‘You shouldn’t be in survival mode’: Why this Sydney seat matters so much at this election

At Little India, a vibrant restaurant strip at Harris Park in the electorate of Parramatta, some local businesses are hedging their bets on the May 3 federal election.

On the fence of Billu’s, a culinary landmark in the suburb for 25 years, hang corflute posters for both Labor member Andrew Charlton and his Liberal challenger Katie Mullens.

Charlton’s corflute was there first. But when Mullens turned up at the restaurant for a meal the restaurant owner, Youvie Gaba, wanted to put her signs up too.

Youvie Gaba outside Billu’s, the restaurant he owns in Harris Park.Credit: Wolter Peeters

“It’s not the party I usually go for. I go for the person,” he says. “I don’t mind [who wins] – as long as whoever wins looks after us.”

Gaba’s equivocation is emblematic of the attitude many locals have in the diverse seat which will be a key battleground in the federal poll.

Rodney Smith, professor of Australian politics at Sydney University, says the vote in the Parramatta region has a tendency to “fluctuate” between Labor and Liberal at every level of government: federal, state and local council.

“It’s not really a seat that either major party can feel comfortable about holding,” he says.

When John Howard swept to power in 1996, Parramatta was one of a swag of western Sydney seats the Liberals snatched from Labor. It remained in Liberal hands for two more elections before swinging back to the ALP in 2004. The seat has been tightly contested since.

The state electorate of Parramatta was Liberal from 2011 until 2023, when it switched to Labor and helped Chris Minns to become NSW premier. But the next year, following local council elections, a Liberal Lord Mayor, Martin Zaiter, was elected to replace a Labor predecessor.

Another close contest for the federal seat looms on May 3.

The incumbent, Andrew Charlton, made headlines in 2022, when Labor leader Anthony Albanese parachuted the Oxford-educated economist in as Labor’s candidate for the seat to replace retiring ALP stalwart Julie Owens.

Member for Parramatta Andrew Charlton hands out flyers at the train station at Harris Park. Credit: Photo: Kate Geraghty

Charlton had worked as senior economic advisor to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd before founding a successful consultancy called AlphaBeta Advisors (later acquired by professional services giant Accenture for a large sum). But he was an outsider who lived in the eastern suburbs.

Despite criticism of Albanese’s “captain’s pick”, Charlton won the seat amid a nationwide swing to the ALP.

This time a federal redistribution has sliced Charlton’s margin by almost 1 percentage point to 3.7 per cent, making Parramatta one of the ALP’s most vulnerable seats in NSW. Many families in the district have been hit hard by cost of living pressures, which may count against the local member.

“Parramatta is the sort of electorate where the debate around cost of living will be important,” says Smith.

Charlton’s Liberal opponent is Katie Mullens, a lawyer who has lived and worked in the district for 17 years. It’s not her first political tilt: Mullens stood for the state seat of Parramatta in 2023 but lost to Donna Davis, a former Labor lord mayor.

Liberal candidate Katie Mullens says she’s “hearing the same message over and over: people are really struggling.”Credit: Peter Rae

She is running a cost-of-living campaign: food and petrol prices have become so expensive that people are telling her they are choosing between prescription medications, she says.

“I’m hearing the same message over and over: people are really struggling,” she says. “I believe that if you work hard, you should be rewarded for that effort. You should be able to aspire to buy a house, start a business, have a family – and you shouldn’t be in survival mode living paycheck to paycheck.

“When people are struggling financially, you do see crime rise. You also see mental health issues rise.”

Charlton agrees living costs are top of mind for Parramatta voters but argues access to health care, which is linked to household finances, is a major concern.

“That’s why we’ve made health a big focus of this government, and a really big focus locally,” he says.

Just before the Herald interviewed Charlton, he was handing flyers to voters about two “bulk-billed Medicare urgent care clinics” recently established in the area.

Peter Dutton visited the electorate of Parramatta in the first week of the election campaign, underscoring the importance of the seat. The Liberal leader must win a clutch of marginal, mortgage-belt electorates such as this one if he is to become prime minister.

Katie Mullens (right) with Liberal leader Peter Dutton as he fills up in Carlingford.Credit: James Brickwood

A beaming Mullens stood at her leader’s shoulder as he filled a white ute with fuel at a petrol station in Carlingford. She then joined Dutton at a press conference where he spruiked the Coalition’s pledge to cut fuel excise and other policies to ease cost of living pressures.

A mobile billboard parked nearby carried a photo of Mullins and the promise: “Every litre 25c cheaper by voting Liberal”.

Mullens describes Dutton as a “firm and compassionate leader” and mentions him frequently during an interview with the Herald.

Albanese also spent time in western Sydney early in the election campaign; Charlton says he is popular in the area.

“The prime minister has always been an asset here in Parramatta,” he says. “I think people like his values and they like him.”

Andrew Charlton (second from right) campaigning in his electorate with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in March.Credit: Steven Siewert

According to election betting markets Charlton is favoured to win the seat, but Parramatta can produce the unexpected, says Andy Marks, the executive director of the Centre for Western Sydney at Western Sydney University.

“We’ve been watching these polls in western Sydney for a long time [and] we’ve seen an accelerated drift away from the major parties,” he says. “I think we’ll continue to see that, and I think seats like Parramatta will throw up some surprises, simply by way of the influence of preference flows through independents.

“If they are drifting away at an accelerated rate from major parties, what does that mean for candidates like Charlton, who has been very locally engaged?”

Bureau of Statistics data recently showed the centre point of Greater Sydney’s sprawling population is in the electorate of Parramatta (at the suburb of Rosehill).

The seat has been contested since Australia’s first federal parliament in 1901, although redistributions have pushed its boundaries back and forth. Several high-profile members have held Parramatta, including former prime minister Sir Joseph Cook and Sir Garfield Barwick, who resigned the seat in 1964 to become Chief Justice of the High Court.

Charlton points out the seat includes a “full on” central business district, nine university campuses, the vast Westmead health and innovation precinct, varied suburbs and diverse pockets of vibrant cultural life.

“I feel incredibly lucky to be the member of Parramatta,” he says. “I don’t think there’s another seat in Australia that has all that.”

Around 60 per cent of those in the Parramatta district were born overseas, and the electorate has large diasporas from China and India. In 2023, Charlton published a book about Australia-India relations which he says was inspired by the Indian community in his electorate.

Charlton and his family moved to Parramatta before the 2022 election, but he has made headlines for various property purchases since winning the seat. In 2023, Charlton purchased an apartment in the Parramatta CBD for $1.93 million, then last year acquired a $12 million house at Palm Beach with coastal views.

Mullens won’t say what she thinks of Charlton’s three years in office, but her posters plastered in shop windows around the area provide a hint: “A PROUD LOCAL”, they read in underlined, capital letters.

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