Federal Election 2025 - Statement on lack of Candidate's Forum

Federal Seat of Sydney Candidates Forum Cancelled

The candidates’ forum for the federal seat of Sydney that was to be organised jointly by REDWatch, Alexandria Residents Action Group (ARAG) and Friends of Erskineville (FOE), has been cancelled. The following statement has been agreed between the groups:

Regretfully, we have to advise that we have decided to cancel the Candidates Forum for the seat of Sydney which was planned for Wednesday 23 April at the Alexandria Town Hall.

Unfortunately, Tanya Plibersek is now unable to attend and we have not heard from the Liberal candidate Alex Xu nor the One Nation candidate Vedran Torbarac.

We would like to thank Rachel Evans the Socialist Alliance candidate and Luc Velez the Greens candidate who had agreed to make themselves available.

It is unfortunate that we could not confirm all candidates for this important event.

REDWatch Statement on Candidate Forums

An important part of REDWatch’s historical activities has been to encourage local communities to take an interest in elections and for the political parties to be engaged with the local communities and their issues throughout the year and not just at election time.

REDWatch moved from holding standalone candidate forums to ones with other resident groups to try and cut out duplication and give candidates larger events to make their attendance worthwhile. This has worked well for Council elections where the voting system returns multiple members and political parties and independents are really vying for votes.

Things are different in state and federal seats where only one person is elected and the local member is so safe that they often don’t even need preferences to get elected. Here are the last election results for seats in the REDWatch area and these results are likely to continue until these sitting candidates retire or there is a seismic shift in the electorate:

• In the state electorate of Heffron - Ron Hoenig in 2023 received 49.72% of first preferences and a two party preferred vote of 73.29% against the Liberal Party 26.71%

• In the state electorate of Newtown - Jenny Leong in 2023 received 54.05% of first preferences and a two party preferred vote of 62.11% against the ALP’s 37.89%.

• In the federal seat of Sydney - Tanya Plibersek in 2022 gaining 50.82% of the Primary vote and 66.69% two party preferred vote against the Greens 33.31%.

State and Federal elections are not just about the local seat but also about the upper house election so political parties also stand candidates in safe seats to make the party visible and to help harvest votes in the upper house. It is historical practice in our area for the Liberal Party to nominate a “wood duck” candidate that does not turn up to candidate forums. It is also standard practice for some small parties vying for a scarce upper house seat to also nominate candidates that do not turn up to local forums.

This means that local candidate forums are not debates between the two likely major parties to form government. Understandably Labor looks for the Liberals to turn up so their candidate can focus on their differences with them rather than having to defend themselves against the arguments from The Greens and the left. But the Liberals don’t turn up, meaning candidates’ forums usually involve the ALP, The Greens, Socialist Alliance and Independents if one is running.

If a sitting ALP member does not turn up then it is the Greens or an independent that are challenging them rather than the Liberals that miss out on their opportunity to contrast themselves with the sitting member. In the inner city it has tended to be the Greens that have been the growing threat to the ALP. In Newtown they now hold that seat.

The candidates for the seat of Sydney this federal election are consistent with the historical mix. They are: Tanya PLIBERSEK (Labor), Rachel EVANS (Socialist Alliance), Alex  XU (Liberal), Vedran TORBARAC (Pauline Hanson's One Nation) and Luc VELEZ (The Greens).

Doing candidate forums in safe inner city seats has historically depended on the preparedness and availability of the sitting member to participate so we have tried to lock them in first for a date as they often have other campaign commitments. In the 2023 NSW election for the seat of Heffron we could not get a response to invitations and phone calls from the sitting MP Ron Hoenig. In the end we ran a candidate’s forum without him. Numbers were down and people complained.

This year we thought we had Tanya Plibersek locked in and then we were told she needed to go to Adelaide and would not be available for the date we thought was agreed. Only The Greens and Socialist Alliance had agreed to attend. Unable to renegotiate another suitable date the groups decided to cancel the forum. Some of this related to the timing of the election, pre-polling, school and public holidays and some to not being able to lock in the ALP unless the Liberals had agreed to attend.

We know that elections are becoming increasingly stage managed and that we have moved a long way from politically unpredictable old town hall style meetings. But we still think that elections are a time when all candidates should give priority to fronting up to candidate forums to answer questions from those they have nominated to represent. Respect needs to be shown for both the voters and the community groups that organise such events irrespective of if it is a marginal or safe seat.

Hopefully our last two candidate forums are just bumps on the road and that sitting members will work with local community groups to ensure future candidate forums continue to happen out of respect for the voters in their electorate.

For those who stand to capture upper house votes please at least have the decency to turn up and speak on behalf of your party to the people you have “offered” to represent.

REDWatch has put this together to explain some of the back story to candidate forums and the cancellation of the 2025 Sydney electorate forum.

It is important to look occasionally at how the democracy sausage is made and not just to consume it on polling day.

Within the constraints of a community group that works across political parties REDWatch hopes this provides a bit more clarity as to why the forum did not proceed and why it is important to put pressure on all parties to take such forums seriously in the future.