Election 2025: A ‘mountain to climb’ on Sydney’s northern beaches, says Liberal James Brown

The Liberal candidate seeking to win back the highly prized, once ironclad-safe seat of Mackellar on Sydney’s northern beaches, understands the scale of the challenge he faces.

Independent MP for Mackellar Sophie Scamps, left, and Liberal candidate James Brown. Picture: Liam Mendes

You can now listen to The Australian's articles. Give us your feedback.

You can now listen to The Australian's articles.

James Brown, the Liberal candidate seeking to win back the highly prized, once ironclad-safe seat of Mackellar on Sydney’s northern beaches, understands the scale of the challenge he faces.

Asked whether he and the ­Liberals had done enough to claw the seat back from the teals, Mr Brown said: “We’ll find out on election day. We’ve got a really big mountain to climb here. We have a big challenge on our hands.”

Campaigning in North Narrabeen, Mr Brown said the reactions he was getting at the early-voting booths this week was that the Liberals were in the hunt.

“People want the Liberals to be strong and they want us to be able to deliver and they know that an independent can’t deliver and that’s the difference,” he said. “I’m part of a team, and I think voters are recognising that.”

Some Liberal insiders expect teal MP Sophie Scamps to retain the seat she holds on a margin of 3.3 per cent. One said it could be simply due to inertia, another adding that the campaign locally had been “completely uninspiring”. Another Liberal source said he thought Mr Brown, Malcolm Turnbull’s former son-in-law and a former soldier, would win by a couple of hundred votes, but added that the teals’ campaign on the ground had been “pretty slick”.

Many Liberal voices believe, that the conditions that brought the teals to power in Mackellar, and across the country have shifted. This includes what sources call the “Scott Morrison factor”, the #MeToo ­movement, and a move away from the teals’ “sweet spot” of ­climate change and the environment to the cost of living.

Dr Scamps, a GP, said she won the seat from the Liberal Party because voters “felt neglected, ignored, taken for granted … That sense is still there.”

Mr Brown said the Liberals had heard that “really loud message from the voters last time” and “we’ve been listening for three years, I don’t think we have ever listened harder”.

“Mackellar’s been invisible, we want to get it back on the map so we can deliver on infrastructure here and we can start contributing back to the community,” he said.

Dr Scamps has not set any preferences on her how-to-vote card. “As a genuine independent, I don’t preference because I think it’s up to the voters to decide who they preference,” she said. “That’s what being independent is about, and an important part of that … is not dictating how people need to vote and doing those backdoor deals. I don’t want a bar of it.”

She said she hadn’t done any deals with Labor, and was “happy to work across the political spectrum” for “constructive ideas, constructive solutions”.

Asked what people on the ground thought about Climate 200 and Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton, Dr Scamps said she was “not worried about party ideology and who is the leader”.

“I’m all about ideas not ideologies … I choose not to be in a party because I wanted to be able to genuinely represent my community,” she said.

“And what Australia and this community want are solutions, they don’t want slanging … If it’s a good idea, I vote for it and if it aligns with the people who are in this electorate, I will vote for it.”

Dr Scamps is hoping to win Mackellar on local issues.

“The focus is very much on housing and cost of living,” she said. “They are the major issues.”

Others were the public-private partnership North­ern Beaches Hospital and the stalled upgrade of Mona Vale Road. “Those local issues are really important,” she said. “Housing is such an important issue as well because we have so many young families having to move out of the area.”

Dr Scamps said emboldening small business with permanent instant asset write-offs and cutting red tape were also important.

One older voter at the polling booth, however, said she had switched her vote from Dr Scamps because of anti-Semitism in Australia, believing Mr Dutton had been “stronger” on the issue.

Dr Scamps has repeatedly called for more aid to Gaza including urging the government to resume financial support of UNRWA in February last year following allegations UNRWA staff were involved in the October 7 attacks.

Mr Brown said while local issues were important, voters in Mackellar would also be moved on the “international situation”.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty,” he said. “People are concerned about the national security picture, the international economic situation, and they want to make sure we’ve got good leadership at the helm in Australia.”

Those who had just voted for Dr Scamps said cost of living and climate change were the two most important issues.

“I feel that Dr Scamps is quite intuitive about that and listening to younger voters, especially women voters,” Sarah Ridge said.