As others around her fell, this Liberal MP stood her ground. But she’s not entirely happy

As she walked through the streets of Penrith on Tuesday, Lindsay MP Melissa McIntosh was hugged and congratulated by constituents. But for one of the few Liberal representatives remaining in Sydney, her return to parliament has “not been a celebration”.

She said her success could be traced back to a commitment she made to Scott Morrison where she would remain “community focused”, particularly in her first term.

Melissa McIntosh, in Penrith Sydney, has retained the seat of Lindsay in the Federal election. Credit: Janie Barrett

“So I’ve not been distracted from the community’s needs,” she said. “If I can do anything for our community, that’s what I’ll do.”

The impact of Peter Dutton’s unpopularity was not felt on Sydney’s western fringe. The focus of Lindsay’s voters, McIntosh said, was hyperlocal issues. Ultimately, responsibility for the election result could not be laid only at Dutton’s feet, she said, adding MPs and the party needed to take time to consider why Australia “voted a different way”.

“We haven’t only just lost, we’ve been smashed. And devastatingly so,” she said.

Lindsay had been pencilled in by NSW Liberals as one likely to be lost in 2022. The 5 per cent buffer of first-term MP McIntosh was marginal and within Labor’s grasp after nine years of Coalition government.

However, even as Anthony Albanese swept to power, taking with him a string of suburban Sydney seats such as Reid and Bennelong, and outer urban ones like Robertson on the Central Coast, McIntosh not only defied the national swing but increased her majority to 6 per cent.

Three years later, the 47-year-old fended off the party’s electoral struggles, experiencing a 5.5 per cent swing against her on primary votes but retaining her seat despite voters rejecting the Liberal Party in Sydney seats such as Banks and Hughes – places pundits did not really consider Labor could win.

Saturday’s result leaves Lindsay as one of only four Liberal electorates in the nation’s most populous city, alongside the neighbouring seat of Mitchell, Berowra on the city’s northern fringe and Cook to the south. With postal votes breaking their way, Liberals were confident they would also retain Bradfield, in Sydney’s north.

The reason for the party’s success in Lindsay, according to Liberal and Labor insiders, can be boiled down to two main factors: demographics and McIntosh. The two are sometimes offered as competing theories.

“Everyone thought in 2019 we would lose the seat but Melissa McIntosh triumphed. Again in 2022, everyone thought we would lose the seat, but she gained a swing in her favour,” one senior NSW Liberal said.

After volunteering on pre-poll for McIntosh in 2019, 2022 and 2025, NSW opposition frontbencher Scott Farlow said the experience demonstrated she had a “huge” personal following and vote, saying she has done a good job consolidating her margin.

“People want to come up and see her and take photos with her. Big phenomenon for her. She’s done a good job,” he said.

One senior NSW Labor strategist described her as a “very good local member”. McIntosh’s success was recognised within the federal Liberal parliamentary party, appointed to the shadow portfolios of western Sydney and communications.

Aman Singh supported McIntosh because he could see her work benefiting his company.Credit: Nick Moir

Aman Singh runs a transport company out of Penrith, and he attributed the developments and improvements in the area to McIntosh.

“She thinks about the area, and speaks about us. It makes a big difference to the community here,” he said.

It was a recurring theme for many the Herald spoke to in Penrith: that McIntosh felt like and acted like a local. Some pointed to her tendency to turn up to local events, others point to her media appearances and her frequent mentions of the area she represents, her positions divorced almost entirely from her party.

Dr Andy Marks, executive director of the Centre for Western Sydney at Western Sydney University, says it was an example of a candidate being a “non-independent independent”.

“People in Linsday are concerned with issues that are local and immediate, which is why they voted generally in a stable, conservative way. They have a high-profile, highly engaged local member, and people like that.”

He explained that the region wasn’t moved by “national agenda issues” like climate policy or partisan politics. Instead, it was hyperlocal issues, such as improvements to roads or parking issues, that resonated.

“It represents an older western Sydney,” he continued. “It’s always been quite conservative in its views.”

For others, including members of her party, the Liberals’ success in Lindsay is better explained by demographics, timing and Labor’s lacklustre efforts to reclaim the seat, including running three low-profile candidates in the elections McIntosh has contested.

The demographics

Urban Development Institute of Australia chief executive Stuart Ayres, who held the state seat of Penrith as the Liberal MP for 13 years until 2023, underscored demographics as the primary explanation for the muted swings in Lindsay.

“Electorates with smaller multicultural populations are recording higher Liberal votes. These dynamics have not made Lindsay the bellwether seat it used to be. The Central Coast is now the bellwether,” he said.

“The three defining voter groups of this election were women, budget-stressed households and multicultural communities. Lindsay, Cook, Berowra and Mitchell basically only have two of these categories in material numbers and that ensured they survived the swings.”

The analysis is backed up by a Labor strategist who said: “The general trend for us has been we underperform with whiter voters.”

The composition of voters is starkly different to neighbouring electorates: 71 per cent of residents were born in Australia, compared to about 50 per cent of residents in Werriwa, Chifley and McMahon. Only 33 per cent of voters in McIntosh’s electorate reported both parents as born overseas, below the statewide average of 39 per cent, and far below the 68 per cent in Werriwa, 62 per cent in Chifley and 65 per cent in McMahon.

It paints a picture of a cultural outlier in the region, the final bastion of a western Sydney defined more by its class status than its multicultural make-up.

One Liberal source said the gradual migration of young families westward looking for larger houses transformed the once relatively low-socioeconomic area into the “archetype of middle Australia”.

The Labor source said: “If I was the Liberals I wouldn’t be resting my laurels on that, but I can see us winning Berowra before we win Lindsay.”

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