The beachside electorate the Liberals must hold against teal contender

A gust is up in Manly. The ferries lurch, the surfers have stayed home, and Joeline Hackman is clutching a fistful of polystyrene scraps she’s plucked from the sand. She regards a yellow sign: “BEACH CLOSED.”

“For offshore drilling,” Hackman quips, referencing the proposed PEP11 gas exploration licence for an area stretching from the waters off Manly to Newcastle. It’s an issue that has become a flashpoint for the climate-concerned voters of this moneyed beachside seat in the lead-up to the March 25 election.

Joeline Hackman was the first Climate 200-backed teal candidate to launch a campaign against a NSW state Liberal.Credit: James Brickwood

The state electorate of Manly has been held comfortably by the Liberals since 2007 and by their Environment Minister James Griffin since 2017. But here, where almost half of all adults have a bachelor’s degree, 65 per cent of women work (the second-highest female participation rate in the state), three-quarters of people voted for marriage equality and three out of five working adults describe themselves as a “professional” or “manager”, the colour of this blue-ribbon seat has faded.

Hackman, a freelance business consultant and lifelong local who founded the 2000-strong Northern Beaches War on Waste group, is the first Climate 200-backed candidate to take up arms against Griffin to test whether the teal wave that mortally wounded the federal Coalition could have the same effect on state politics.

Griffin, a former KPMG executive and son of a Greens councillor, is quietly confident his connections to local business and his environmental record will see him stem the teal tide. But what’s happened federally is on his mind.

“Here we are, in the shadows of the federal election,” he says. “But I think people are very in tune and understand that as far as the state NSW Liberal Party goes, our record on climate change and the environment has been impressive.”

The Gothic facade of St Patrick’s Seminary bears down on Manly, a network of shopping strips, cafes, pubs and family-oriented streets that manages to host a world-famous beach and maintain a community village vibe. Across the street from the seminary is St Paul’s Catholic College, the site of an election booth for the federal seat of Warringah that, in 2022, attracted 76.3 per cent of votes on a two-party preferred basis for Zali Steggall – the highest teal vote of any booth in the country.

In the 2017 by-election triggered by the then-premier Mike Baird’s resignation, there was a 14 per cent swing against the Liberals. At the 2019 election, the Liberals took another 13.7 per cent hit. A similar-sized swing this year could unseat Griffin.

Manly has a history of independent firepower. The seat was held by independent Peter Macdonald, who launched Hackman’s campaign in November last year, and David Barr for 16 years between 1991 and 2007.

Member for Manly and Minister for Environment James Griffin.Credit: James Brickwood

But Hackman’s tilt and the possibility of Climate 200 to help usher her to victory is kneecapped by campaign spending limits and optional preferential voting. No independents picked up seats in last year’s Victorian state election.

“I wanted firmer action on climate,” Hackman says back at her headquarters, a former doctor’s office with a new lick of campaign-coloured paint and a hulking teal e-bike parked in the corner.

“I wanted more integrity in politics, because that’s sorely lacking. And I knew that people were hurting because of [the] cost of living. So I thought, I’m hearing a lot of silence at the state level in Manly, particularly. And I really wanted to represent the values of my community.”

Manly local Murray Fraser is one of the many voters keeping an eye on candidates’ environmental pledges.Credit: James Brickwood

Locals say health, education, cost of living, privatised buses and the embattled Emerald-class ferries are their top election issues. But in a seat frequented by bush turkeys, fringed with patches of bush, and inhabited by scores of swimmers who start and end their days accompanied by blue gropers and wobbegongs, the environment has become the battleground issue of the campaign.

“On social media, James Griffin seems to be everywhere,” says Murray Fraser, a local who co-owns a framing shop. “He’s working hard and making lots of announcements. It feels like he got a bit of extra energy when he got the environment portfolio.”

Hackman’s challenge is to differentiate herself from a progressive Liberal who is miles away from Tony Abbott’s right-wing disposition and the antithesis of Scott Morrison chutzpah.

“There was a strong groundswell to get rid of Tony Abbott,” Manly voter Linda Stephens, who didn’t vote for Zali Steggall during her first tilt but was wooed the second time round, says. “I don’t know that there’s a strong groundswell to get rid of James Griffin.”

Independent candidate for Manly Joeline Hackman greets commuters on Spit Rd.Credit: Nick Moir

Griffin has rattled off a suite of announcements on biodiversity and the environment in the past few weeks, including the establishment of NSW’s third-largest national park and the more local pursuit of rehabilitating Manly Lagoon into a swimming hole.

But Hackman insists an environment minister tied to The Nationals can’t go as far as the voters of Manly want him to – she’s criticised him for legislative inaction on banning PEP11 despite Griffin’s longstanding opposition to the project.

The Perrottet government promised to legislate against offshore coal and gas projects in NSW in February, which Hackman claimed as a win for independent pressure.

“I think it’s quite bizarre that you would not simply support the position of the NSW government and say well done,” Griffin says. “I think some of the teals veer into perhaps territory of being a protest party because there’s simply no acceptance that anything the state Coalition does is good enough.”

On a stroll through the laneways near Griffin’s office, we pass Bailey Mason, the Animal Justice Party candidate for Manly, attended by a black-and-tan kelpie and a fellow campaigner. They grin at Griffin and wish him good luck.

“It’s a very relaxed electorate,” he says.

We’re on our way to the newly opened Manly Adolescent and Young Adult Hospice, a refuge facility for young people with life-limiting illnesses built just behind the seminary. We meet the hospice’s first patient, a paralympic boccia player named Jamieson Leeson, who has spinal dystrophy. If he achieves nothing else in politics, Griffin says, he’ll be happy because this place was built.

Sitting inside the hospice, Griffin says he’s focused on supporting tourism in the electorate and flattening out the spike in summer business the local economy depends on.

“It’s those deep connections that I built over that time that I think are often missed by other people and other candidates that maybe have a flash in the pan thought or issue that’s been put in front of them,” Griffin says. “But you know, there’s been a lot of work with this community over the years, which I’m really proud of.”

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