LIB 11.1% vs IND
Incumbent MP
Felicity Wilson, since 2017.
- Geography
- Redistribution
- History
- Candidate summary
- Assessment
- 2019 results
- Booth breakdown
- Results maps
Geography
Lower North Shore of Sydney. The seat of North Shore covers a majority of the City of North Sydney and all of Mosman Council. Suburbs include North Sydney, Wollstonecraft, McMahons Point, Kirribilli, Cremorne and Mosman.
The district of North Shore has existed since 1981. A previous incarnation was a five-member district from 1920 to 1927. The current seat of North Shore was held by independents from 1981 to 1991, and by the Liberal Party since 1991.
When North Shore was created in 1981, it covered a smaller area than the current seat, mainly covering the City of North Sydney. It replaced the previous seat named Kirribilli, which had been won by the Liberal Party at every election since it was created in 1962. The seat of Mosman covered the Mosman part of the current seat, as well as covering western parts of Manly.
Bruce McDonald had held the seat of Kirribilli since 1976, when he had defeated the sitting Liberal MP John Waddy for preselection, and then defeated him at the election, when Waddy attempted to win as an independent. McDonald became deputy leader of the Liberal Party in 1978, and became Leader of the Opposition four months before the 1981 election.
At the 1981 election, McDonald contested the renamed seat of North Shore, as well as leading the conservative Coalition into the election. He was challenged by the independent Mayor of North Sydney, Ted Mack, and lost the seat. McDonald polled over 41% of the primary vote, while Mack only outpolled the ALP by 127 votes on primary votes. After outpolling the ALP, Mack overtook McDonald on Labor preferences. McDonald also lost the statewide election in a landslide.
Mack was re-elected to North Shore in 1984 and 1988. He retired later in 1988, only two days before he would qualify for a parliamentary pension as a statement against the excesses of modern politics. Mack returned to politics in 1990, winning the federal seat of North Sydney off the Liberal Party. He held it for two terms before again retiring before qualifying for a pension.
The 1988 by-election was won by independent North Sydney councillor Robyn Read.
Prior to the 1991 election, the neighbouring seat of Mosman was abolished, with the Mosman area largely absorbed by North Shore. Mosman had always been dominated by the Liberal Party and its predecessors, except for two terms in the 1940s when it was won by an independent.
Phillip Smiles had served as Member for Mosman since 1984. He challenged Read in the seat of North Shore in 1991, and won the seat. He served as Assistant Treasurer from 1991 to 1992. He was convicted of tax evasion in 1993, and was forced to resign from Parliament.
The 1994 by-election was won by Liberal candidate Jillian Skinner. She was challenged by Robyn Read, but won with a larger margin than Smiles had in 1991.
Skinner won re-election with relative ease at the 1995, 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2011 elections. The ALP came second in 1995, 1999 and 2003, but in 2007 the Greens overtook Labor. Skinner still held a margin of almost 16%.
Skinner was elected deputy leader of the Liberal Party following the 2007 election. She has served as Minister for Health since the 2011 election. Skinner resigned as Liberal deputy leader in April 2014, following the resignation of Barry O’Farrell as Premier and party leader.
Skinner was re-elected at the 2015 election. She was dropped from the ministry in January 2017 and resigned from parliament soon after.
The 2017 by-election was won by Liberal candidate Felicity Wilson, and Wilson was re-elected in 2019.
Assessment
The Liberal Party lost the overlapping federal seat of North Sydney to an independent in 2022. A strong independent could threaten the Liberal Party here in 2023.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Felicity Wilson | Liberal | 22,261 | 46.6 | -11.5 |
| Carolyn Corrigan | Independent | 9,341 | 19.6 | +19.6 |
| Michael Lester | Labor | 5,900 | 12.3 | -1.4 |
| Toby Pettigrew | Greens | 5,393 | 11.3 | -3.3 |
| Colin Furphy | Keep Sydney Open | 1,993 | 4.2 | +4.2 |
| Olivia Bouchier | Animal Justice | 827 | 1.7 | +1.7 |
| Sam Gunning | Liberal Democrats | 785 | 1.6 | +1.6 |
| Victoria Boast | Sustainable Australia | 661 | 1.4 | +1.4 |
| Jeffrey Grimshaw | Conservatives | 613 | 1.3 | +1.3 |
| Informal | 719 | 1.5 |
2019 two-candidate-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Felicity Wilson | Liberal | 23,917 | 61.1 | -10.1 |
| Carolyn Corrigan | Independent | 15,209 | 38.9 | +38.9 |
2019 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Felicity Wilson | Liberal | 25,032 | 67.8 | -4.1 |
| Michael Lester | Labor | 11,863 | 32.2 | +4.1 |
Booths in North Shore have been split into three parts: central, east and west. The ‘east’ area aligns with the Mosman council area.
The Liberal Party won a majority of the two-candidate-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 57% in the west to 63% in the east.
| Voter group | GRN prim | ALP prim | LIB 2CP | Total votes | % of votes |
| East | 8.7 | 7.9 | 63.3 | 11,879 | 24.9 |
| Central | 11.6 | 13.2 | 60.4 | 10,475 | 21.9 |
| West | 14.7 | 15.9 | 57.1 | 7,226 | 15.1 |
| Other votes | 13.9 | 14.6 | 64.8 | 10,568 | 22.1 |
| Pre-poll | 8.0 | 11.6 | 57.9 | 7,626 | 16.0 |
Election results in North Shore at the 2019 NSW state election
Toggle between two-candidate-preferred votes (Liberal vs Independent) two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, independent candidate Carolyn Corrigan, Labor and the Greens.
@Mick Quinlivan
Warringah (incl. Mosman) also had a low 2pp Liberal vs Labor, but remember that they had a god-awful candidate (Who lost votes that Zimmerman wouldn’t have lost) hence has a deflated margin.
Leon is correct the size of the primary vote is important here and it determines what the notional ALP/LIB 2PP was. In Warringah at both 2019 and 2022 the Liberal primary vote was low and Zali unlike the other Teals outpolled the Libs on primaries. On the other hand, in North Sydney the Labor primary was high in 2022 and Labor actually thought they had a chance and did not run dead which explains why unlike Kooyong the ALP/Lib 2PP is close in both North Sydney and Warringah.
@Nimalan – That’s the mathematical explanation but maybe they are just more left leaning seats than Kooyong? That’s a pretty straightforward explanation for the result.
There was a very large 2PP swing to Labor in Warringah in 2019, but most people missed it as Steggall won the seat and the Primary vote very handily. When an IND first contests, everyone sees the drop in the primary of the 3rd placed party (and 4th placed) and says “ah, yes, the level of strategic voting was X%”. But the overall result obscures any underlining swings from one part to the other.
In North Sydney for example, the Labor primary went down 3.7% from 2019 to 2022. But was there a net swing from LIB to ALP happening at the same time?
@ Insider,
I am not sure if i would say North Sydney and Warringah are more left leaning seats than Kooyong. In fact until recently North Sydney was averaged around 11-12% TPP for Libs while it was 14-15% in Warringah, in Kooyong it was around 9-11%. I agree that Wentworth is a more left leaning seat as it contains more progressive Bondi and sometime areas near Kings Cross. I feel Higgins is always more left-leaning as it as more solid left leaning areas such as Prahran/Windsor and more middle class areas around Carnegie/Murrumbeena something that North Sydney does not have. Kooyong does have some areas of higher density where the Lib vote is weaker such as Camberwell Junction, Kew Junction and Glenferrie just like North Sydney has around Artamon, St Leonards, North Sydney CBD but none of this is solid left wing territory.
@Nimalan,
“recently” is not “now” though.
How left leaning do you need for somewhere to be solid left wing territory? Give me a 2PP number
One or two good suburbs doesn’t make an entire electorate “left leaning”. It’s the average that matters. Electorates are won on the totality of votes cast by its voters, not by the highest subset.
@ insider, I agree with you that it is the average that matters apologies if it I did not explain it well. for an area to be solidly left leaning I would say it should have a 2pp of at least 60% for either Labor or Greens over multiple elections against the Libs so Prahran meets that definition. I am keen to hear your views do you feel Warringah is more left leaning than Kooyong or is that the at the last two elections the Libs had less moderate canadiates there?
Are there seriously two teal candidates here?
I don’t expect a teal victory but the combined teal vote may be strongest in North Sydney, as it has a higher-density, young-ish population, and weakest in Mosman LGA, which is more old-money Liberal. I stand by my claim from last year that if federal results were replicated at the state election, a teal would win the North Shore. I don’t see a “teal wave” happening.
Mosman Councillor Simon Menzies is running as an Independent on a platform of building the Beaches Link and stopping overdevelopment. With 3 independents this seat will be an actual mess.
As I posted here in December.
“If the Liberal vote collapsed – which it could do on the North Sydney side but might be held up on the Mosman side – then the vote could split 4 or 5 ways here. Depends if the Teal team finds someone and who they appeal to and if the current Independents on North Sydney Council.”
Since then the Teal team did find someone, another IND has put their hand up from the North Sydney end (likely only minimal support) and now Menzies enters the fray, who could eat into the Liberal vote at the Mosman end. Will his votes return to the Liberal pile via preferences? Wilson might struggle to get 30% at this rate.
The more independents in the field the better it is for the Liberals. They run a ‘just vote 1’ campaign, the indi votes split and exhaust, and they skate through by the skin of their teeth.
Clyde, not necessarily if a lot of the Indi vote comes off the Liberal pile to start with. I don’t think this Simon Menzies candidate is taking many off the Labor and Greens pile/s
There’s the possibility of the three independents preferencing each other and the Greens and Labor preferencing all the independents. If the Liberal PV drops below 40%, then this will be one to watch. Trent Zimmerman lost with a 38% PV in North Sydney in 2022.
Votante, although that strategy may not work well. In Melton (Victoria), there were a few high-profile independents running along with a Liberal candidate, but despite tight preference flows Labor still won narrowly from 34% first preference vote. Under OPV, those flows will be much weaker.
Simon Menzies ended up not nominating, the Liberals should feel more comfortable around Mosman now.
We have seen the first lot of negative letter-box drops being done but it is by Climate 200, labelling Felicity Wilson as Duplicitous Wilson.
Once this got out, Zali Steggall has come out on Twitter and condemned the advertising as going against everything that Climate 200 should be standing for.
One thing that is becoming apparent towards the end of the campaign is that Climate200 are getting more and more involved directly, especially as the spend from the individual candidates dries up under the cap.
G’day Hawkeye_au
This seems to be the seat that Climate200 are having a big dip at. Lane Cove was notably missing from the Australian article today as a seat the Liberal’s are worried about and the Teal IND is much longer odds with the bookies there than other seats. If in Lane Cove the IND could fall into 2nd ahead of Labor she could ride a very strong preference flow home, even under OPV, but I think it unlikely they will come 2nd.
Pittwater not mention either – but Liberal can’t be too confident there, can they? They seem to think Manly is going ok.
Without coming across as facetious, why are all the climate 200/teal independent candidates, white women?
Is this a deliberate strategy targeting this demographic? Or just a coincidence?
@Insider – It does seem that Climate 200 is trying to recover the lost steam when the individual campaigns started running out of money under the cap. I have noticed that Climate 200 is becoming more prevalent in advertising for Pittwater and for Manly.
@Strathman Scoop – most of the teal candidates would be perfectly suited to being candidates for the local Liberal party – though they are not members for some reason
They would also be pretty representative of the population of the areas that they are contending for
The liberal party seems to prefer running white men against them
@bazza in both instances you’d have to hope as a Lib or Teal that your base: Caucasian men or Caucasian women locks in behind you. Not much room for error.
Although Libs did have or currently have Deves, Wilson, Sloane as female candidates running.
The risk for the Teals is their perceived monopoly on demos could be negated, concurrent with any perceived lack of authority given the Labor federal government is in majority and doesn’t need their support or to negotiate with them.
If the Libs reform, and at least in NSW there is a shift in the ideology then the Teals experiment could be a short lived one. I think they could mix it up a bit with their candidate selection
A Climate 200 poll has the Liberals on 37% with Helen Conway on 20% (although total percentage also includes those who don’t intend to vote), both having very low primary votes. A teal primary vote of 20% with OPV seems to be far too low to win, the poll has the Liberals leading on 2PP 50.7%-49.3% although Kevin Bonham seems to think this is unlikely. Full results:
LIB: 37%
IND: 20%
ALP: 18%
GRN: 12%
OTH: 6%
Do not intend to vote: 7%
Removing those who don’t intend to vote (rounded), result would be:
LIB: 40%
IND: 22%
ALP: 19%
GRN: 13%
OTH: 6%
@strathman because the electorates are mainly made up of well off caucasians and running a woman they hope to take advantage of that demographic as well
“Without coming across as facetious, why are all the climate 200/teal independent candidates, white women?”
They also seem very private school. When they were 16, they all seem like the type of girls that Simon Holmes A’Court would have liked to ask to the Year 11 School dance. To use my nephew’s expression – they were ‘made in a lab’ for other anglo, private school educated, professional women to vote for – he was referring to his mother there.
independants tend to do well when conservative governemnts are in because people want something else but dont want to vote labor or greens. when labor is in office independants do worse as they side with them and people dont like that. nsw is bit of a red herring as with optional voting preferences can be exhausted which they pften rely on to unseat the current member. fully expect most of the teals in federal parliament to get shafted in 2025 with the exception of zali stegall who seem to have entrenched herself enough to withstand any potential swing. the truly independant members Wilke,Sharkie, Haines and Le shouldnt worry either
🙂
Don’t rate Le’s chances of re-election. Unlikely set of circumstances saw her elected which she won’t have on her side (retiring incumbent and parachuted candidate unrepresentative of the electorate). If Labor manage to preselect a Vietnamese candidate (or really, anyone but KK), they should win. It is still NSW Labor though, so I say should rather than will. Agree about Indys not needing to worry federally, though I would include Bob in your list as well. I would say a few of the teals will survive 2025, and those that do will be much, much harder to remove. I would put Scamps, Spender and Chaney up as having the best chances of survival, Daniel at the middle of the pack and Ryan and Tink at greatest risk.
Spender and Chaney both have their traceable Liberal ancestry, and Scamps seems quite competent. Zoe Daniel is in the middle because her electorate seems more likely to return her even though she is less ‘liberal’ in that sense than the aforementioned three. Tink seems quite uninspiring, and combining Ryan’s recent antics with a “””””””””moderate”””””””” Frydenburg preparing his return and perhaps leadership, a la John Pesutto, her chances seem quite dire.
Pardon my derailing. Libs returned here.
On preferencing on HTV cards.
Helen Conway (IND) is recommending all boxes be numbered but leaving it open.
Greens and Labor are putting Conway second and have given recommendations on third to last.
@dougles Bob katter is Bob Katter though no explanation needed. I’m a liberal voter but I’d still vote for him. Monique Ryan seems to be doing quite a well enough job derailing herself. Dai Le is a bit of a red herring because western Sydney is going to lose one of those seats and depending on how badly Labor does and how those electorates are newly carved it could be anyone’s game. Those teals is north Sydney Wentworth warringah mackellar are gonna see major renovations on their electorates too so name recognition may not help them if they have people who have never heard of them. The vote was also about anti Morrison voting so I’d expect most to get swings back to then.
@votante naturally
Bob katter could run as a corpse and still be returned. If he dies or retires I expect Robbie to take up the seat so
Libs could win above 40% primary. But anything 35% or below, no way. Far too low. OPV doesn’t matter because Labor/Green voters will be pressured to preference the independent. There is a push for them to do so and I don’t see many refusing/going against.
If you just number 1 box in seats like this, you are asking for the coalition to retain power, don’t do it, too risky.
The recent letter-box dropping in North Shore could be the final straw and I think Climate 200 has over-played their hand. When Zali Steggall comes out and condemns the Letter-Box Drop, you know Climate 200 went too far.
AE Forecasts – Now has LIB 5.1%
Sportsbet – $1.50 LIB
TAB – $1.45 LIB
There has been some very positive moves in favour of Felicity Wilson lately. The recent momentum is now pointing to a potential LIB Retain
Word on the street is that Felicity is down about 8-10% on prepoll compared to 2019. However the non Liberal vote seems split between the three main challengers and is not all going to Conway as the Teals hope
I don’t rate the teals being able to win any NSW seats to be honest. Both major parties have ambitious climate targets and state issues are different to federal issues. In NSW, the ICAC investigation into Gladys wasn’t as much of an issue because NSW still liked her, but the federal ICAC was a separate issue simply because the issue was, well, creating a federal anti-corruption watchdog which was only created last year (the NACC), whereas anti-corruption commissions already exist in every state plus the Northern Territory (the ACT is the only jurisdiction without one).
In 2023, voters seemed to be focused more on issues such as the economy, infrastructure, health, education, transport, etc as opposed to environmental matters which are mostly a federal issue.
The only seat they might be able to win is Coogee as it’s been held by both Liberal and Labor throughout its history and it covers parts of the safe Labor seat of Kingsford Smith and the tealish parts of Wentworth. In 2019 the Liberals didn’t win in Bondi Junction or Waverley, they won in Vaucluse and Double Bay.
The liberal retain here is a function of OPVand good luck If there was full preferential then a
Teal would have won
Agree on teals – they had their moment at the 2022 federal election but it may have passed. It did reveal areas once considered solid blue have a progressive streak and I do think there are areas of where they have a unique appeal (Northern Beaches comes to mind), but I see politics for “independents” going back to the level they were at before. That is, an independent can win if they have a very strong local following and political identity, rather than the pseudo political party that’s the teals/voices movement. Incumbents should be able to retain however.
With that I am not sure the path for Minns to a 2nd term is going to be easy. Liberals should be able to sandbag their near misses (and deny Labor a sophomore surge) and have several options for seats to win off Labor.
I dont agree Coogee is in play for a Teal although if they ran they will do well. The Teals rely on tactical voting to win
the only seat i think is vunerable to the teals anywhere is benambra due to the slim margin and retiring member if jacqui hawkins runs again. also i think the libs should be able to reclaim most of them if the current ones ever side with a labor minoirty govt