As the last week of the campaign gets under way, a new analysis of Western and South Western Sydney voting behaviours reveals the two metropolitan regions could hold the key to the result of Saturday’s federal election.
Based at Western Sydney University, the regional thinktank, Centre for Western Sydney, has assessed federal election voting patterns in the two regions as part of its issues paper, Western Sydney votes.
It found a growing electoral volatility at odds with national trends, with profound differences emerging between Greater Western Sydney and the rest of the metropolitan area.
Professor Andy Marks, director of the Centre for Western Sydney, said the 3.5 per cent swing Western Sydney voters inflicted on Labor in 2019 was nearly three times the national average.
He predicts that in contrast to the 2019 results where only one western Sydney seat – Lindsay – changed hands, the region is set to reclaim its “electoral battleground’’ status, with more seats in play this time around.
“Rusted-on notions of Howard’s battlers and Labor heartland no longer apply,’’ says Marks.
“Western Sydney voters are expressing a diversity in opinion at the ballot box to an extent that defies prediction and conventional political logic.
“Two party-preferred support for Labor is steadily increasing in Sydney’s east in contrast to the drift from Labor in the city’s west,’’ he said.
“If recent history is a guide, western Sydney voters could substantially influence wider results, even tilt the outcome.”
Professor Marks said cost of living pressures, insecure work, health, aged care and education are likely to preoccupy western Sydney voters ahead of other issues.
“The kitchen table is where Sydney’s west will likely be won this time. How that vote unfolds, however, is anything but predictable,” says Marks.
He pointed to the long stretches of lockdowns that impacted western Sydney residents the hardest, and reinforced those longstanding gulfs.
He noted also western Sydney’s higher rates of multilingualism, cultural diversity and religious faith, ensuring the region is anything but politically homogenous.
“This election, Labor appears intent on a street-by-street battle with the Coalition for the hearts and minds of Western Sydney voters, rather than a grand national reform agenda,” he said.
“The Coalition’s focus on religious freedoms and narrow-cast campaigning is not without risk in a region that is politically engaged, and has an acute consciousness of inequity across Greater Sydney.
“This is a region that knows when they are being targeted politically in contrast to messaging directed at other regions.
“Labor’s decision to bring in outside candidates in Parramatta and Fowler may also present challenges to electorates highly focussed on local issues.”
To download the Western Sydney Votes report, click here.
