Lindsay – Australia 2025

Interesting as this seat use to be key to whoever wanted to get into office, I believe that this is the first time along with the electorate of Banks where its not with Labor when they’re in office. Labor seem to be struggling with demographics like this and could be at risk with more seats like this with similar demographics in the future if they don’t reach out.

It was a bellwether up until 2016. Yes, you’re right that this is the first Labor government without it.

This used to be very associated with Howard Battlers – working-class people and mortgage holders who had swung to the Liberals. I agree that Labor is struggling with its old blue-collar worker base with the ongoing political realignment. Outer suburban electorates with fewer uni-educated, white-collar professionals are not voting for Labor as strongly as they used to.

I think there has been increase wealth among many former working class people in Lindsay hence it is probably explains how it turned Libs

I think Marh is correct in some respects that parts of this seat such as Glenmore Park has seen an increase in affluence as that suburb is more settled these days. Some compare this seat to Hughes, however Lindsay is more socially mixed and has areas of disadvantage and new housing estates something Hughes does not have. I am not sure Banks is a good comparison because that was not a bellwether it was moving towards the Liberals with increased affluence along the waterside suburbs. @Nether Portal calculated, Lindsay on state results and it would be 53.3% Labor only 1% worse than the state results. The issue for Labor is that areas like Lindsay, Petrie, Forde is that they are generally more interested in bread and butter issues rather than climate, voice, republic etc and Labor needs to have a message that is Economy based like in 2016. Kevin Rudd had an economy based campaign in 2007 with Workchoices and Interest rates and won. NSW state Labor had a campaign that focused on Toll Roads, Public sector wage cap etc.

Voting for LNP v ALP/Green is now more based on education levels rather than income – so unless a bunch of university educated people have moved into Glenmore Park and surrounds in the last few years, then expect this to stay with the libs

Interesting to see the Greens doing quite well in Penrith East and Penrith booths whereas further from Penrith One Nation comes third or United Australia.

A lot of the Teal hype against a perceived arch-conservative like Mundine seems to be drawing the same conclusions against what happened to Abbott in Warringah.
I’m still of the belief you could run any Liberal in Bradfield at this next election and win, purely because of the normalisation and swing against Labor and back to the Coalition. Particularly in high income electorates.
The Teal here isn’t as high profile as Steggall and Mundine isn’t as divisive or even as well-known as Abbott.
Whoever Libs run will have a swing to them, as the Teal movement has run out of gas.
All Dutton and co have to do is rehash the same lines Abbott did in 2013 against the perceived detriment cross-benchers pose in propping up a Labor-Greens-Independent government. And emphasise stability via majority government.
It’s also not like Mundine will be on the front bench, so any perceived damage or controversy he would cause is also grossly exaggerated

Whoops: above post is in the wrong page

I think SpaceFish that your and bazza’s comments line up – the closer your to Penrith and the station, the more likely you are to catch the train to a profession ‘degree required’ job in the city/Parramatta/North Sydney etc, so you are more likely to vote ‘progressive’.

‘Closer you are’

or you are a young professional, degree educated CBD worker in a new apartment around the station while if you got cheap housing in Glenmore Park 25 years ago you didn’t need a degree or professional job

Lib retain.

Labor barely campaigning here with resources being diverted to Macquarie. Could be a swing to the Coalition with a popular incumbent.

I grew up here and it’s worth noting that this seat was very conservative and a strong Liberal Voting stronghold prior to 1980’s. The Penrith establishment are the next generation from that crowd and still heavily involved in business and legal circles. The 80’s/90s swing to the ALP was off the back of 1) big Landcom developments (St Clair, the early bits of Glenmore Park, Cranebrook) and 2) running very conservative ALP candidates, especially at the State Level (Mulock, Peter Anderson). Then Ross Free arrived from Springwood High and the crazies took over the local ALP and viewed it as spoils from ALP factional warfare, which meant local concerns were seldom addressed, and the Penrith ALP became a feifdom of the NUW under disgraced former secretary, Derrick Belan, and became riddled with time servers and drones.

Meanwhile, the households that had started out in the eighties paying very high interest rates viewed Howard as a genius. As the housing market turned into a bubble all they saw was the value of their home hyperinflating. The cardigan brigade in the Penrith ALP had nothing to counter this locally and the old dairy town simply reverted to what it had always been, a starting point for young couples trying to get on in life and a greasy little backwater for those neither bright nor ethical enough to mix it with the big boys in Parramatta and Sydney.

I doubt this area will ever again vote ALP in big numbers as long as it is a dormitory suburb. It’s got more in common with Berowra than it does with Minto. The irony here is watching the local Liberal Party starting to deal with local institutions as spoils of the political theatre. See you at the night matches down at Greygums Oval 🙂

The swing in Lindsay was 3.3% to Labor. The Liberal 2PP is 52.8%.

Labor didn’t heavily target marginal Liberal seats in NSW, at least not to the extent in other states especially Queensland and Tasmania. Labor was more hellbent on retaining seats in NSW. The Labor candidates in Hughes and Banks won by surprise, especially in Hughes. They were quietly confident and did their own campaigns. It was a case of striking whilst the opponents were sleeping. There was a momentum shift during the campaign and hence why Albanese popped in at a prepoll station in Padstow.

Could Labor have won in Lindsay if they’d campaigned like they did in Queensland or Tasmania? Maybe.

Across the electorate, people were willing to swing away from the Liberals. The large pool of candidates really split the votes. Labor wasn’t the biggest beneficiary of the primary vote swings. There were solid 2PP swings to Labor in new-ish housing estates in Jordan Springs and Glenmore Park but some of them were driven by Greens primary vote swings.

The senate primary vote results – Labor 34.5% LNP 31.7% Greens 8.6%. The big differences between the HoR and senate results could be because of a strong personal vote for Melissa McIntosh.

This seat would be a Labor seat if we used state election figures. However, the numbers are inflated by Prue Car’s personal vote in Londonderry.

@ Votante
Ronald Reagan said as a Joke in 1984 when he was asked what would he like for Christmas he said Minnestoa would would have been great the only state he missed out on narrowly and could have won. My view is that Labor was worried about seats like Werriwa, Paterson, some Victorian seats etc so this was an afterthought. Albo visted Bonner and that showed movemet. Petrie and Forde while traditional bellwethers were not in play. There may have been a view Lindsay was now a safe seat if you look at the 2022 Lindsay thread someone mentioned that future Liberal leaders will come from Lindsay and not the Northern Beaches, North Shore or Wentworth. In Victoria Peta Credlin said in 2019 following the election Kooyong will not be a leadership seat in the future but Aston will be. Lindsay has the demographics that it seems Dutton will do well in Anglo, Outer suburban a lot of tradies etc, Socially Conservative -low support for SSM and Voice so it just was not thought to be in play.

*Petrie and Forde were not thought to be in play

@Nimalan, I agree that Labor worried about different working-class seats like Werria, Paterson. Labor was able to pick up outer-suburban seats like Hughes as well as Petrie and Forde. Labor also got big swings in outer Brisbane.

In hindsight, Labor very effective or even over-sandbagged in some of their own seats e.g. Bennelong, Robertson, among others, following their big swings and over-campaigned in Braddon and Bass.

About future party leaders, I agree that it’s likely they’ll come from the outer suburbs. You could apply that to Labor too after Albanese. Because the Liberals currently hold almost no seats in the inner city or middle-ring suburbs, there won’t be a Liberal leader from such areas for a while.

Labor will prolly never win Lindsay. They seem not to care much about it any more dumping all the flight paths over it

Probably agree John, Lindsay may be the Liberal analogue of Kingston in SA being a former swing seat that has shifted to being a solid Labor seat that is unlikely to be lost at any time, even under a landslide environment.

i just met the member for Linday on Sunday at PML Our Town event in Western Sydney. Dai Le was also there.

@ Yoh An
I have said this before and will say this again. Labor cannot win a moral argument in Lindsay (Climate, LGBT, anti-racism, Indiengous rights) so they can only win an economic arguement in such a seat (Real Wages, GDP per capita, Unemployment. Bulk Billing Rates, IR etc). I certainly did not have Linsday or even Longman on my 2025 bingo card. Tbh i did not have Petrie, Forde, Bass and Braddon on there as well while i did have Banks, Bonner, Sturt, Leichardt, Deakin, Aston on it). Having said that Labor cannot forget about Penrith LGA at a state level i cannot see Labor forming government without Penrith or Londonderry remember they got both seats, entire South Coast and still did not get a majority. There is a few other seats Labor can win in 2027 such as Winston Hills, Holsworthy. However, seats such as East Hills, Oatley, Drummoyne are trending Liberal with gentrification, State Libs appeal more to affluent voters, Chinese community than Federal Libs so State Libs have no choice but to appeal to Penrith, Camden etc

Melissa McIntosh’s personal vote, larger liberal margin and Labor putting little to no effort was the likely reason this seat didn’t flip.

Nimalan,
The ‘trending Liberal’ appears to be occurring across Sydney
Recently, The Daily Telegraph reported on a leaked Liberal Party report which predicted the Coalition would be reduced to as few as 22 seats in 2027.

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news%2Fnsw%2Finternal-analysis-shows-liberals-could-hold-as-few-as-22-seats-in-next-state-parliament%2Fnews-story%2Fc6d734db76e984a55cd8e6a809c55070?amp&nk=e83b7e53c4e7e978a133ba0cc6148f5a-1759474962

@ Watson Watch
Apologies i may have been not clear when i said trending Liberal not saying by any strech that Labor cannot win Drummoyne, Oatley etc if Labor is reduced to 22 seats in 2027 they will likely fall but the point i am trying to make is that I dont really see why Oatley will vote Labor and Penrirth Liberal so if Libs are to be reduced to 22 seats why would they win Penrith or Londonderry and that is point?

Agree Nimalan, I would say those seats (Oatley, Drummoyne and Winston Hills) are considered Liberal leaning seats that Labor will only win under a landslide environment (like 2003 or 1981). Given that the previous (2023) election was fairly close in 2PP terms, it isn’t a surprise that those seats were still retained by the Liberals.

@ Yoh An
Winston Hills is where 2 Sydneys meet but has not really seen any gentrification. On the other hand, Oatley and Drummmoyne are waterfront so has been property values increase along the water. While Greater Sydney is growing in populaiton the amount of waterfront from the Hawkesbury River to the Royal National Park remain the same so as time goes on the amount of waterfront properties will become more scarce.

Nimalan,
I enjoy reading your posts.
Although I still don’t get what you mean by ‘trending Liberal’ and ‘gentrification’. It we ignore these and look at actual voting figures and boundaries.
Not sure who is suggesting the Liberal Party would win Penrith and Londonderry. Lindsay is a Liberal Party seat due to the strong Liberal voting areas in the south (Glenmore Park and Mulgoa). These are in the state seat of Badgerys Creek – currently a safe Liberal Party seat.
Penrith contains Labor voting areas along the railway to the east of the suburb of Penrith.
Londonderry contains strong Labor voting areas around St Marys plus a strong Labor voting area from the Division of Chifley.

They’ll win back Penrith whenever they next form government.

@ Watson Watch
I am not the most eloquent person so you will need to bear with me. A good way to see if a seat is trending left or right is to look at what they call in the US the Cook PVI. That measures the Delta between the statewide vote for a party and the electorate vote i will use Banks as an example and compare 2007 and 2025 as they were best recent results at a Federal Level in NSW. On both elections Labor won Banks. I will adjust the electorate results to 2025 boundaries and use Ben Raue’s figures which can be found in Banks thread
In 2007 the Libs recieved 46.3% of the Statewide result but on 2025 boundaries they got 41.1% of the TPP in Banks therefore the Cook PVI for Libs was -5.2% while in 2025 Libs got 44.73% of the Statewide result but they got 47.6% in Banks so the Cook PVI is now +2.87 in Banks so despite a worse result statewide they actually did much better in Banks 18 years later so Banks has gone from a seat which is more Pro-Labor than the statewide result to one which is more Pro-Liberal eventhough on both occasions Labor won. I wil also use stateseat of East Hills. The current boundaries of East Hills are more Pro-Labor than back in 2011 when Libs won it barely for the first time ever. In 2011 Coalition got 64.2% of the TPP statewide and won the seat by 0.6%. There were two redistributions since then which made the seat better for Labor by moving it north the 2015 redistribution improved the seat by 0.4% for Labor and likewise the 2024 improved the seat by 0.4% again in favour of Labor so based on this on current boundaries Libs may have not won East Hills in 2011. Over those 12 years Coalition has lost 18.4% of the TPP statewide but only 0.9% in East Hills so in 2023 despite Labor regaining it for the first time ever they did worse in East Hills than they did Statewide.

Lets look at an example of a Labor trending seat which is Bega.From 2011-2025 only a minor change in boundaries which made the seat pro-Labor by 0.1% However, in 2023 Labor did better in Bega than they did statewide for the first time and it was the first time ever Labor won Bega at a general election. We may say incumbency helped Labor but if you look at Antony Green’s graph even when Andrew Constance was the candidate the gap between the statewide result for Libs and the result in Bega was narrowing. Bob Carr never won Bega but Chris Minns has. We can also look at Blue Mountains it used to be a bellwether at a state level now it is solid Labor so you need a extremely strong result at a statewide level to win Blue Mountains again for Libs
https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/nsw/2015/guide/bega