Latest news with #Laxale
Sky News AU
05-05-2025
- Politics
- Sky News AU
‘Came back to hurt him': Dutton's lack of ‘bipartisanship' his downfall
Labor MP for Bennelong Jerome Laxale has spoken to Sky News Australia discussing his personal win, Labor's victory and Peter Dutton's loss in the recent Australian federal election. Mr Laxale spoke about his door knocking efforts and the concerns people told him about Peter Dutton. 'The way he [Dutton] sought to find division on almost every issue,' Mr Laxale said. 'He voted against every cost-of-living measure. 'They expect parliament to work together, and Peter Dutton didn't give the government bipartisanship on many issues at all, and that came back to hurt him at the end of the day.'
Sydney Morning Herald
03-05-2025
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
The key Sydney seats: What happened, and who are the winners?
Eleven seats and 11 very different outcomes. Here is the state of play across the key seats in Sydney and NSW. Banks Liberal frontbencher David Coleman will be another high-profile casualty after he suffered a significant swing against him in his Sydney seat of Banks. In an electorate that Labor and Liberal strategists both saw as one they could claim, Coleman suffered a 7.3 per cent primary vote swing against him, as Labor candidate Zhi Soon enjoyed strong preference flows. Soon, who experienced only a 0.8 per cent increase on the party's primary vote, snatched the seat from the longstanding Liberal MP with a 6.6 per cent swing towards him. Banks runs across the inner ring of Sydney's southern suburbs and has been held by the Liberals since Tony Abbott's thumping 2013 victory. Soon migrated with his family from Malaysia as a child. Bennelong Sitting Labor MP Jerome Laxale has held on to the knife-edge seat of Bennelong on Sydney's lower north shore, fending off Liberal candidate Scott Yung with a hefty swing towards Labor, despite a boundary redraw that tightened the race. 'Tonight, everyone, we've made history,' Laxale told a jubilant crowd at The Ranch in North Ryde on Saturday night. 'What we've achieved here in Bennelong on our new boundaries is pretty exceptional. I think what we've seen is a complete rejection of Peter Dutton and the Liberals.' Laxale was leading with 61 per cent of the vote ahead of Yung on 39 per cent, with more than 40 per cent of votes counted by about 9pm. There was an 11 per cent swing towards the ALP. Laxale, a former Ryde mayor, was elected in 2022 and held the seat on a 1 per cent margin. That was only the second time Labor had claimed victory in the long-time Liberal stronghold – once held by former prime minister John Howard – in seven decades. But the boundary redraw that abolished the seat of North Sydney shifted Bennelong east, turning it into a notionally Liberal seat with a wafer-thin margin of 0.04 per cent. Yung has come under scrutiny for his campaign finance record during his 2019 state election run. Bradfield Teal candidate Nicolette Boele stopped short of claiming the seat of Bradfield, insisting it was too close to call. Whatever the outcome, Boele told her supporters on election night, 'we have made Australian political history'. In 2022, the independent narrowly lost the North Shore seat to Liberal MP Paul Fletcher, who didn't contest the 2025 election following a redistribution and amid polling which showed he was on track to lose. Boele, who has maintained an electorate office and styled herself as Bradfield's shadow member, built strong grassroots support in the blue ribbon seat. It's been a tight race between Boele and Liberal candidate Gisele Kapterian, a senior executive at a global technology company. Boele looks set to join fellow teal MPs Sophie Scamps (Mackellar), Zali Stegall (Warringah) and Allegra Spender (Wentworth) on the crossbench. Fowler Independent Dai Le looks set to retain the western Sydney seat of Fowler, despite Labor's best efforts to win back what was once considered a safe slice of its heartland. Current projections show a close win to the independent against Labor's Tu Le with a swing of just 0.28 per cent. It remained tight throughout the night, reflecting a keenly fought contest that at times descended into ugliness. Supporters of Dai Le's campaign accused Labor of 'spreading lies', spending $1 million on the seat, and of 'borderline bullying'. To cheers from a jubilant crowd in Fairfield, the independent seemed on the verge of victory. Tu Le, a local, was former MP Chris Hayes' first choice to contest the seat back in 2022. Labor instead controversially parachuted in Kristina Keneally, only to subsequently lose the seat. Fowler was won by former councillor Dai Le in 2022 by a slight 1.1 per cent margin. She became one of the first independents to win a seat in Labor's traditional heartland of western Sydney. Sitting close to the centre of Sydney's west, Fowler is home to many diverse communities, including large Vietnamese and Iraqi diasporas. And that was reflected in the campaign, which featured two candidates from Vietnamese backgrounds, and was fought and won almost exclusively on local issues. Gilmore The seat of Gilmore, on the NSW South Coast, was one of the most at-risk Labor seats. Incumbent Fiona Phillips was defending a 373-vote margin against Liberal Andrew Constance. In the previous election, Constance, a high-profile former state member for Bega, overcame Coalition infighting during preselection to secure a 2.5 per cent swing towards him, even as the Coalition suffered a 5.3 per cent drift the other way. He came within a hair's breadth of winning. In the end, Phillips won by the aforementioned 373 votes in a seat declared days after election day, securing the party's 77th seat and delighting Anthony Albanese, who was able to form a majority government as a result. This time around there was another complication. Kate Dezarnaulds, a businesswoman from Berry who won the support of Climate 200, threw her hat in the ring, making Gilmore one of the few seats in the nation where a teal independent ran against an incumbent Labor MP. The seat is a mixed bag of demographics with retirees, public servants, defence force workers and medium-sized towns like Batemans Bay, Ulladulla and Nowra. Hughes Labor has stormed home in the southern Sydney seat of Hughes, overturning 20 years of Liberal rule. Labor candidate and former political adviser David Moncrieff delivered a stunning 12 per cent swing on his primary vote, consigning incumbent MP Jenny Ware to a single term in parliament. With nearly two-thirds of the vote counted, Moncrieff was tracking a 7.5 per cent swing once preferences were factored in, making him the first Labor MP in the seat since John Howard was first elected in 1996. While the seat was on a 3.5 per cent margin, almost no one had Hughes as a seat to watch prior to Saturday. But with the Liberals' primary vote falling 4.5 per cent, Moncrieff's first preferences overtook Ware. The 380-square-kilometre electorate takes in swaths of southwestern Sydney all the way through to the Sutherland Shire, including Engadine, Heathcoate and Sutherland. Mackellar Teal independent Sophie Scamps has retained her northern beaches seat of Mackellar, increasing her hold on the once safe Liberal seat. The NSW Liberals had seen Mackellar as their best hope to seize back a teal seat, preselecting former RSL NSW president James Brown as their candidate. Scamps, a northern beaches GP, won Mackellar in 2022 as part of a backlash against the Morrison government which led to her being joined on the crossbench by other teal candidates including Allegra Spender (Wentworth), Zali Steggall (Warringah) and Kylea Tink (North Sydney, which has since been abolished). Parramatta Labor's Andrew Charlton retained the western Sydney seat of Parramatta, increasing his margin by 9 per cent as of Saturday night. Charlton won the seat by only 3.7 per cent at the last election, despite being parachuted in after long-time Labor MP Julie Owens retired. Owens held the seat between 2004 and 2022, and there were fears it would fall to the Coalition. But Charlton's strong result means the seat has shifted back into safe territory for Labor, with Liberal candidate Katie Mullens unable to loosen Charlton's grip. Parramatta is one of the most culturally diverse seats in the country. At the most recent census, more than 70 per cent of residents reported that both their parents were born overseas, compared with the national average of 36.7 per cent. That diversity formed a core part of Charlton's campaign, which sought the support of the region's large Indian, Lebanese and Chinese communities. Robertson On the Central Coast, Labor MP Gordon Reid appears as though he will significantly increase his margin in the seat of Robertson after the primary vote of Liberal candidate Lucy Wicks collapsed. With nearly 70 per cent of the vote counted in the peri-urban electorate, Reid had enjoyed a 9 per cent swing. On current projections, his two-party-preferred vote will finish on 60 per cent, taking his seat from marginal to safe. The seat stretches from Patonga to Wamberal on the northern part of the Central Coast. It was an electorate the Coalition felt could respond strongly to Liberal leader Peter Dutton's political message. But Wicks' primary vote fell by 10 per cent, with Reid picking up a 7 per cent increase. The result is a stunning repudiation of the Coalition's message in a part of NSW it should have been winning. Reid was celebrating with party faithful at the Ettalong RSL. Wentworth Teal MP Allegra Spender easily retained the Sydney seat of Wentworth against Liberal challenger Ro Knox, underscoring the embattled party's challenge in retaking its once safe harbourside strongholds. Wentworth, the seat formerly held by ex-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull until 2018, fell to Spender at the 2022 election off the back of voter dissatisfaction with the major parties and intense dislike of Scott Morrison. The seat, which takes in some of Sydney's most exclusive and expensive suburbs, was considered an unlikely gain for the Liberal Party, which was more focused on winning back Mackellar on Sydney's North Shore from the teals. At the 2022 poll, Spender took the seat with 54.2 per of the vote on a two-candidate-preferred basis compared to Liberal Dave Sharma's 45.8 per cent. Sharma has since joined the Senate. As of 10pm on Saturday, Spender's share of the two-candidate vote was 63.2 per cent compared to Knox's 36.8 per cent, although that gap is likely to narrow slightly over coming days as counting continues. Spender has been pushing the major parties to adopt sweeping tax reforms and advocating for further action on climate change. Werriwa Labor MP Anne Stanley has held on to her seat of Werriwa in the face of a well-resourced and mobilised Liberal campaign. Celebrating in the Mercure Hotel, part of the Liverpool Catholic Club, Stanley's supporters were in a celebratory mood as early results showed she had enjoyed a small, two-party-preferred swing towards her. The results were sufficient for NSW Labor secretary Dominic Offner to call the result for Stanley, phoning her around 8pm to congratulate her on the result. In Sydney's southwest, Liberal hopefuls begun to fill Sahrati, a restaurant and shisha bar in Liverpool, around 7pm, eager to see candidate Sam Kayal knock off Stanley. After furiously campaigning until dusk fell, Kayal has just arrived at the venue to loud cheers. Liverpool mayor Ned Mannoun was one notable Liberal figure in attendance, playing host for early arrivers. A mountain of food was organised for Kayal's backers, but the results have not accompanied the sense of expectation.
9 News
03-05-2025
- Politics
- 9 News
Coalition's election nightmare reflected in key NSW seats
Your web browser is no longer supported. To improve your experience update it here For the Coalition to have formed government, several key Sydney seats and regional NSW races needed to fall its way. Even marginal seats Labor may have privately worried about losing were retained with increased margins as the state home to the past four prime ministers turned red again. Australia's most populous state, NSW is home to 46 seats, including three held by teal independents won at the last election (a fourth, North Sydney, was abolished at this election) and some of the most closely watched races in the country. Here's how some of those played out. Incumbent MP Jerome Laxale retained Bennelong for Labor despite redistribution making the seat notionally Liberal. Laxale increased his margin with a giant swing of more than 10 per cent to Labor with nearly 64 per cent of the vote counted. "It looks like it's in the bag," Laxale told the Nine broadcast. "And because we're a notionally Liberal [seat], it looks like we've won it off them twice." Laxale said his win reflected "a complete rejection of Peter Dutton and the Liberals' negative tactics". "We've seen that they've been climate deniers for way too long, and they didn't learn the message at the last election," he said. "They've opposed every cost-of-living measure, and they didn't learn that either. "People around here want a government that's not divisive, that's in the middle." Liberal candidate Scott Yung was dogged by controversy during the campaign. Peter Dutton campaigns with Andrew Constance in Gilmore. (Getty) Gilmore on the NSW South Coast, including the Shoalhaven region of Nowra, Ulladulla and Batemans Bay, was seen as another gettable seat by the Coalition. Held by Fiona Phillips since 2019, the Labor MP prevailed in 2022 over respected former Liberal state MP Andrew Constance by just 373 votes. But like much of the rest of the country, the closely watched seat swung towards Labor to the tune of more than 7 per cent with about 60 per cent of the vote counted. Dan Repacholi casts his vote in Hunter, where the Olympian was re-elected as the MP. (Dean Sewell) The seat of Hunter, which takes in Hunter Valley and some of Newcastle's outskirts, has long been a Labor seat - father and son Eric and Joel Fitzgibbon held sway from 1984 to 2022. The younger Fitzgibbon was succeeded by towering former Olympic shooter Dan Repacholi in 2022. The seat is coal country and the Nationals ran Sue Gilroy, a former president of the Singleton Business Chamber, to unseat Repacholi. But it's clear Repacholi will be returned to parliament. The seat was also the site of one of Peter Dutton's proposed nuclear reactors. "Clearly this shows that nuclear is not on the cards here in the Hunter," Repacholi told the Nine broadcast. "And Peter Dutton and his crew can say what they like there but the voters have now had their vote and they've had their say. "And now that we've had this, I think they really should put this to bed and we should continue on with making sure that we're doing the best for Australia." Suellen Wrightson, the party leader of Clive Palmer's Trumpet of Patriots and the face of many a television ad, also ran in the seat but at the time of writing had less than 4 per cent of the primary vote. Party time at Labor HQ. (Getty) It didn't end there in the key seats, with Sally Sitou in Reid, in Sydney's Inner West, re-elected with a swing of more than 8 per cent to her, and Andrew Charlton returned in Parramatta. The bellwether seat of Robertson was retained by Gordon Reid over former Liberal MP Lucy Wicks with a swing of nearly 8 per cent to Labor. Liberal frontbencher David Coleman was turfed out in Banks to Labor's Zhi Soon. Independents fared better, with Sophie Scamps, Allegra Spender and Zali Steggall all returned in Mackellar, Wentworth and Warringah. Several seats remained too close to call tonight, including Bradfield - the formerly safe Liberal seat of retiring frontbencher Paul Fletcher. federal election New South Wales Sydney Federal Election 2025 national Politics CONTACT US Property News: The Perth suburbs where residents rarely leave.
The Age
03-05-2025
- Politics
- The Age
‘We've made history': Labor holds on to knife-edge seat of Bennelong
Laxale, a former Ryde mayor, was elected in 2022 and held the seat on a one per cent margin. It was only the second time Labor had won Bennelong in more than seven decades. However, the boundary redraw that abolished the seat of North Sydney shifted Bennelong east, taking in more of Lane Cove and Hunters Hill, and turned it into a notionally Liberal seat with a wafer-thin margin of 0.04 per cent. The seat also covers Ryde, Eastwood and Gladesville. Speaking after his victory, Laxale said: 'Our goal from day one was to win it, and then hold it. Halfway through that, we got a boundary redistribution which put a spanner in the works. 'But what I've learnt from the people of Lane Cove, Hunters Hill, Woolwich and Chatswood, is that obviously it's policies that matter, not the party you belong to. Loading 'They chose a candidate and a party that aligns with their values, and I'll represent them as hard as I can for the next three years.' Yung has come under scrutiny for his campaign finance record after falsely claiming he had raised $60,000 during a dinner with former prime minister John Howard before the NSW election in 2019. He also faced questions over his ties to a Chinese Communist Party-linked casino high roller. Laxale, too, attracted unwanted attention in the final days of the campaign when he was forced to apologise for his father making homophobic remarks about a Liberal volunteer. Yung took aim at the Labor Party when he addressed the scrutiny surrounding his campaign as he cast his vote on Saturday. 'I respect what the media does, and I'll continue to respect that, but can I just say that Labor has run a smear campaign against me.' Laxale was asked whether he thought his father's comments had hurt his campaign in the critical final stretch, and said: 'We'll see what happens. 'We've been really focusing on cost of living and housing locally here … my dad regrets what he said, and he's very apologetic, and we'll move on from that.'
Sydney Morning Herald
03-05-2025
- Politics
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘We've made history': Labor holds on to knife-edge seat of Bennelong
Laxale, a former Ryde mayor, was elected in 2022 and held the seat on a one per cent margin. It was only the second time Labor had won Bennelong in more than seven decades. However, the boundary redraw that abolished the seat of North Sydney shifted Bennelong east, taking in more of Lane Cove and Hunters Hill, and turned it into a notionally Liberal seat with a wafer-thin margin of 0.04 per cent. The seat also covers Ryde, Eastwood and Gladesville. Speaking after his victory, Laxale said: 'Our goal from day one was to win it, and then hold it. Halfway through that, we got a boundary redistribution which put a spanner in the works. 'But what I've learnt from the people of Lane Cove, Hunters Hill, Woolwich and Chatswood, is that obviously it's policies that matter, not the party you belong to. Loading 'They chose a candidate and a party that aligns with their values, and I'll represent them as hard as I can for the next three years.' Yung has come under scrutiny for his campaign finance record after falsely claiming he had raised $60,000 during a dinner with former prime minister John Howard before the NSW election in 2019. He also faced questions over his ties to a Chinese Communist Party-linked casino high roller. Laxale, too, attracted unwanted attention in the final days of the campaign when he was forced to apologise for his father making homophobic remarks about a Liberal volunteer. Yung took aim at the Labor Party when he addressed the scrutiny surrounding his campaign as he cast his vote on Saturday. 'I respect what the media does, and I'll continue to respect that, but can I just say that Labor has run a smear campaign against me.' Laxale was asked whether he thought his father's comments had hurt his campaign in the critical final stretch, and said: 'We'll see what happens. 'We've been really focusing on cost of living and housing locally here … my dad regrets what he said, and he's very apologetic, and we'll move on from that.'
