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.
Wombater
There are still absents, provisionals and pre poll declarations as well. Extrapolating with a swing to Boele the first are even and the Libs should gave an edge on the latter. But it is going to be mighty close whoevrr wins.
Gisele trailing by just 22 votes now
Seems that the St Ives prepoll hadn’t fully reported and that caused the ~400 vote shift just now.
Kapterian probably will take this now considering there are thousands of postals still to count.
Re the comment above on Berowra – as per my comment on the Berowra thread – I think Lesser has a huge personal vote that has saved him.. He is running miles ahead of the Coalition Senate vote in that seat. Kapterian is only a few points up.
Something to note here is that the Senate vote in Bradfield for Labor and the Greens is bang on the state average for both. So a seat that was 7.6% away from the state House average 2PP count last election is now broadly an average seat
Apologies if this sounds insensitive given how close the race is but this question has been burning in my head:
How would the race have panned out if it was Kylea Tink contesting Bradfield instead of Nicolette Boele?
Gisele would have wiped the floor. This seat is more bradfield then north sydney. Hard to sprculate on hypotheticals. What if the libs could campaign and had actual policies? What if trump fidnt make life hard for conservatoves across the world? What if Paul Fletcher ran instead of Gisele?
Reply to Lurking:
Gisele would’ve won by 15-20 points. The only reason Boele even has a chance is, yes, because of the type of people who live in the electorate, but because of HER. Since before 2022 and ongoing after the 2022 election, she’s acted as if she WAS the MP, setting up her own office and doing meet and greets every weekend.
Both are strong candidates. If it were most other Lib candidates, Boele would win, and vice versa.
@Lurking Westie – I feel that on the basis on incumbency for Kylea Tink against a new candidate in Gisele Kapterian, I would say Tink would have a slight advantage.
@james how about paul fletcher vs kylea tink
Liberals can thank their lucky stars if Kapterian scrapes through. At least they’ve avoided the obvious if Warren Mundine was pre-selected instead: A complete annihilation.
I can agree to that thpugh i would still like to see warren in parliament at some stahe in a better seat.
@Darth Vader – Tink would win comfortably. She’s the type of demographic which is more prominent here and key for winning this seat. Fletcher on the other hand was uninspiring and didn’t seem too vested in the electorate.
@Tommo9 – 100% agreed. Warren Mundine would have been heavily punished at the ballot box by the large amount of small-Ls in this seat. Kapterian was by far a more superior choice with a good CV and support from Gladys Berejiklian (who was mega-popular in Willoughby)
gisele is now 178 votes ahead hard to see her losing from here.
looking at the booths it seems that the main area that was strong on 2CP for the libs has been St Ives and surrounds along with postals. IND had a lot of large wins in I guess smaller booths with a few more around 50/50
Boele had no volunteers or coreflutes at the Pennant Hills PPVC. Would be bad luck for her if this ends up losing her the seat and would show the value of having a presence at the booths.
Congratulations to Gisele Kapterian on her victory in Bradfield!
Her victory means the Liberals now have two female MPs in Metropolitan Sydney and one seat that touches Sydney Harbour.
Congratulations Gisele Kapterian
a professional woman of Armenian background like Gladys. The First female Armenian MP in the HOR after Joe Hockey was the first male Armenian MP.
It is ironic that the Libs have done best affluent seats which some want to abandon. First time since 2019 that the Libs will touch Sydney Harbour by winning Goldstein they have a state with tram tracks in Melbourne.
Agree Nimalan, the Liberals/Coalition can still win the affluent inner suburban districts by running a moderate, small ‘l’ liberal type candidate who can appeal to the interests and values of professional type voters. This was the case with many contenders who won or came close to winning (Gisele Kapterian, Tim Wilson and Amelia Hamer).
does Nicolette Boele and Zoe Daniel run again in 2028 or go and get on with life?
Liberals haven’t done much good anywhere since Covid, their voters in the cities have been disappearing.
Albanese is likely to fail over this term, but it’s hard to see the Liberals benefitting, they seem to have run their race as a Party.
So, i’d say Daniel might have another shot, Boehle mighta won but for her gaffe at the hairdressers.
id say that Price will be back in Bean and Hulett will give Fremantle another shot. George or another teal will probably go after Franklin again with more favourable boundaries too.
Amelia Hamer (the unsuccessful Liberal candidate for Kooyong) and Felicity Wilson (the Liberal member for the state seat of North Shore) have both congratulated Gisele Kapterian on her victory.
Congratulations to Gisele, she was certainly in a David & Goliath battle going against a well-known and well-funded teal, she has put in the hard work and it has paid off.
I am curious to see if Boele/a Voices candidate runs here again in 2028. The seat had a favourable redistribution and a retiring MP, and a hard campaign, coupled with the cliff-drop in Liberal polling, yet they didn’t seem to make enough inroads.
Despite Climate 200 spending a huge amount of money and actually coming up well short they might have actually achieved their agenda as a further two terms of Labor government (not assured but pretty likely) makes the climate wars and energy policy a pretty moot point – in six years time everything will have gone too far and the clock will not be able to be turned back. These independents may not have the funding stream and may not have climate as a policy any more. If the political agenda goes back to economics, national security etc. the old normal may return – unless the Culture Warriors go full bore.
Redistributed, the hope would be the Liberals return to their core values on fiscal discipline. That way, they appeal more to the professional type voters (moderate and small ‘l’ Liberal leaning) and that will help them win back more of the teal held seats.
If they continue sticking with a focus on far right, culture war rhetoric then they would struggle to make inroads into the teal seats (and also other Labor held inner city ones like Bennelong, Tangney, Sturt and Boothby).
@ Redistributed great points. It is really the million dollar questions whether the climate wars continue or whether it will just become accepted like the GST. If Climate wars end even with a third Labor term then the Teals may have outlived their usefulness some well perfoming Teals like Allegra Spender and Kate Chaney could actually be offered Liberal membership while people like Monique Ryan maybe gone.
for Climate 200/community independents – their main platform in 2022 was action on climate change and integrity in politics
That platform was a bit harder to differentiate in 2025 given that Labor had gone all in on climate action and had gone 3 years without any scandals.
It will be interesting to see how Labor go with close to increased power in government this term – and an extra 20 or so MPs. This could lay the foundation for more independents running on integrity targeting safe Labor seats
Bradfield on its current boundaries doesn’t really touch the Sydney harbour or the Pacific Ocean, but redistribution make its southern end close to the Sydney harbour.
I congratulate Gisele Kapterian on her election victory. As a moderate professional woman, she represents the voters the Liberal Party deseprately needs to win back in order to become competitive again. Wish her all the best with her political career.
I guess technically Middle Harbour and the Lane Cove River could be considered “Sydney Harbour” – but I would say the Warringah and Bennelong would be the only seats north of the Harbour that qualified.
Shows what a poor election this was for the Liberals/LNP that there is so much celebration over this narrow victory.
Still well done to the Libs in going with a candidate that the local members selected. I wonder how Warren Mundine would have gone
He would not have won. As much as I like him
I’m gonna wager a guess and say sussing ley will win the leadership ballot. Also why are they holding the ballot when all seats are not yet decided. Terry Young will likely still get a vote despite the fact he may not yet win his seat
@john how many do they need to get a quorum?
Quorum or not, they should wait and see who has won their seats. Imagine if Well Done Angus or Susssan win by a single vote and they add two more from the opposite faction before parly resumes.
I was surprised that Nicolette did not win given how much money and how much time she spent in electioneering. Paul Fletcher had not mounted any real campaign to match hers before he resigned. Kapterian was outspent by 3:1 A 24 page coloured brochure was delivered throughout the electorate by Boele.
The LINOs who control most of the branches in the electorate are despised by many.
The Liberal campaign was amateur hour at best.
@Redistributed, I think whether the teals are successful in 2028 depends on where the direction of the federal Liberal Party is going. Even if the climate wars are stopped they could shift their focus to culture wars and social issues.
@ Nether Portal
Great point i think Climate has a sense of urgency which some other social issues/culture wars do not. For example, virtually all Teal seats voted for the Republic and may do again in if there is a referendum was held in 2029 as a example. However, i do not think this will be enough for the Teals to survive even if the Libs are totally opposed to a Republic because voters in the Teal seats even if they are Pro-Republic do not see the urgency of the issue as opposed to climate. However, if the Libs embrance Religious Conservativism (LGBT/Abortion) then the teals could be revived even in Goldstein without climate wars
@Nimalan, exactly. If Australian politics becomes more Americanised (i.e elite politicians more focused on social issues than economic issues and thus dividing the country and leaving out the working-class and middle-class), then that’s a possibility.
In the US the Republicans haven’t won a federal House seat on the West Coast (i.e a seat that touches the Atlantic Ocean, so any coastal seat in California, Oregon or Washington) since 2020. In 2022 and 2024 the Democrats won every seat on the West Coast.
@ Nether Portal
Exactly, if you look at American historian Christopher Lasch he mentioned that the US was dominated by a “corporate elite with anti-elite idelology”. Many in the rural class often love debates on identity politics so there is actually no challenge to ruling class domination. People like Gina Rinehart probably enjoys this and actually has no interest in economically uplifting the working and middle class. In Australia, Republicanism in probably a pet project of the elite as it a debate on identity politics and actually is no challenge to ruling class domination in Australia and does not materially uplift the working or middle class so a debate like this is a great distraction.
I mentioned in April that Boele had all the tailwinds and it would be a big flop if she loses. There was a retiring local member, unpopular opposition leader, favourable redistribution, large volunteer army and big money donors.
I can’t say that I’m surprised that this went down to the wire. Based on what I heard and read and also saw on the ground, I felt Boele’s campaign was over-the-top and had over-exposure. I get that her volunteers were over-excited but perhaps to their detriment.
She also missed the boat with the climate change theme. 2022 was the climate change election which saw a Green and a teal wave. Back then, memories of black summer bushfires and floods were fresher in people’s minds. She might’ve campaigned as if it were 2022. The Liberals have probably learned how to sandbag their seats against teals and hence held onto Bradfield and Wannon.
She didn’t appear to connect well with ethnic Chinese communities. Labor came first on primaries at some booths in Chatswood and St Leonards.
This result will really hurt Simon Homes a Court. Boele was has biggest target to enter Parliament, and the amount of money that had been sunk into her campaign as the self-appointed “Shadow MP for Bradfield” would have funded a football club in the area for the best part of 5 years.
From what I have heard on the ground there and in Berowra, the anti-SHaC campaigning went a long way to saving the skin of the Liberal Party in both seats. If the Community Independents are going to be successful here in the future, the best thing that they can do now is drop SHaC and drop Climate200, because both brands are now starting to develop toxic reputations, due to their over-bearing nature and overtly-cringey campaigning.
What is SHaC?
As for Climate 200, their raison d’etre will have passed as there will be no going back on policy after 6 or 9 years of Labor Government. Their vast amounts of funding came to nought in Goldstein, Wannon and Monash as well. If anything they might have renergised the Libs and removed complacency.
Because of the new election donations caps and disclosure laws, we might not see Mr Palmer or Mr Holmes a Court as influential next election. I had this feeling they would go hard this election before the new laws kicked in.
@redistributed – SHaC = Simon Holmes a Court
The teals are the symptom of the massive cultural split inside of the Liberal party. They’re unlikely to go away so long as the Liberals continue on the path of Sky News. The party room is now dominated by conservatives too, with Ley elected 29-25 and 3 of those votes coming from Senators who are set to go out after this month. I can’t see the Liberals easily changing direction to appeal more to teal demographics.
Overbearing moralising white female Karens don’t go down well with ethnic Asian voters @Votante
One thing I will note is that his name is actually Simon Homes à Court and that the a includes a French accent.
The margin is now down to 59 votes in favour of Kapterian. There are about 1,500 votes still out there. The Declaration Pre Polls are not looking good for the Libs.
Hold on, will they need to uncall this or am I missing something?
theres also about 700 postals still to cpunt