Election 2025: Liberals’ Andrew Constance hoping it’s fifth time lucky

Andrew Constance is mounting a determined bid for the ultra-marginal seat of Gilmore, one of the country’s most hotly contested electorates.

Liberal candidate for Gilmore Andrew Constance with Peter Dutton on Tuesday. Picture: Adam Head / NewsWire

Andrew Constance is feeling confident.

“I got an 12.8 per cent swing to me on primaries last time,” he tells The Australian as Peter Dutton’s campaign rolls through the ultra-marginal seat of Gilmore.

Held by Labor on a margin of just 0.2 per cent, Mr Constance is making his second tilt for the bellwether seat on NSW south coast, having fallen just 373 votes short of clinching victory from incumbent Labor MP Fiona Phillips at the 2022 poll.

After quitting NSW parliament in 2021, where he served as transport and infrastructure minister, Mr Constance has become a perennial candidate. Saturday’s May 3 election marks the fifth time he has attempted to enter federal parliament.

Andrew Constance and Peter Dutton touring a grocery in Nowra on Tuesday. Picture Adam Head/NewsWire

Before his first attempt in Gilmore, Mr Constance flirted with running in the neighbouring seat of Eden Monaro before abruptly backing out one day later after a public stoush with then-Nationals leader John Barilaro. Two failed tilts at Senate preselection followed.

But his time around Mr Constance thinks it’s different. While voters turfed the Morrison government in 2022, delivering a 5.3 per cent swing against the Coalition, Mr Constance bucked the national trend in the key battleground seat.

Coupled with the heightened cost of living and Anthony Albanese, who Mr Constance claims the voters of Gilmore “just don’t like”, the Liberals’ pick is much more assured of landing a coveted spot as Gilmore’s representative in parliament.

Assisting Mr Constance’s bid is former Liberal foreign minister Marise Payne, who has served as his campaign manager, while NSW senator Andrew Bragg has also frequently visited the seat.

Well known across the electorate, Mr Constance shot to national prominence in 2020 for his candid response during the Black Saturday bushfires, when he criticised the Morrison government’s indolent response and portrayed himself as a passionate supporter for action on climate change.

Andrew Constance shot to prominence in the wake of the Black Saturday bushfires. Picture: Liam Driver

Since then, however, his stance appears to have shifted. During a Sky News appearance earlier this year, Mr Constance said the Coalition would back out of the Paris Agreement, shredding Labor’s ambition to reduce emissions to 43 per cent below 2005 levels.

Those comments were walked back several days later.

Mr Constance has also become a champion of the Coalition’s proposal to build seven publicly funded nuclear reactors, a plan it says will necessitate keeping the nation’s ageing coal-fired power fleet on life support for years more.

While the Opposition Leader has largely eschewed campaigning on the Coalition’s proposed tilt toward atomic energy, the policy was centrestage on Tuesday when a trio of anti-nuclear protesters interrupted a planned press conference.

Anti-nuclear protesters interrupt a press conference with Peter Dutton on the NSW South Coast. Picture: Getty Images

The demonstrators – who later identified themselves as members of the South Coast Labour Council, a trade union group – stormed into the press event, donning hazmat suits and pretending to measure the site for radiation levels.

With the memories of Black Saturday still fresh in the minds of many locals, the incident suggests that the battleground electorate remains concerned about the impact of climate change and could punish Mr Constance for his previous views.

Also complicating Mr Constance’s run is small business owner and Climate 200-backed independent Kate Dezarnaulds, one of the few teal hopefuls trying to unseat a sitting Labor MP.

Besetting the independent’s efforts, however, were revelations first published in The Daily Telegraph that she described Berry, where she formerly served as the president of the local chamber of commerce, as a “miserable backwards retirement village”.

Ms Dezarnaulds has since admitted her comments were “poorly worded”.