“We feel betrayed by the state government which, despite overwhelming community objection to proposed high-rise development, completely ignored us in favour of developers,” said Wollstonecraft local Sue Wadley in feedback to North Sydney’s Independent.
Wilson, who will be the first NSW Liberal MP to seek re-endorsement from the party on Monday night, said she had defended the seat against independent challengers in the past two elections, insisting she would continue to advocate “faithfully and fearlessly” for her community.
“I think what we saw in the federal campaign is mobilisation of people that wanted to get really active in politics,” she said. “My hope is they will be active enough to come and talk to me and let me work on their behalf. That’s the point of representative democracy.
NSI co-founders Kristen Lock and Denise Shrivell at the state election launch last month.Credit:James Alcock
“The role of the state government is to make sure we have the amenity and infrastructure and services we need,” she said, citing school, hospital and road upgrades in her electorate. “That’s what good governments do.”
A senior moderate Liberal MP, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak freely, said Wilson was “an outstanding senior member” and said the party was taking every challenge in every seat seriously.
While North Shore has been in Liberal hands since 1991, Lock said there had been a revival of support to return to independent representation, since Wilson’s margin was cut from 21 to 11 per cent at the 2019 election. She added that “the memory of Ted Mack” remained strong.
Mack, who became known as “the father of independents”, was a giant of independent politics over two decades during which he was elected to all three tiers of Australian government representing voters on Sydney’s north shore.
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“The federal election saw the rise of community independent campaigns across the country,” Lock said.
“There’s no reason we can’t replicate that success at the state level. We know other community groups in Wakehurst, Pittwater and Manly, are also rising up out of a discontent with the state government”.
Resolve Political Monitor polling conducted exclusively for The Sydney Morning Herald last week revealed support for independents (10 per cent) is significantly higher than it was in 2019, when they received just 5 per cent of the vote.
The polling conducted in August and September revealed the Coalition’s primary vote had slumped to just 30 per cent – a 12-point drop since the last election, while Labor’s has surged by 10 points to 43 per cent.
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It follows a bruising six months for the government as it battled the fallout from the trade commissioner scandal and ongoing public sector industrial action.
Originally published at Sydney News HQ
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