What the inner-west PM needs to remember when he heads to the outer west

With Western Sydney copping the brunt of population growth, it deserves to get the lion’s share of infrastructure funding but is being dudded when it comes to federal government cash, writes James O’Doherty.

You can take the Prime Minister out of Marrickville but it seems you cannot take Marrickville out of Anthony Albanese.

Campaigning in Perth on Monday, the PM likened the battle to lead the country to Labor’s triumph in winning a majority on Inner West Council.

“If the inner west of Sydney can deliver a majority of the Labor Party to govern the Inner West Council, then I’m pretty confident that I can deliver a majority of Labor members of the House of Representatives to govern the nation,” he said.

But if Albanese wants to avoid the ignominy of being the first government in more than 90 years to be voted out after just one term, he needs to look further west than Croydon Park.

For both Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, the road to The Lodge runs through Western Sydney.

Anthony Albanese at the Inner West BBQ for The Voice to Parliament at Petersham Park in Sydney. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jeremy Piper

Not Albanese’s spiritual home of Petersham, Summer Hill and Ashfield, but suburbs like Strathfield, Westmead, Edmonson Park, and Riverstone.

It was the same in 2023’s state election, when a red wall delivered Premier Chris Minns five seats in the west.

NSW Premier Chris Minns visits East Hills Public School in Panania and joins students for the Foodbank Breakfast 4 Schools program. Picture: Jeremy Piper

With a pledge for budget sensibility, a tough stance on law and order and a focus on core issues, Minns had a laser-like focus on aspirational voters in mortgage belt seats like Riverstone, Penrith and East Hills.

The discipline paid off.

Minns - Labor’s best asset in NSW - is now being drafted into the federal campaign.

I can reveal that Minns has been lending his support, locally, to Western Sydney candidates in a number of battleground federal seats.

The Premier will this weekend launch Parramatta MP Andrew Charlton’s local campaign, and - last month - launched that of Greenway MP Michelle Rowland.

Parramatta and Greenway are two of the Western Sydney seats Albanese must retain if he wants to form a majority government.

These are also must-win seats on Dutton’s path to power.

Rowland’s seat of Greenway covers some of the fastest-growing areas of Sydney in the booming northwest, with a redistribution adding the suburbs like Box Hill and Gables to the Labor electorate.

Rowland’s margin has been trimmed from 11.5 per cent to 8 per cent, but Labor insiders say commands a strong personal vote.

Greenway may be out of reach for the Coalition, but the fight is really on in Werriwa, which Labor’s Anne Stanley holds by just 5.3 per cent.

Labor’s 2022 loss in Fowler to independent Dai Le is what happens when Labor takes the West for granted. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Damian Shaw

Covering Cecil Hills, Hoxton Park, and Austral, Labor has been losing strength in Werriwa, once part of the party’s heartland.

In Macarthur, covering Campbelltown, Labor MP Mike Freelander commands strong personal support but also has a real fight on his hands.

The Liberals are also in the hunt in Reid, in the Inner West, Parramatta, and Bennelong - looking to take back the seat once held by former Prime Minister John Howard.

Dutton has already taken his campaign to Western Sydney, to Energy Minister Chris Bowen’s seat of McMahon - in an attempt to highlight skyrocketing energy prices.

Home to aspirational young families, many of whom come from migrant backgrounds, Western Sydney is at the epicentre of the infrastructure crisis, where government investment has failed to keep pace with population growth.

It is no surprise that last week’s budget threw half a billion dollars to upgrade roads in Sydney’s northwest, and another $500 million to upgrade Fifteenth Avenue connecting Liverpool to the Aerotropolis.

The PM has committed $1bn to “reserve” a rail corridor between the south west and the new airport, but that will not lead to a millimetre of track being laid.

Voters are right to be sceptical about these commitments, which barely make a dent on what is needed.

With Western Sydney copping the brunt of population growth, it deserves to get the lion’s share of infrastructure funding.

But as analysis from Western Sydney University on Friday points out, Sydney’s west is being dudded when it comes to federal government cash.

The state’s economic powerhouse makes up 10 per cent of the Australian population, but is not even close to receiving 10 per cent of election campaign promises.

Voters will be expecting both Dutton and Albanese to arrive at The Daily Telegraph’s Future Western Sydney event on Friday with commitments to address that disparity.

Recent history shows what can happen when Western Sydney voters are taken for granted: just look at Fowler MP Dai Le, who thumped blow-in Kristina Keneally in 2022.

Le’s extraordinary win was a complete embarrassment for Labor who thought voters would not overlook that their candidate had been parachuted in from Scotland Island as part of a factional fix.

No-one in Labor truly expects their candidate at this election, Tu Le, to win Fowler back.

That is despite the Labor campaign machine throwing everything they can at the seat.

While the PM might be most comfortable in the inner west, he cannot forget the new frontier of “old Labor” values - as these seats are up for grabs.