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.
Boele now by 20.
Boele keeps extending her lead slowly but surely. Would probably have to take a mistaken pile of votes or something for Kapterian to get the lead back at this point.
Boele by 25.
Interesting how the tally for the candidates has decreased throughout the recount while the number of informal votes has increased. I wonder how many of the votes added to the informal tally otherwise clearly indicated at least a 1 for Kapterian or Boele? Perhaps someone can explain, but it seems like a recount is as much about seeking to exclude votes for your competitor as it is about trying to identify the actual will of the electorate.
The rules are the rules. Anything that doesn’t have each number and once only, is excluded. Anything where the handwriting is illegible, is excluded. This last point can often be the reason something gets deemed formal by the first person looking at it, then deemed informal by the next.
The vast majority of scrutineers from all sides are just there to uphold the rules. Even if they obviously want their candidate to win, true PITAs who hold up the process are rare.
On another note, I suspect that anyone who wanted to argue we should “keep in the ones that clearly showed a 1 for Kapterian even if the rest was spoilt” would be against including any who confused it with NSW state OPV and just put a 1 for Boele.
When all’s said an done, our rate of informal voting is remarkably low – half the informals are deliberate (either blank or just draw a dick on it), so only a few % are genuine mistakes.
I don’t know who you’re responding to, Expat, but I think we can recognise that the rules are tossing out votes with clear intention without suggesting the rules should be changed on the go.
By what measure would you consider our informal rate to be “remarkably low”? The rate we have is very high by international standards. In most countries you don’t get a lot of people trying to vote and having their vote not counted.
Sky news and SMH calling the final margin as 27 to Boele. Is this confirmed? The count has finished? I don’t see a media release on the AEC website.
Chris – The count is not yet finalised on the AEC website (still one venue and 0 or more declaration votes to go), so not officially confirmed.
Wait, so you’re telling me that a media organisation jumped the gun on reporting a story that wasn’t confirmed yet? I’m shocked, I tell you! Aboslutely *shocked*!
The latest word from the AEC is that the AEO is currently meeting with the Governor to return the writs for the NSW Senate count, and then will review the final ballot papers. So they are close to the finish line and it will be in this afternoon but it is not final yet.
Could a by-election be held if either candidate challenges the result?
ABC calling it for Boele.
I don’t think anyone has jumped the gun here. We didn’t wait for the final AEC declaration in any other seat. Boele will win this seat. Whether there’s a court challenge is a different question.
get ready for a court challenge 27 votes is miniscule if only 14 of those were wrong the result is different
Mundingburra 1996, troops in Somalia voted Liberal but their votes weren’t counted, the Court ruled a new election. Unless that’s happened here, Boele is in the clear.
Couldn’t see Boele winning a repeat, Labor won’t turnout to tactically vote for her and if they run live then Boele is sure to run 3rd and have her preferences distributed, which probably helps Kapterian.
AEC has just released a statement declaring Boele the winner by 26 votes.
@john, basically none of the votes I saw being disputed could’ve gone to either main candidate. Usually it was clear who would get the vote, it was more about whether it was formal or not. So you’d need 28 changes. And these votes have been scrutineered to death. You won’t find obvious errors, it’s more a question of interpretation.
26 votes is a solid margin, it’s not getting overturned, and it would’ve needed single digits to put the result in question. Unless there’s some credible case that hasn’t come into light until now this is Boele’s seat for the rest of the term.
The Liberals got a bit ahead of themselves by allowing Gisele Kapterian a vote for the Liberal leader and even giving her an assistant shadow minister’s role. To be fair, several media outlets called the seat for the Liberals during week 2 of the original count. The media then went back and forth with calling it.