ALP 5.2%
Incumbent MP
Sally Sitou, since 2022.
Geography
Inner Western Sydney. Reid covers suburbs along the southern shore of Parramatta River from Drummoyne to Homebush Bay. It covers the City of Canada Bay and parts of Auburn, Burwood and Strathfield council areas. Major suburbs are Drummoyne, Five Dock, Croydon, Homebush, Strathfield and Burwood.
History
The seat of Reid was created for the 1922 election, while Lowe was created as part of the expansion of the Parliament in 1949. Reid had been held by either the ALP or Jack Lang’s Labor breakaway parties for its entire history, while Lowe had a history of alternating between the ALP and Liberal Party. Since the two seats were effectively merged in 2010, Reid has gone to the party of government.
The seat of Reid was first won in 1922 by Labor candidate Percy Coleman. Coleman was re-elected in 1925, 1928 and 1929, but at the 1931 election he was defeated by Joseph Gander, candidate for Jack Lang’s breakaway NSW Labor Party. Gander was re-elected as a Lang Labor candidate in 1934 before rejoining the ALP when Jack Lang reconciled with the federal ALP.
Gander was re-elected as an official ALP candidate in 1937, but in 1940 Jack Lang again split away from the ALP, but with less of his former supporters in NSW following him. Gander followed Lang out of the ALP, but lost at the 1940 election to official ALP candidate Charles Morgan.
Morgan held the seat until the 1946 election, when Jack Lang himself ran in Reid and defeated Morgan. Lang was a former NSW Premier who had led a breakaway Labor party in NSW on a number of occasions.
The 1949 election saw the creation of the new seat of Blaxland, and Lang ran in that seat unsuccessfully. Morgan regained Reid in 1949, holding it until 1958.
Charles Morgan was defeated for ALP preselection by Tom Uren before the 1958 election. Morgan ran as an independent, but was defeated comfortably by Uren.
Uren served as Minister for Urban and Regional Development in the Whitlam government. He served as a Deputy Leader of the ALP from 1976 to 1977, and became the leading figure in the ALP’s left in the late 1970s. He opposed Bob Hawke’s leadership and thus was excluded from Cabinet when Hawke was elected Prime Minister in 1983. He served as a junior minister for four years before moving to the backbench in 1987.
Uren retired at the 1990 election, and was succeeded by Laurie Ferguson, who had been the state member for Granville since 1984. Ferguson has held Reid since 1990.
Lowe was first created for the 1949 election, when it was won by William McMahon (LIB). McMahon was elevated to Robert Menzies’ ministry in 1951, serving in a variety of portfolios over the next fifteen years. Upon Menzies’ retirement in 1966 McMahon became Treasurer in Harold Holt’s cabinet.
When Harold Holt disappeared in December 1967 McMahon was the presumptive successor, but Country Party leader John McEwen refused to serve with McMahon as Prime Minister. McMahon withdrew and Senator John Gorton was elected leader and moved to the House of Representatives.
McMahon served as Gorton’s Foreign Minister, but challenged Gorton for the leadership following the 1969 election unsuccessfully. In 1971 McEwen retired and Gorton’s leadership was undermined by the resignation of Malcolm Fraser from the cabinet. Gorton called a party meeting, and the ballot was tied between Gorton and McMahon, which led to Gorton’s resignation and McMahon’s election as leader and Prime Minister.
McMahon led the Coalition into the 1972 election, and was defeated by Gough Whitlam’s Labor Party. McMahon served in Billy Snedden’s shadow cabinet up to the 1974 election, and then served as a backbencher until his retirement in 1982.
Lowe had been marginal for most elections during McMahon’s service, particularly since the 1961 election. He had only held the seat with a 1.1% margin at the 1980 election, and a swing of 9.4% swing saw Labor candidate Michael Maher win the seat at the 1982 by-election, one year before Bob Hawke defeated Malcolm Fraser at the 1983 election. Maher was a state MP for Drummoyne from 1973 until the 1982 by-election.
Maher was reelected in 1983 and 1984, but was defeated in 1987 by Bob Woods (LIB). Woods was reelected in 1990, and defeated in 1993 by Mary Easson (ALP). Woods was appointed to the Senate in 1994 and served as a Parliamentary Secretary in the Howard government’s first year before resigning from the Senate in 1997 following allegations of abuse of parliamentary privilege.
Easson only held Lowe for one term, losing her seat in the 1996 landslide to Liberal candidate Paul Zammit, who had been a state MP for first Burwood and then Strathfield from 1984 until 1996. Zammit resigned from the Liberal Party in protest at aircraft noise in 1998 and contested the 1998 election as an independent, polling 15%. The seat was won in 1998 by the ALP’s John Murphy, who held the seat until 2010.
In 2010, John Murphy was re-elected in the redrawn seat of Reid, while former Member for Reid Laurie Ferguson moved to the seat of Werriwa.
Murphy lost to Liberal candidate Craig Laundy in 2013 with a 3.5% swing. Laundy was re-elected in 2016, and retired in 2019.
Liberal candidate Fiona Martin won Reid in 2019. Martin was defeated in 2022 by Labor candidate Sally Sitou.
Assessment
Sitou won Reid in 2022 with a big swing, and it’s possible much of that swing might go back again. But she will benefit from being the incumbent MP, and the absence of her predecessor’s personal vote, which could help Labor in Reid outperform the national trend.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Sally Sitou | Labor | 40,768 | 41.6 | +4.4 |
| Fiona Martin | Liberal | 37,126 | 37.9 | -10.4 |
| Charles Jago | Greens | 9,184 | 9.4 | +1.3 |
| Natalie Baini | Independent | 2,994 | 3.1 | +3.1 |
| Jamal Daoud | United Australia | 2,530 | 2.6 | +0.7 |
| Edward Walters | One Nation | 1,997 | 2.0 | +2.0 |
| Andrew Cameron | Liberal Democrats | 1,824 | 1.9 | +1.9 |
| Sahar Khalili-Naghadeh | Fusion | 1,553 | 1.6 | +1.6 |
| Informal | 6,800 | 6.5 | +0.4 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Sally Sitou | Labor | 54,076 | 55.2 | +8.4 |
| Fiona Martin | Liberal | 43,900 | 44.8 | -8.4 |
Booths in Reid have been split into three parts. “East” covers booths in the former Drummoyne council area. “South” covers booths in the Burwood, Strathfield, Cumberland and Inner West council areas. “North-West” covers booths in the former Concord council area and the Parramatta council area.
The ALP won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 51.4% in the north-east to 60.1% in the south.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 8.8% in the north-west to 10.2% in the north-east.
| Voter group | GRN prim | ALP 2PP | Total votes | % of votes |
| North-West | 8.8 | 53.9 | 21,530 | 22.0 |
| South | 9.9 | 60.1 | 15,461 | 15.8 |
| North-East | 10.2 | 51.4 | 14,188 | 14.5 |
| Pre-poll | 8.7 | 56.2 | 28,182 | 28.8 |
| Other votes | 10.1 | 53.9 | 18,615 | 19.0 |
Election results in Reid at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, the Liberal Party and the Greens.
Labor hold
Agree. I do not see this going back to the Liberals – especially not if they put Fiona Martin again. Her refusal to accept that she mixed up Sally Sitou with Tu Le was incredibly souring for many.
They are not running Fiona Martin. They are running Grange Chung – candidate list has been updated, I’m just working through the profiles putting the information in.
Fiona Martin quit the Liberals several months back.
Hi Ben, no worries at all.
I was wondering if Grange Chung is related at all to Craig Chung, the previous Liberal candidate for Kogarah in 2023?
Thanks @Votante – probably the best for her and the Liberal Party.
Just a correction on Fiona Martin and the Libs losing the seat in 2022. This was in large part due to Martin crossing the floor and voting against the Safe Schools Bill; she had reservations that the legislation did not go far enough in protecting LGBTQI students.
She was subsequently abandoned by conservative members of her branches, who did not assist during the campaign.
The Tu Le comments were largely overblown, and I think you’ll find the Asian community were influenced more by the above actions than comments on talkback.
Interestingly, Sitou could not even vote in her own preselection as she was a member of the Fowler branches until a few months prior- indicating that both her and Tu Le were going to run for the Fed seat. Sitou then moved to Strathfield/Homebush to run for the state seat of Strathfield but this was circumvented by Jason Yatsen-Li’s candidacy (after Burwood Mayor John Faker refused Chris Minns’ offer to run)
Nonetheless, I think Sitou holds, albeit with a very reduced margin- normalising the seat’s actual margin hovering between 0.5-2%.
She hasn’t done herself many favours; Martin at least had the pandemic to blame. Sally has been a largely invisible and ineffective member during the last 3 years. There are many locally and externally who considered challenging but were discouraged by Head Office.
Grange Chung for the Libs is largely seen as a sacrificial lamb who has no chance of winning the seat but will help reduce the margin for the next candidate, likely Frank Alafaci or Anthony Bazouni in 2028.
In 2022, the swing to Labor was probably the largest outside WA. The swings were more pronounced in the southern and western parts where there are larger Chinese communities. Because of the size of the swing, there might be some calibration next election.
The Drummoyne part is interesting. The state seat of Drummoyne was Labor-held for many decades until Labor was wiped out in 2011. It was gentrifying at the turn of the century with white-collar professionals moving in, likely because of the waterfront and proximity to the city. This bolstered the Liberal vote over several election cycles. In more recent years, it has become teal-ish. Drummoyne may swing to Labor due to this trend.
@Wombater, Fiona Martin was a moderate Liberal. In the old Reid thread, someone said she tweeted about her resignation and tagged Simon Holmes a Court. This suggests she is more teal now.
Fiona Martin got into a lot of trouble especially in her final few months. She was involved in various controversies. For example, a dozen or so of her staff walked out. An ex-Liberal ran as an independent and preferenced Labor ahead of her. She copped a lot of flack from The Australian of all news sources. For these reasons, the size of the swing didn’t surprise me.
@Votante yep of all the seats Labor gained from the Coalition, the highest swing outside WA was in Reid. However some of the seats that switched to become non-classic contests had bigger notional swings from Liberal to Labor than Reid did.
Drummoyne was Labor held for ages because of Coady Maher and Murray.
The demographics have changed against Labor and that is half the seat.
I think Labor will keep this seat. This and Chisholm will be indicative of who forms minority govt
I was in Lidcombe yesterday, in an area near the train station with a lot of Korean restaurants and businesses. I saw around 5 posters in the window for Grange Chung, not a single one for Sitou, despite Sitou being the incumbent and the Labor vote around there being quite strong with a large Asian community.
Thought I’d give some local insights.
There are teal signs for Steven Commerford everywhere. Apparently his wife lost the liberal preselection to Grange. Unlikely to win but could run 3rd and his preferences will be very influential.
The Greens aren’t running Jago for the first time since I was old enough to vote. Not exactly sure who the new person is.
Overall, I think Sally is very likely to hold. She is much more visible and well liked than Fiona Martin was, particularly among the fast growing Asian communities of Burwood and Rhodes.
I think sitou should hold on here Reid is on a 5% margin and is not as under stress from CoL as Werriwa and the outer suburbs. Other then A landslide which I can’t see happening.
@Chris
I’ve heard of an Independent running in Reid but I haven’t been able to find any info on him even on google. Afaik he doesn’t claim to be a Teal nor does he get funding from Climate 200 so for all ik, he might just be an Independent like Dai Le (before joining WSC) or that guy in McMahon.
Re: Independent in Reid
I haven’t met the guy or heard anything he’s said, but his signs are certainly coloured teal. He also has a website with a teal colour scheme. https://stevencommerford.com.au/
The main thing I’ve heard is that he decided to run after his wife lost Liberal preselection. So not really a Dai Le sort of situation of a local with a pre-existing profile (I’ve never heard of the guy), more a Natalie Baini situation with a candidate arising from Liberal in-fighting. I also heard that he sought funding from Climate 200 but was apparently too late to get backing.
All this info comes from the local ALP chats I’m a part of. They’re usually pretty reliable when it comes to local, on the ground knowledge.
His website suggests that he is pitching to the Drummoyne / Abbotsford end of Reid rather than the Burwood / Strathfield end. Libs would need to be in landslide territory to win Reid at present. Labor hold in 2025.
I do candidate list updates once a fortnight on a Monday and last did it on Monday. This independent missed the cut but I’ve noted him for the next update.
The independent isn’t a teal. He isn’t backed by a community Voices group nor Climate 200.
The Liberal branches in Reid have had problems in recent years. Lots of Liberals have quit loudly. The main one was one I mentioned earlier – the last Liberal MP. Some ex-Liberals have decided to run as independents – there was one in Reid last election and now there’s Andy Yin in Bradfield.
The daily mail ran a recent hit piece on the Liberal candidate Grange Chung as being out of touch with cost of living concerns due to owning a multi-million dollar property in a Japanese ski resort
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/apr/25/liberal-candidate-grange-chung-anzac-day-booklet-how-to-vote-card
Looks like the Liberal candidate Grange Chung is following the paths of his fellow candidates Scott Yung and Zahid Safi in caving into some sort of unnecessary controversy during the campaign.
Another metro Sydney seat with a massive swing to Labor on 2PP, it’s now back to the margins when Laurie Ferguson represented the seat.
On the note of greater Sydney seats, I’ve noticed that all Labor held seats have seen massive swings to them which have given them double digit margins (except for McMahon which went a touch backwards and Werriwa with a smaller but still evident swing), not to mention unexpectedly bringing Hughes and Banks into the Labor fold.
So right now we’ve got:
– Grayndler: 17.1% (vs GRN)
– Sydney: 21.5% (vs GRN)
– Reid: 12%
– Parramatta: 12.8%
– Greenway: 13.6%
– Chifley: 20.5%
– Werriwa: 6.3% (+1%)
– Macarthur: 15.9%
– McMahon: 9.4% (-1.1%)
– Macquarie: 7.7% (+1.4%)
– Barton: 16%
– Kingsford Smith: 17.4%
There’s a lot of very safe seats compared to the last election.
This seat will be Sally Sitou’s until she decides to retire. This seat is unique in that it has a lot of different key demographics and the Libs have managed to alienate every single one of them.
I’d say some of Labor’s 2022/25 pickups will be very difficult for the Libs to win back. Reid is one of them. There were above-average swings to Labor at 3 elections in a row. Reid was a red wall seat before 2013 and so it’s back to being safe again.
@Votante I don’t see Reid, Parramatta or Bennelong being won back by the Liberals for a very long time. Those areas have gone from either tilt or solid blue (in Bennelong) to being firmed up for Labor as the dominant party in the inner-city/middle-ring suburbs.
I’d also say the same about Boothby and Sturt in SA, as well as Tangney. I’ll have more to say on Sturt in the relevant area.
I said before the election that of all the 2022 Pick ups Reid, Boothby and Swan were the least likely to flip so if Dutton was to win the election he had to find 3 others instead. Reid has demographics that the Liberals have alienated
1. Chinese Australian Voters
2. Moderate Liberals/Tealish voters
@ Votante, i am not sure if we can call Reid previously a Red Wall seat. Certainly Reid until 2007 was but when it was merged with Lowe it became quite different. Since 2016 it is been more like the old Lowe than than the old Reid. Lowe has a history of being represented by the Libs including a PM. This is due to Strathfield once being the wealthiest suburb in Sydney before the Harbour Bridge was built and Car ownership became more widespread.
Tony Abbott actually overperformed Howard’s 1996 result in NSW at the 2013 landslide. This meant 3 suprise seats were Reid, Banks and Barton on 2013 boundaries Howard would not have won any of those 3 in 1996. However, part of the result is due to the fact that on 2013 boudaries all 3 have waterfront which are more affluent than during the Howard years.
Agree nimalan, Abbott and Malcolm turnbull in 2016 performed well in all the affluent, teal type seats. It was only under Morrison in 2019 that the Liberals started to see some slippage in these areas.
@ Yoh An
I actually feel that if Abbott had led the Liberals to the 2016 election he would have lost most support in working class seats like Lindsay due to 2014 budget but Teal/affluent areas would not have been as impacted by budget cuts etc. Abbott may have actually lost Forde, Petrie etc
Fun fact to that the Old Reid (pre-2010) was quite identical to the Current Blaxland. This is also the seat that had the lowest Yes Vote to SSM for a seat that voted Yes to the Voice.
@ Marh
The Pre-2010 Reid would have never fallen to Libs. Not surprised that this seat had a low vote for SSM despite being well educated given that Ethnicity/Cultural/Religious background had a stronger correlation than Education when it comes to SSM unlike the Voice. Blaxland certainly did not have the strongest No vote to the Voice or Republic. So we cannot really say Western Sydney is more socially conservative than Regional Australia due to high No vote for SSM.
@Nimalan, Reid never had a Liberal MP from 1922 to 2013 and so I classified it as a red wall seat. Before Lowe and Reid merged, Lowe was generally marginally Labor but the Libs picked it up at various times after William McMahon resigned.
In 2010, seats like Reid and Banks ended up on low margins and Labor fell behind the Liberals on primary votes following swings bigger than the nationwide swing. Seeing a classic long-time Labor seat fall in 2013 was shocking but not so surprising when looking at the small margins.
As you mentioned, the affluence of the waterfront suburbs were a factor. The gentrification of low-density suburbs and the influx of teal or moderate liberals in Drummoyne made Reid trend Liberal.
@ Votante
Fair point. If they had retained the name Lowe for the merged seat then techincally not a red wall seat but nevertherless you are correct. Interestingly, the merged seat on 2010/2013 boundaries was still more Pro-Labor than Lowe in 1996 so Abbott did overperform Howard. Barton was a seat that Howard never managed to win but Abbott did. Banks has become better for Libs due to increased affluence so while Labor regained it in 2025 it is still below the statewide result. There other seats that Howard won in 1996 but Abbott did not win mainly in VIC, SA and QLD. These are Ballarat, Bendigo, McEwan (2013 had pro-Labor boundaries), Chisholm (Anna Burke’s incumbency), Makin, Kingston and Moreton.
Lowe and Reid didn’t merge. Reid was abolished. There were many objections to not having a seat named after former PM Reid, so Lowe was renamed to Reid. The proposed and final redistribution reports should still be available somewhere.
Lowe had been a safe Liberal Party seat. It was held by William McMahon from the seat’s creation in 1949 until his retirement in 1982.
Lowe used to be a North – South orientated seat covering Strathfield and Concord. When the Liberal held seat of Evans was abolished, Drummoyne peninsula was moved into Lowe.
Barton was the traditional bellwether seat. Each election, the media would visit the suburb of Oatley, in Barton, as it was the bellwether suburb in the bellwether seat. The strong Liberal Party suburbs of Lugarno, Connells Point, Kyle Bay, and Blakehurst balanced out the less strongly, but more populous, Labor leaning suburbs to the north. When the division of St George was abolished, Barton moved northwards into stronger Labor voting areas and the strong Liberal suburbs were moved into Banks. Hence Barton has become a safe Labor seat and Banks a marginal seat.
The AEC website has voting figures for all federal elections from 1993 to 2025. Therefore it shouldn’t be too difficult to check which direction suburbs are trending.
@ Watson Watch
Really good analysis
Just a few points
1. When Lowe was created at the expansion of parliament in 1949 Lowe was a notional Labor seat based on the 1946 results. Labor came close to winning in 1961 but DLP preferences saved McMahon. If it was not for McMahon Good chance Labor could have picked up in 1972/1974.
2..Suburbs of Luganro/Kyle Bay while always Liberal leaning have become wealthier over time due to being waterfront, that has improved Liberals’s prospects in Banks.
3. Antony Green talked about how Earlwood changed from a Liberal to Labor area. This is the suburb Howard grew up in. It used to be a Protestant Middle Class enclave but the flightpath meant property values decreased and Post War migration increased the Greek community there.
Wikipedia has maps of election results.
The linked map shows 1987 results.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/1987_Australian_federal_election.svg
Barton (97 on the map) covers all the suburbs on the north bank of the Georges River east of Salt Pan Creek. Barton now has the same northern and western boundaries (Canterbury Rd & King Georges Rd) as the abolished seat of St George (98 on the map).
Banks (99 on the map) much more Labor friendly boundaries.
Hope this is of interest.