Berowra – Australia 2025

North by West: sorry for delay. From pre-poll voting reports. Voters are seeing the aggressive Leeser with his exclusive brethren support & don’t like it? Nor would you?

This seat was surprisingly quiet on this site. The results are a genuine concern for the Liberals.

Labor has won almost every booth from Epping to Brooklyn, the only exceptions being Thornleigh PPVC and Beecroft North. The Liberals actually lost the polling day vote by around 1000 votes, only being saved by measly 53% on pre-polls and 60% of postals.

Based on senate results here, Julian Leeser has around a 10% personal vote. When he retires the Liberals must choose a strong candidate and hope for a polling rebound, or they could give Labor a shock win here.
Tina Brown didn’t poll too well considering the expectations here. For Benson, I was stunned how in 2022 he was Labor’s eleventh-hour candidate here, and in 2025 when running again came shockingly close to a boil-over.

This seat is trending hard against the Liberals and they need to be careful as this seat is definitely becoming progressive and they can’t rely of the rural portions to save them. It’s impressive how this seat has swung 14% to Labor in just 6 years, but it also signals a warning to them to shape up or risk this seat turning red and having every Liberal diehard rolling in their grave seeing Berowra as Labor held.

@James it seems to be mostly a federal thing like a lot of these hard trends. Matt Kean easily won Hornsby in 2023 and the Liberals had no problem holding it in the by-election (admittedly without a Labor candidate).

The Labor trend is seen across the North Shore in general. Bradfield may have Labor win the 2PP even as the Liberals win against the Independent. Primarily this seems driven by the Chinese vote swinging between Liberal and Labor, and very strongly Labor in this election. Teal independents however don’t seem to have connected very strongly with them.

I don’t see how this can be classified as mostly a federal trend, as the 2023 election saw a very strong swing across the North Shore including a 9% swing to Labor in Hornsby. The brand damage to the Liberals appears to be very broad across all levels. It’s possible for them to hold up better in 2027 but the damage is certainly not contained to the Federal arena.

@James: “Based on Senate results here, Julian Leeser has around a 10% personal vote.” Note that the Senate count is far from complete and the first-row of “Above-the-line Votes” for each party are still mostly populated with zeros. Therefore you shouldn’t use the interim 36.05% figure as the Coalition Senate vote for Berowra. I don’t know how did you get the 10% figure from. In 2022, the Liberal House vote for Berowra was 3.15% higher than the Senate vote.

I agree that the results in Berowra as well as nearby Mitchell are incredibly concerning for the Liberal Party. Labor won almost all booths in suburbs along the T9 line from Epping to Brooklyn, including all booths in Epping, North Epping and Hornsby, with the only exceptions being Berowra PPVC and Beecroft North. There were double digit 2PP swings against the Liberal Party in all polling day booths in Epping and two in Hornsby.

The 2022 federal election was the first time since 1969 and the second time in the seat’s history that the Liberal primary vote dropped below 50% in Berowra, and the first time since 1972 that the Liberal 2PP dropped below 60% in Berowra. The Liberal result in Berowra at the 2022 federal election was already one of the worst in the seat’s history, and the Liberal’s further decline in 2025 brought Labor close to victory. I have never imagined that Berowra will become a Liberal vs Labor marginal seat, especially with Julian Leeser as MP, who has earned respect across the political spectrum for taking a principal stance on the Voice. Without Leeser’s increased profile as a result of him campaigning for “Yes” in the Voice referendum and speaking out against rising antisemitism, as well as his more intense campaigning, Labor could have secured a shock victory here.

@Adda: “I don’t see how this can be classified as mostly a federal trend, as the 2023 election saw a very strong swing across the North Shore including a 9% swing to Labor in Hornsby.”

The Liberal Party has been haemorrhaging votes on Sydney’s North Shore at both state and federal levels, however the state party has shown that it is capable of arresting the haemorrhage of votes.

The NSW Liberal Party does much better on the state level than on the federal level because the NSW Liberal Party’s state candidates and its state leader are much more moderate than their federal counterparts. Seats like Drummoyne and Ryde which the NSW Liberal Party managed to hold on in the 2023 state election after the retirement of previous members would have been Labor seats on 2022 federal election results. Even if you apply state OPV preference flows to federal primary vote results in these two state seats you will still get a Labor 2PP majority. The NSW Liberal Party would have still retained North Shore and Manly in the 2023 state election under CPV while the same area was decisively won by teals in the 2022 federal election. I believe the NSW Liberal Party is capable of improving its performance on Sydney’s North Shore at the 2027 NSW state election as there’s likely to be a statewide swing against Labor at this election.

@Joseph, minor correction, the 2pp dipped under 60% for the 2007 election as well.

Very interesting points. I’d see Epping flip Labor before Hornsby does at the next state election. Cherrybrook and the rural elements are what’s keeping it blue…for now.

There has been plenty of media commentary about the Chinese vote. Worth noting the big Chinese populations in Berowra and Mitchell.

@Joseph – apologies for the miscalculation. I did remember someone here posting that the Coalition had polled only around 32% of the Senate vote, and that Julian Leeser had polled around 42% in the HoR, so I did go off those figures and made the calculation that Julian Leeser’s vote was 10% higher than the Senate vote. The ABC has said that Leeser is on 41.9% of the primary vote, whereas on the AEC Tally Room the most recent figures had the Coalition on 36.05% of the primary vote, equating to 5.85% personal vote (if that is how a personal vote is calculated). I do apologise for the miscalculation as I understand it would have been quite confusing to see, and I will ensure I am using up-to-date results when making comments.

From what I have heard, Tina Brown got hung out to dry by SHaC and Climate200. All of her advertising, especially online, ended up self-funded, after they decided to pull funding as soon as she got going.

@Politics_Obsessed: Thanks for the correction. Therefore I should have said “the 2022 federal election was the first time since 1969 and the second time in the seat’s history that the Liberal primary vote dropped below 50% in Berowra, and the second time since 1972 that the Liberal 2PP dropped below 60% in Berowra”.

“I’d see Epping flip Labor before Hornsby does at the next state election”. I don’t think you can use federal election results to predict state election results and vice versa, especially considering the NSW state election is 22 months away from the federal election and a lot could have happened in federal and state politics in the intervening period. As I have said many voters vote for different parties at federal and state elections due to difference in party policy, popularity of the local MP and party leaders etc. Labor recorded solid 2PP majorities in the areas covered by Epping, Hornsby, Ryde and Drummoyne etc at the 2025 federal election, but that does not preclude the NSW state Liberal Party from holding on to these seats at the 2027 NSW state election. The Coalition may well get a swing towards it at the 2027 NSW election due to state issues like ongoing industrial disputes and the crisis in the state’s health system plaguing the Minns government.

Agree Joseph, voters generally can and do distinguish between different levels of government. A key example would also be Queensland, where the LNP lost several seats despite the popularity of the state government led by David Crisafulli (I expected that the LNP would hold onto all of its seats due to this fact).

Also, for both NSW 2023 and Victoria 2022 – the Coalition only lost two seats to ‘teal’ independents (Wollondilly and Wakehurst for NSW, and none in Victoria) whereas they lost several seats to the teals at the earlier federal election. Pittwater would later be gained by teal independent Jacqui Scruby when Rory Amon was forced to resign following his sexual assault conviction.

on NSW election – there was probably less of a case for a pro-climate action independent due to the NSW liberal government having a generally positive attitude there.
The new independent MPs were probably more traditional community independents that got in due to being well known locally and having a poor candidate from the liberal party.

I’m surprised that the result was this close.

Before the election, I mentioned that there are teal-ish areas along the eastern edge of the electorate i.e. along Pennant Hills Road and the Northern (Train) Line as well as the Pacific Motorway. There are also suburbs with large ethnic Chinese communities. Such areas swung hard away from the Liberals.

@Joseph,
” Without Leeser’s increased profile as a result of him campaigning for “Yes” in the Voice referendum and speaking out against rising antisemitism, as well as his more intense campaigning, Labor could have secured a shock victory here.”

I agree that his sacrifice of his shadow minister’s role to campaign for the voice helped set him apart from the rest of the party and helped minimise the swing amongst moderates.

The semi-rural booths north of Glenhaven recorded a high Liberal primary vote. Without them, the result would be even closer.

The presence of a teal independent helped split the non-Liberal vote. Some teal voters put Liberal ahead of Labor and it is to Labor’s detriment. Generally teals advocate for just a number 1 on the HTV card with preference order up to the voters. This gave Liberal-leaning voters who disliked Dutton an option to send a message with a vote for Tina Brown but giving Leeser their 2nd preference.

I mentioned in some other threads that there were swings to Labor of between 20% and 30% in Rouse Hill, compared to under 10% in Beaumont Hills. Rouse Hill was transferred from Mitchell to Greenway in the redistribution, while Beaumont Hills remained in Mitchell.

I’ve lived in Rouse Hill, and I can offer no explanation other than the impact of Labor actively campaigning. If this is the explanation, then it would suggest that both Berowra and Mitchell were winnable had Labor put in the effort.

@Nicholas: The swings towards Labor in Rouse Hill were inflated by Labor MP Michelle Rowland’s personal vote, who had a high profile as the Minister for Communications. Had Rouse Hill remained in Mitchell the swings towards Labor in the area would be much smaller.

It would be all about effort. Labor would throw more at it now that it was in a Labor seat. It is a common phenomenon. Effort = returns. If it went back to Mitchell, there would be a big swing the other way.