In 2025, the Liberal Party failed badly in part because it faced a disruptive competitor in many of its traditional metropolitan seats, and had not worked out how to respond.
For decades, Bradfield has been a heartland Liberal seat. Over the five elections I contested as the Liberal candidate for the electorate on Sydney’s north shore, from 2009 to 2019, our vote was rock solid.
But at my sixth election, in 2022, teal candidates won six heartland Liberal seats in our big cities. In Bradfield, we held on, but the swing against us exceeded 12 per cent. The ground had shifted fundamentally, as the Liberal Party’s post-election review emphasised.
