Election 2022: Parramatta Liberal candidate Maria Kovacic a long way from home

The Liberal candidate in Parramatta is not from the area despite Scott Morrison’s assertions that she is ‘western Sydney through-and-through’.

Liberal candidate for Parramatta Maria Kovacic. Picture: Jane Dempster

The Liberal candidate in the key battleground seat of Parramatta is not from western Sydney despite Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s assertions that she is “western Sydney through-and-through”.

Mr Morrison’s captain’s pick, Maria Kovacic, 52, lives outside the electorate in West Pennant Hills in Sydney’s northwest and was born in the southeast NSW town of Queanbeyan, outside Canberra.

The revelations about Ms ­Kovacic come after months of sustained criticism of Anthony Albanese’s captain’s pick candidate, Andrew Charlton, who moved to North Parramatta about five-weeks ago from a $16m eastern suburbs mansion in Bellevue Hill.

Before living in West Pennant Hills Ms Kovacic, a business­woman, lived in Kellyville, also in northwest Sydney. She was previously in Port Stephens on the NSW coast about 171km north of Parramatta.

Ms Kovacic is the president of a Liberal group in Berowra, an electorate in northwest Sydney held by Liberal MP Julian Lesser on a margin of 15.65 per cent.

Most of Sydney falls in the greater western Sydney region – an area spanning about 8982sq km – but there are key socio-economic and cultural differences that distinguish the regions including income, religion and ancestry.

Independent candidate for ­Parramatta Steve Christou, said the Hills district – including Ms Kovacic’s suburb of West Pennant Hills, was in northwest Sydney not western Sydney.

Mr Christou, a former Cumberland City mayor, said western Sydney included suburbs such as Merrylands, Granville and Toongabbie.

“It looks like both the Liberal and Labor parties need to pull out the geography map and go back to school and work out where western Sydney is,” he said.

“It actually shows great disrespect to western residents that they the [parties] do not know where western Sydney is located on a map.”

The average weekly income in the Hills Shire was $2363, according to the last census, while 46.6 per cent of the employed population are professional or managerial workers.

To the west, the weekly household income is about $1000 less in the Cumberland local government area at $1379, while in the Parramatta area it is $1759.

The Hills Shire is also widely regarded as the bible belt of Sydney, while Parramatta is a diverse melting pot with large Hindu and Muslim populations.

In Cumberland, 24 per cent of the population is Catholic and 21.9 per cent is Muslim, 13.8 per cent identifies as no religion and 10.2 per cent is Hindu. In the Parramatta, a quarter of people do not follow a ­religion, 20.8 per cent are Catholic, and 11.3 per cent are Hindu.

Labor has faced criticism after parachuting Mr Charlton, a high-profile economist and former ­adviser to Kevin Rudd, into the Parramatta electorate, knocking back local members who sought preselection.

A Coalition spokesman said Ms Kovacic had better local credentials than Mr Charlton and had lived in “in western Sydney for around 20 of the past 25 years”.

“Maria established and ran her own successful mortgage and ­finance business, seeing first-hand the benefits of home ownership for families in western Sydney and across NSW,” he said.

“Maria co-founded Western Sydney Executive Women and has served as Chair of the Hills Community Aid. She has also been on the steering committee of Parramatta Eels’ Women@Eels.”

Sydney Executive Women is a business network for women in the inner west, greater west, northwest and southwest of Sydney.