbury Supporters to Macquarie
2013 – the Diaz Debarcle
2016 – the botched campaign for Yvonne Keane, mismanaged from the start by Alex Hawke
2019 – once again, under-estimated the potential in this seat and ran a dud candidate.
2022 – never going to come close in that election

The redistribution should have this seat solidly in play, especially given that the equivalent state seats in sections of this seat have voted Liberal MPs. But the Liberal Party have been a basket-case in NW Sydney thanks to the Shenanigans of Alex Hawke and this means that this seat will be a bridge too far.

Labor retain because the Liberal Party can’t get their shit together in this seat.

Any opinion on the current Liberal candidate Rattan Virk?

I’m curious how Box Hill will swing. It was in Mitchell (blue-ribbon Liberal), and where Labor doesn’t really try at all there. With an actual Labor campaign it should be close, but I would say they would be comfortably Liberal still as the Hills is particularly conservative.

@redistributed – no clue but fortunately haven’t heard any bad things about the campaign. Hopefully for the Liberals she could win the seat as she seems relatively neutral in comparison to the duds who’ve ran here before (Pathi, Green, especially Diaz).

Re Box Hill
You mean the new part added from Mitchell?
Still bad on the results map.
But every where else Labor won.
Green way 8% to alp
Mitchell 10% to alp

@mick labor are not getting a swing o them in either mitchell or greenway. id say 6% swing to libs in both

The Liberal campaign is much more active in Greenway then Mitchell. Virk plans to knock every door. I doubt the swing will be the same.

@ben if the lib get anything higher then a 6% swing in greenway theyve probably won the seat

Margin 8% Greenway

Was posting re what happened 2022
Not a prediction
Both held by current parties

the margin in green way was 11% but was wittled down to 7.5% after redistribution

Rattan Virk is another Hawke-ite. Enough said…

Rattan Virk is certainly making her presence known, much more active than Michelle Rowland’s campaign from what I’ve seen.

She comes across as quite professional, approachable and straight forward – but I think there’s a big mountain to climb given Michelle Rowland’s profile in the community.

One thing to note is the mass of new families arriving in Greenway into new housing estates, especially around Tallawong and Box Hill. They likely won’t know Michelle Rowland in comparison to places like The Ponds or Blacktown. The Liberals have a good opportunity here.

Agree, James. Tallawong/Schofields/Box Hill is where there has been rapid population growth, and is the area most likely to be affected by issues such as cost of living and infrastructure.

Whereas residents in Glenwood, Kellyville Ridge, Stanhope Gardens, and The Ponds have well established schooling infrastructure, easy access to the M1 Metro Line and likely to have paid down more of their mortgage, whilst seeing a rapid increase in property values, so less impacted by inflation and CoL. I’d suspect healthcare would be a more pressing issue around there.

I took a look at 2019 result but used the new boundaries. It was a virtual dead heat. This makes me wonder if the relative safety of the seat is overstated. My thinking is that 2019 was hardley a Liberal high point and there is the potential for anyone who switches their vote once to switch again. That combined with new families and high mortgage rates makes me think this is in play.

@david agreed but if dutton is winning this seat hes in majotity. atm il say labor marginal retain.

David, I did my own estimates of the results since 2004 on the 2025 boundaries – it’s the dotted line in the chart. In 2019 it would’ve been 51-49 to Liberal.

Not sure Virk is going to convert many votes in the older, lower SES areas of Greenway. She hasn’t set foot in those areas. Her campaigning has been purely focused on newly developed areas which coincidently have higher numbers of Indian Australian’s and higher SES. Rowland can’t do too much at the point. Stuckey gosh… bit embarrassing to be honest.

On the new boundaries, the only low-SES part of Greenway is Lalor Park (and the small bits of Blacktown and Seven Hills surrounding it). It’s a glaring misfit in what is now on the whole a relatively high-SES electorate.

Once again continuing the tradition of poor Lib candidate choice in Greenway

https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/liberal-candidate-bailed-on-company-before-multimillion-dollar-gst-hit-20250415-p5lrye

A news article should not define a candidate’s merit.

I can do the same for Rowland: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/feb/09/michelle-rowland-faces-calls-to-resign-for-accepting-gaming-company-donations-before-election
Doesn’t mean either is or will be a bad MP.

Volunteers for Rattan Virk also ran their truck into a pre-poll voting centre. Then tried removing her branding on the truck. Obviously out of her control, but a very bad look on her supporters. These things can impact public perception come voting day.

(Dr??) Rattan Virk has certainly generated a lot of negative media coverage for a major party candidate in a seat they’re not likely to win.

Virk’s supporters are spamming local facebook community groups in Glenwood, Box Hill, Stanhope Gardens and Kellyville Ridge. Most comments in response are negative, doesn’t look the campaign is going very well for the Liberals here, especially following the attention the literal car crash received.

They always seem to think they can wheel out any old “ethnic” candidate around here, but the quality of the candidates (just like Pradeep Pathi in 2022) leaves a lot do be desired.

The unsuccessful candidates then end up as councillors on Blacktown City Council down the track (and that applies to both Labor & Liberal candidates over the years – Jaymes Diaz, Mohit Kumar, Susai Benjamin, Allan Green, Pradeep Pathi, Jugandeep Singh to name a few)

With all of the issues with developers in the area, this won’t go down well – https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/election-2025-liberal-contender-denies-alp-developer-allegation/news-story/60f4948a304a20eabbf7a12e4836dac3

On one hand people complain about a lack of housing then they complain about developers. How do they think houses get built?

The Greens vote in Greenway may plummet – the candidate goes around screaming at polling booths in the most irritating way ever, and voters seem to dislike it a lot. He tries to stand on top of whatever he can, and most polling booths only have 1-2 volunteers handing out HTV Cards as opposed to LNP or ALP.

Not sure how much this will change the 2PP. The Greens obviously preferenced ALP or LNP so normally most preferences will go to ALP, but now if someone isn’t voting GRN because of this candidate, they’re still probably going to lean to ALP.

The Greens vote may plummet? That’s an interesting opinion. The concerns within the community have not been the Greens. A brief interaction will not have much of an impact on such a far-reaching electorate.

It does sound like you spent a lot of time observing this candidate. A volunteer? A biased opinion, possibly?

I have observed social media community groups, and I can assure you that The Greens have barely registered. Regarding volunteer behaviour, one party has been mentioned by many community members in particular.

Regarding volunteers for smaller parties, I’m not sure what you meant by this. LIB and ALP are the oldest parties in Australia; they have a history of PMs and major funding. They will always have great support.

At the prepoll I saw today for Greenway:
(Liberal) 1-5 Volunteers
(Labor) 2-3 Volunteers
(Greens) 1 Volunteer

Zero Volunteers
(Independent)
(Libertarian)
(Trumpet of Patriots)
(One Nation)

On 2GB this morning, Ben Fordham read out some poll numbers from KJC Research showing Virk was ahead of Rowland with a 4% swing away from Rowland – ALP Primary 35%, LIB Primary 40%, ALP 2PP 45% LIB 47%

Don’t believe everything Fordham says. He also referred to Virk as a “he”.

Labor completely flipped it up in the new booths around Rouse Hill, Box Hill & Nelson.

Incredible result for Michelle Rowland

My goodness… when I saw those swings in Rouse Hill, I thought it must be a clerical error. But all of those booths are reporting swings to Labor of above 20%. I lived in Rouse Hill only a few years ago and I almost can’t believe that Labor has 60% of the 2PP there now. That’s just incredible. How did this happen? It makes me wonder what could have happened next door in Mitchell if Labor actually made an effort there.

There’s a lot of new builds in that area plus the metro line is attracting apartments. I think that means there’s a younger and usually immigrant heavy demographic moving in. So a combination of more friendly demographics plus Labor making campaign efforts now, along with the general continued swing away from the Liberals in the North Shore and Hills District, and metropolitan Australia more broadly. Mitchell is now a marginal seat too when it used to be considered one of the most conservative seats in Australia.

Amazingly, Labor scored over half of first preferences. On current boundaries, this was a Liberal seat in 2019.

The 2PP swings of over 20% in Rouse Hill and Box Hill followed the redistribution. This meant their local member switched from Alex Hawke to Michelle Rowland. There’s also an element of suburban sprawl that made the suburbs less rural.

Labor is a n borrowed time in Greenway. This should have flipped in 2013 if not for James Diaz blunder. The only thing holding this up is the unusual election due to faulty lib campaigning and Rowlands personal. This will flip once Rowland retires or the next redistribution

Well Dutton was toxic here among ethnic minorities who would have feared him. This is a very CALD area, Mitchell had a big swing to Labor so did La Trobe in Victoria. The Urban parts of La Trobe are like Greenway demographically.

@Darth Vader that’s wishful thinking. If it was purely based on Quaker’s Hill and Rouse Hill maybe it will become more marginal but the Blacktown/Seven Hills end are still very strong Labor territories. It won’t fall when those areas are still within the boundaries. Hell even if the Hawkesbury was distributed in 2007-2010 style the seat would be marginal at worst.

Tommy it’s hard to make that assumption. If Diaz had won in 2013 Michelle Dowland would not be in office. Labor would have regained it in 2016 and the. Coalition again in 2019. And probably labor again in 2022. With the redistion pushing it back to marginal. And then a small labor gain back to safe. It’s hard to presume rowland would still be the mp. It’s safe for labor while she’s still there though. Blacktown seven hills is the parts it will lose first in a future redistion so darth Vader is likely correct. McMahon will probably be a purely Blacktown seat with a bit of Cumberland

This isn’t the same seat as 15 years ago. The metro line and all the assorted developments in this area have made it a hub for new builds and young immigrant families. Outside of a landslide I don’t think this would be won by the Liberals, who rely on older voters.

Michelle Rowland won the seat when north of Schofields Road was largely semi-rural and had large blocks of land. Suburban sprawl meant that these blocks were subdivided and new roads were built. The demographics have changed a lot.

“On 2GB this morning, Ben Fordham read out some poll numbers from KJC Research showing Virk was ahead of Rowland with a 4% swing away from Rowland – ALP Primary 35%, LIB Primary 40%” John, May 2.
I was looking back at comments and realised how far off the seat polling was from the actual result. Rowland actually scored a 6% 2PP swing.

@Adda on the state level this is a marginal seat that was instrumental in Labor’s victory (without seats like Londonderry and Riverstone (the latter of which was Liberal from 2011 until 2023), Labor couldn’t form government) so I don’t think a landslide is required to win it.

Agree NP and John, Greenway is a classic swing seat with most of its population located in the mortgage belt suburbs (The Ponds and Kellyville Ridge). I believe Michelle Rowland has a significant personal vote, which is why she has been able to hold onto this swing seat for so long, even at elections which were not as favourable for Labor (like 2019). Poor candidate choices by the Liberals during their high-water mark periods (namely 2013 and 2019) also cost them the chance to win this seat.

Rattan Virk as the most recent Liberal candidate was decent and could be a suitable choice to run when Michelle Rowland decides to retire. Another acceptable choice could be former state MP Kevin Connolly, although he might not want to run given his age.

@ Yoh An
While Greenway can be a swing seat it is probably hostile to the current direction of the Federal Libs and that is what Adda is trying to say. It is not an issue at a state level. As the Federal Libs move in a Trumpian direction it wlll be less attractive here. Just like how Trump has lost a lot of support in Suburban Atlanta, Suburban Dallas and Suburban Houston. Areas like The Ponds and Kellyville Ridge have very high levels of Education and are CALD so probably hated Dutton comments on White Farmers in South Africa etc