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.