Invitation for event with local candidate Scott Yung sent to supporters highlights Liberal party’s push for marginal seatFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastIn a sign of how important the Bennelong race is to the Liberal party, the opposition leader will host a major fundraiser for wealthy supporters with local candidate Scott Yung next week.Tickets for the private dinner with Peter Dutton, promoted in an email sent to Liberal supporters and seen by Guardian Australia, cost $10,000 a head – far more than last year’s fundraisers, hosted by federal Liberal MPs at about $1,000 to $2,000 a ticket. The venue is yet to be disclosed.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading…Invitation for event with local candidate Scott Yung sent to supporters highlights Liberal party’s push for marginal seatFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastIn a sign of how important the Bennelong race is to the Liberal party, the opposition leader will host a major fundraiser for wealthy supporters with local candidate Scott Yung next week.Tickets for the private dinner with Peter Dutton, promoted in an email sent to Liberal supporters and seen by Guardian Australia, cost $10,000 a head – far more than last year’s fundraisers, hosted by federal Liberal MPs at about $1,000 to $2,000 a ticket. The venue is yet to be disclosed.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading…
In a sign of how important the Bennelong race is to the Liberal party, the opposition leader will host a major fundraiser for wealthy supporters with local candidate, Scott Yung, next week.
Tickets for the private dinner with Peter Dutton, promoted in an email sent to Liberal supporters and seen by Guardian Australia, cost $10,000 a head – far more than last year’s fundraisers, hosted by federal Liberal MPs at about $1,000 to $2,000 a ticket. The venue is yet to be disclosed.
The invitation highlights the wrestling match for one of the country’s most marginal seats amid a flurry of door knocking, thousands of dollars spent on online advertising and numerous campaign visits from senior politicians on both sides.
At the end of 2024, polls showed the Coalition leading Labor on the two-party preferred vote 52.5 to 47.5. In Bennelong, the margin is even tighter.
The incumbent MP, Labor’s Jerome Laxale, turned the seat from a fairly safe Liberal area with a 6.9% margin in 2019, to a very marginal Labor seat with a narrow 1% lead.
After a redistribution that eliminated the neighbouring seat of North Sydney, the Australian Electoral Commission says the seat is now notionally Liberal – on an even thinner margin of 0.04%.
The hot seat
Bennelong is considered a moderate area. While Peter Dutton has only visited once since Yung’s preselection, others from the centre-right and moderate factions have flocked to support him.
That includes nine visits by deputy Liberal and opposition leader Sussan Ley, and several visits by moderates including shadow cabinet minister Jane Hume and senators Maria Kovacic and Andrew Bragg.
On the government’s side, Anthony Albanese, has visited Bennelong five times this term, with other senior cabinet ministers including Penny Wong and Chris Bowen also making appearances.
The Liberals are focused on the area, hopeful they can turn it blue. Insiders say the electorate is a must-win, one senior Liberal source calling the seat “ground zero” for the party.
If theydon’t win it back, other seats like Menzies and Deakin in Victoria – both suburban Melbourne electorates held by Liberal MPs on ultra slim margins – will also be in doubt.
Campaigns gather momentum
Both Laxale and Yung have been campaigning hard, though neither will say exactly how many homes they’ve visited.
The difference in their social media approaches is more visible.
Since January 2024, after Yung was preselected, he has posted on Instagram 43 times, and in the last 90 days spent about $1,000 on Meta advertising.
Laxale is a more prolific user, posting close to 500 times on Instagram in the same period.
In the past 90 days, Laxale has spent just over $10,000 on Meta advertising.
Yung was one of the first Liberal candidates to be preselected in the country, in December 2023. He told the Guardian that’s given him 13 months to be out in the community of this “very marginal seat”.
“The last time the [Liberal] candidate was selected with just five to six weeks to go, but this time I’ve already been in the field for months,” he said.
An incumbent or a ‘drop-in’?
Labor has only ever won Bennelong twice: once in 2007, when former journalist Maxine McKew held it for a single term, and with Laxale in 2022.
If he won again this year, it would be a first for Labor in the seat.
“Bennelong has always been a tough one to win and one we’ve never held,” Laxale said. “We’ve been working really hard and we need to keep that up.”
About two-thirds of Bennelong (66%) residents have both parents who were born overseas, and the area is home to a big Chinese population.
With Yung’s parents hailing from Hong Kong and Shanghai, his party hopes his background will help him connect with the local community.
“He’s been working hard for a while… connecting with community and business, and with the Chinese community in the area,” a senior Liberal source said.
But Laxale says Yung is not a Bennelong local, having previously contested in the state seat of Kogarah, against now NSW premier Chris Minns.
The Liberals’ last candidate, Simon Kennedy, was also parachuted in, and now holds the south-eastern Sydney seat of Cook, after it was vacated by Scott Morrison.
Laxale believes that won’t sit well with voters.
“I don’t think people appreciate drop-ins,” he said.
“They appreciate I’m a local candidate; this is the second parachute candidate [the Liberals have] put up in a row. I’ve been living in the area for almost 20 years.”
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