NSW Libs lack candidates in ‘critically important’ seats

Since last year’s council nomination fiasco, the NSW Liberal division has been under federal takeover, a move aimed at ensuring candidate selection for the upcoming federal election goes smoothly. 

But with a handful of Sydney seats still without candidates, some in the party worry the takeover committee hasn’t solved the party’s admin challenges.

“The impression is that everything was going to be fixed by [the federal takeover] — but are we any better off than we were a year ago?” a Liberal source told Crikey. 

The NSW seats where the Liberals lack candidates are the Western Sydney electorates of Blaxland, Chifley, McMahon, Watson and Fowler, as well as the inner-city seat of Sydney. 

Fowler fell from Labor to an independent at the last election, and in Sydney, Labor sits on a comfortable 16.7% margin with the Greens being the biggest threat. 

In the rest of the seats, Labor enjoys margins of between 9.5% and 15.1%. It’s understood the three-person panel put in place to deal with candidates are nearing selections in all six seats. 

The seats aren’t seen as likely to turn Liberal, but sources stressed all of NSW will be important to contest. 

A Liberal Party spokesperson told Crikey nearly 60% of the seats the party will contest in NSW had candidates selected before the administrative committee was put in place, and that the panel had resolved all but six of the remaining ones.

“In the four months since the federal intervention the division has moved fast, resolving almost 40% of all the seats we contest in NSW,” the spokesperson said. “The remaining handful will be resolved in the near future.”

The other state likely to decide the election is Victoria, according to RedBridge Group corporate affairs director Tony Barry. 

“Because the margins are so thin, every seat is important to get to 76, but the states of Victoria and NSW are going to be critically important because there are so many seats on the table for both sides,” Barry told Crikey. 

Barry said that RedBridge’s research showed voters were becoming more fragmented, with isolated voting patterns that may be hard to predict. 

“We’re not a country of shared experiences anymore — in the same way that the so-called teal seats are disconnecting from the Liberal Party, outer metropolitan suburbs are disconnecting from the Labor Party,” he said.

Barry said safe Labor seats like the Victorian electorates of Holt and Bruce would be seen as bellwether electorates.

“If those two are flipping, Anthony Albanese is in all kinds of trouble. If Holt and Bruce fall, I think Peter Dutton will be prime minister,” he said. 

A national Resolve poll conducted on behalf of Nine newspapers last week showed Dutton with a five-point lead over Albanese as preferred prime minister.

“I can’t recall that ever happening before to an incumbent, it’s unprecedented,” Barry said. “There is entrenched dissatisfaction with the prime minister’s performance and perceived lack of outcomes and focus. It’s a significant problem for Labor.”

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