‘Nastiest attack in 30 years’: On Sydney’s insular peninsula, every kilometre counts

Drive along Barrenjoey Road, the arterial roadway that intersects the Pittwater electorate set for a state byelection this Saturday, and voters are inundated with an identical message: Vote Local. Vote Georgia; Vote Local. Vote Jacqui.

There’s a saying that all politics is local. But whoever coined that phrase didn’t spend any time on the northern beaches enclave known as the “insular peninsula”.

A corflute critical of Georgia Ryburn under her official Liberal Party one on Mona Vale Road.Credit: Nick Moir

In the contest between Climate 200-backed independent candidate Jacqui Scruby and her Liberal opponent Georgia Ryburn, parochialism has found another level.

The website of Scruby painstakingly makes the point.

“I am a local,” the opening line of the website’s opening section, titled “Local”, reads.

“I live in Pittwater surrounded by extended family including my father and parents-in-law and have done so for the past five years – and have lived in and around Pittwater throughout my life,” she adds.

Scruby and her team argue the messaging has been necessary in response to the alleged disingenuous campaigning of the Liberal Party, which they accuse of attempting to muddy the waters about Ryburn’s non-local status with their “Vote Local” corflutes.

The electorate runs from Narrabeen to Palm Beach. Ryburn lives in Frenchs Forest, or Balgowlah, depending on who you ask. The former, her registered voting address, stands about 10 kilometres from the electorate. Regardless, Scruby’s team has taken things into their own hands.

“Georgia Ryburn doesn’t live here!” screams one black and white A-Frame on the corner of Wakehurst Parkway and Pittwater Road.

It led former Liberal Pittwater MP Rob Stokes to decry the “appalling poster” as the “nastiest personal attack I’ve seen in 30 years of elections” in a video posted onto Instagram – after noting he arrived in the city on the northern beaches’ public transport chariot, the B-Line.

The Liberal’s Georgia Ryburn faces a tough contest against teal candidate Jacqui Scruby in the NSW state seat of Pittwater,Credit: Steven Siewert

Ryburn, a consultant with PwC and former deputy mayor of Northern Beaches Council, even took to social media to clear the air about where she lived.

“I’ve made no secret that I live at Frenchs Forest. The only person who’s made an issue about this is my opponent, who is now resorting to desperate tactics,” Ryburn said.

Some Liberal insiders suggest there’s an inherent classism in the attacks on Frenchs Forest, a distinctly middle-class suburb compared with the landed gentry of the upper northern beaches.

At 9.32am on Wednesday, an automated email from [e-mail] landed in the inbox of supporters of Scruby, a former political adviser to federal teal Mackellar MP Sophie Scamps.

Where kilometres count: The Scruby campaign meets the Ryburn campaign in Pittwater.Credit: Facebook

“Hi fellow NB Mums! A reminder to those who live in Pittwater (Narrabeen - Palmie), that we’re going to have to vote again this week – the last day to vote is Saturday 19 October.”

It was a thinly veiled bit of political messaging. Like you, NB Mums, Scruby lives in Pittwater.

In a city of tribes, the “insular peninsula” is living up to the name.

Liberal dysfunction

That Pittwater is shaping into a contest – both sides’ polling shows about a two-party-preferred vote of 50-50 – is baffling.

It was only mid-August when the Liberal Party was embroiled in chaos. The state director Richard Shields had been terminated after the party failed to submit the paperwork for 140 candidates for local council elections - including Ryburn’s.

Super Saturday byelections

• Epping – The seat of former Liberal premier Dominic Perrottet is poised to be filled by Monica Tudehope, who served as his deputy chief of staff. Despite carving off a 6.5 per cent swing at the 2023 state election, Labor decided against running in the marginal seat. 
• Hornsby –  the blue-ribbon electorate on Sydney’s northern fringe was held by former treasurer and moderate powerbroker Matt Kean. The Liberal candidate is James Wallace, a lawyer and former Young Liberals president, who will almost certainly replace Kean.
• Pittwater – Held by the Liberal Party by a mere 606 votes, the northern beaches poll will see Liberal candidate Georgia Ryburn face off against teal independent Jacqui Scruby, who ran at the 2023 state election. 

The party’s Pittwater MP Rory Amon had been charged with 10 child sexual abuse offences before the month’s end. (He denies the allegations.) After winning the 2023 state election by 606 votes, Liberal MPs were ready to write off the seat.

Fast-forward two months and Liberal insiders are hopeful. The mood on the ground is positive, according to sources who have door-knocked the electorate in the last fortnight. With federal Labor on the nose, Liberals feel their brand damage on the northern beaches is no longer as potent as when teals rolled through the former blue-ribbon heartland in the 2022 federal election.

After Labor decided not to contest the Epping and Hornsby byelections, a clean sweep would give NSW Liberal leader Mark Speakman some rare good news after a difficult first 19 months as leader.

But Liberal insiders concede Saturday’s match-up suits Scruby. Not only is she the only progressive candidate (Labor and the Greens are not running), the byelection’s third candidate, Libertarian Doug Rennie, will almost certainly consume first preference votes vital for Ryburn.

A Scruby victory would make her the first teal MP to enter Macquarie Street.

One senior Labor strategist believes Scruby will “shit it in”, arguing nothing has materially improved for the Liberal Party since March last year.

Counter punch

The at-times surreal campaign reached another strange new level on Friday. Scruby’s team discovered more than 100 of their corflutes had been cut down overnight. They claimed none of the Liberals’ advertising had been touched.

With both Ryburn and Scruby in near furious agreement about the policy, the battle of ideas has been whittled down to three issues: Ryburn’s address, who would be more effective in parliament, and whether Scruby should be calling herself a lawyer.

So much so, after confirming she does not hold a current practising certificate, a Liberal Party member wrote to the Law Society questioning whether Scruby – who worked for law firm DLA Piper between 2005 and 2008 – had misrepresented herself by saying she was a lawyer.

“This is a desperate and baseless point that diverts from the real misrepresentation happening in this byelection — that my Liberal opponent says she’s local but doesn’t live in the electorate,” Scruby responded.

All politics may be local. But Pittwater has left the rest of Sydney for dead.

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