It’s going to be near impossible to tell what the safest Liberal seat after the election will be, but it certainly won’t be Mitchell. The North-West Sydney seat is the safest Liberal seat in New South Wales, and their safest urban seat in the whole of Australia. But the seat will have a swing to the ALP disproportionate to the rest of the country.
Alan Cadman is currently the second-longest serving member of the House, behind Phillip Ruddock and tying with John Howard. But while Ruddock has served as MP for both Parramatta and Berowra, Cadman has been in Mitchell for the length of his parliamentary career, dating back to 1974.
Redistributions since 1974 have made the seat safer and safer for the Liberals, but the last sitting member for Mitchell was the ALP’s Alf Ashley-Brown. A lot changes over thirty years, but it’s difficult to determine how much of a personal vote Cadman holds over the general electorate.
Presumably a lot more than among the Liberal Party branches. The incumbent found that he was so low on votes for the preselection that the only option was to retire to save face. In his place came 29-year-old Alex Hawke, protégé of right-wing powerbroker David Clarke, engineer of NSW Opposition Leader John Brogden’s downfall, and former president of the Young Liberals. Hawke is considered such a vicious right-winger that Howard sent Bill Heffernan to the seat to back a more moderate candidate. Howard’s old Chief of Staff Arthur Sinodinos and former Premier Nick Greiner also opposed Hawke’s preselection.
Considering how the resignation of Brogden seriously undermined the Liberal Party’s efforts in the New South Wales election, it’s hard to think that Hawke will be embraced by the electorate with open arms. Hawke claims to be a practicing Christian himself, but it’s hard to think that the dirty tricks he has been so rigorous involved in will appeal to Sydney’s Bible Belt, including Mitchell’s own Hillsong.
There’s no candidate for Labor in the seat yet, but if they had any brains they would endorse somebody nothing short of being honourable and decent. The Bible belt aren’t as rusted-on Liberals as Alex Hawke would hope, and while it is still highly unlikely that the Libs will lose this seat, they are due for a massive backlash.
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10% swing against the Liberals - or more acurately Alex Hawke...
One more election with that sort of swing and it will be a marginal seat.
Couldn't happen to a more deserving person.
Alex Hawke is the poster boy for all that is wrong with the Liberal Party in NSW.
I have been a life long Liberal Party voter living in Mitchel, until this election.
You are correct, we aren't as rusted on as he believes.
I hope he goes down as the person that made the safest Liberal seat in Australia a marginal seat (or even perhaps a Labor seat).
Though for the sake of the Liberal Party in NSW, I hope he is GONE before then.
Alex Hawke says that the Liberal Party isn't a broad church. He is correct. The Liberal Party supporters are inherently in the centre (right) of politics, and they do not have such broad views to include the FAR right views of people like Alex Hawke!
Cheers for your analysis.
Luke
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