Sydney, Wentworth warm up for election

Leong dented the typical ALP-Liberal Party shuffle with 21.6% of the primary vote in the last election, a +6 % swing in her favour – only 7 % behind the Liberal Party. Plibersek, who has held the seat since 1998, took around 45 % of the total primary vote. This was the highest ever percentage recorded for the Greens in the Sydney electorate, a fact not lost on an energetic Leong.

“I am ready to build on this support from the community for the Greens in 2007,” said Leong in her press release. The Liberal Party is yet to make its candidate known.

The Sydney electorate, which stretches from Sydney Harbour down to Alexandria and back up to Balmain, has been redistributed for this year’s federal election. The seat now takes in more of Glebe, Rosebery leaves the area for the neighbouring Kingsford Smith electorate, and Moore Park, Potts Point and Elizabeth Bay now find themselves in the seat of Wentworth.

Liberal Party wonder-kid Malcolm Turnbull holds fort in the “marginal Liberal” Wentworth seat which extends from Watson’s Bay to Clovelly and west to Centennial Park and Paddington. In 2004 Turnbull rolled in around 42 % of the primary vote followed by the ALP (26.3 %) and then the Greens (11.1 %), but only won the seat 58 %–42 % from Labor after preferences.

The battle is expected to be even hotter this election with the ALP nominating Mayor of Waverley, George Newhouse. Having chaired the Waverley Council body overseeing the $600 million Westfield redevelopment in Bondi Junction, Newhouse is also a practising lawyer with strong human rights credentials. He represented Vivian Solon, an Australian woman illegally deported to the Philippines, and Cornelia Rau who was detained for 10 months in an Australian detention centre.

To add to the fire, the Greens have elected Susan Jarnason as their candidate, an active local resident who has called this year’s visit to the ballot the “greenhouse election.” Wentworth, more so than the seat of the Sydney, looks to be already smoking.

Photo: Susan Jarnason (centre) will contest the seat of Wentworth Photo:

Source: South Sydney Herald July 2007 http://www.southsydneyherald.com.au/