Goodbye, North Sydney: Electorate Disappears Under Redrawn Boundaries

Independent member for North Sydney Kylea Tink at a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Aug. 4, 2022. AAP Image/Mick Tsikas

The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) has redrawn federal electorates for New South Wales, leaving independent ‘Teal’ MP Kylea Tink without a seat.

The total number of seats has been reduced by one, to 46, and based on the traditional two-party preferred results, Labor will lose a seat, dropping to 26, while the Coalition remains at 20. The number of independents will drop from five to four.

North Sydney has been divided between the re-drawn seats of Bennelong, Bradfield, and Warringah.

This change makes the neighbouring seat of Bennelong from being a Labor marginal to a very marginal Liberal seat, which could strengthen the chances of independent Allegra Spender.

Wentworth is a traditional Liberal seat, but is surrounded by Labor-voting electorates. By expanding into neighbouring Sydney and Kingsford Smith, the AEC has weakened Wentworth’s underlying Liberal two-party preferred margin.

The other ‘Teal’ MPs, Sophie Scamps in Mackellar and Zali Steggall in Warringah are likely to retain their seats. There are also no significant changes to the boundaries of the western Sydney seat of Fowler, won by independent Dai Le in 2022.

Tink Could Choose Another Seat

With her seat being carved into three pieces and allocated to Bradfield (held by Coalition frontbencher Paul Fletcher), Warringah (held by Steggall), and Bennelong (held by Labor MP Jerome Laxale), Tink will have to stand elsewhere if she wants to continue her political career.

She defeated Liberal MP Trent Zimmerman in 2022 to take North Sydney, so the obvious choice would be to consider Bradfield but she said that she had not decided.

Tink played down the prospect of challenging Steggall, saying she planned to “contribute positively to that crossbench, not to cannibalise it.”

If she does decide to run in Bradfield, she will likely face a strong challenge from Climate 200-backed independent candidate Nicolette Boele, who achieved a 21 percent swing at the last election and who has declared her intention to run again.

A split for independents could well allow a Liberal contender to come through the middle and take the seat.

“Every federal seat in this country is winnable for an independent at the moment,” Tink said at a press conference after the AEC announcement.

“So my answer to whether someone like me could win a seat like Bradfield, whether we could win a seat like Bennelong is: yes, of course we can.”

The North Sydney seat was abolished due to a relative decline in enrolment on Sydney’s lower north shore and northern beaches suburbs.