Labor message still more popular in high-migration, well-credentialled seats

Labor continues to be most attractive to cosmopolitan, high-migration, high-education voters whereas its message is not cutting through as much elsewhere.

Labor candidate Gabriel Ng, pictured with Anthony Albanese and Jodie Haydon, is on track to unseat Liberal MP Keith Wolahan in Menzies. Picture: Jason Edwards/NewsWire

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Chinese ancestry-heavy seats broke in favour of Labor despite Liberal hopes to woo the broadly aspirational voter class.

Despite the broad win for Labor and the drubbing for the Coalition, further analysis of electoral data reveals Labor is continuing to be most attractive to cosmopolitan, high-migration, high-education voters whereas its message is not cutting through as much elsewhere.

The swings in those high-migration, high-university-educated seats towards Labor were stronger than in other regions. For example, in Parramatta, which has the lowest share of Australian-born residents in the country (39 per cent) and is among the country’s most educated electorates with 43 per cent with an undergraduate degree or higher, incumbent Labor MP Andrew Charlton enjoyed a large 9.5-percentage-point, two-candidate-preferred swing in his favour, 6.5 percentage points higher than the national figure.

This is a continuation of a broader trend in Anglophone countries that have seen centre-left parties increasingly lose their working-class roots and head towards the highly educated cities.

Analysis of electoral data and distributed census figures show that Chinese voters – broadly an aspirational, suburban class of the sort the Coalition targeted in this election – broke for Labor. In the 16 seats where more than 15 per cent of people reported Chinese ancestry at the last census, Labor enjoyed an average primary-vote swing of 4.9 percentage points – 2.7 percentage points higher than the national average.

In those seats, the Liberals suffered an average 4.4 percentage point swing away in primary votes, 0.6 percentage points worse than the national average.

This all translated to a five-percentage-point swing away from the Liberals in those seats on a two-candidate-preferred basis, two percentage points more than the national two-party swing.

For example, Liberal MP Keith Wolahan in Menzies – which at 28.9 per cent has the highest share of Chinese ancestry residents in the country – is on track to lose his seat to Labor challenger Gabriel Ng.

It would mark the first time the Liberal Party has lost Menzies, named after the party’s founder.

Labor enjoyed a 3.2-percentage-point primary-vote swing in Menzies and Mr Wolahan suffered a 0.7-percentage-point swing against him.

In Bradfield – which at 24.6 per cent has the second-highest share of Chinese ancestry in the country, and became notionally teal after redistribution and the retirement of local Liberal MP Paul Fletcher – teal independent Nicolette Boele is leading Liberal candidate Gisele Kapterian.

Labor candidate Lucy McCallum, while unsuccessful, enjoyed a two-percentage-point primary-vote swing in her favour while Ms Kapterian faced a 5.8-percentage-point swing against her.