Federal Election 2022: Kristina Keneally loses Fowler in Sydney’s west but Andrew Charlton claims Parramatta win

One of Labor’s parachute candidates in NSW, Kristina Keneally, has lost formerly safe Fowler but another, Andrew Charlton, has claimed nearby Parramatta.

Kristina Keneally speaks on Saturday night. Picture: ABC News

Labor entrepreneur Andrew Charlton has claimed victory in the western Sydney seat of Parramatta, already held by Labor, where his status as a wealthy parachute candidate was thought to threaten Labor’s hold, but another dropped-in candidate, Kristina Keneally, has lost her bid in Fowler.

Ms Keneally, a frontbencher and outgoing senator, is now out of parliament.

In what was a safe Labor seat, Ms Keneally’s campaign faced a backlash from some local members of the community after she was nominated by the party at the expense of a popular Vietnamese lawyer Tu Le. She has been defeated by local independent candidate Dai Le.

Ms Keneally earlier said “it’s too close to call” in Fowler, which she was parachuted into by Anthony Albanese.

The former NSW premier, who had lived on Scotland Island in Sydney’s affluent Pittwater region on the northern beaches, shifted from the Senate to run for the lower house, but trailed behind Ms Le 54 to 46 per cent based on the preference count at about 11pm after more than 57 per cent of the votes were counted.

Labor’s primary vote was down more than 20 percentage points at 36 per cent compared with Ms Le’s 34 per cent.

“Whatever happens here tonight I’ll be fine, what we really need to concentrate on is that we have an Albanese-led Labor government,” Ms Keneally said on Sky.

Mr Charlton, a former Accenture director, addressed a cheering crowd at the Collector Hotel in Parramatta on Saturday night, which had been preparing for his hero’s welcome for the previous hour.

“It was a huge challenge to win the seat of Parramatta,” Mr Charlton told a cheering, tightly packed crowd.

“When I stood in front of you, after I was preselected, I said that to be your candidate was the greatest honour of my life and now that honour turns into a responsibility.”

Not far away in Parramatta, Mr Charlton told supporters “as I’ve said many times before – the future of Parramatta is the future of Australia”.

Mr Charlton said he had not yet talked to his Liberal opponent, Maria Kovacic.

With 35 of 58 polling booths reporting, Mr Charlton was enjoying a favourable preferred-vote swing above 1 per cent.

Parramatta was one of the most fiercely contested seats in the election campaign, attracting the most visits from Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese of any electorate.

Neither Mr Charlton nor Ms Kovacic are from the electorate. Mr Charlton came under heightened scrutiny for being parachuted into Parramatta from Sydney’s well-manicured eastern suburbs.

Mr Charlton takes the seat from retiring Labor MP Julie Owens. He was formerly an economic adviser to Labor prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.

Labor’s Andrew Charlton pictured giving his victory speech at the Collector hotel in Parramatt. Picture: Damian Shaw

Former Labor minister and NSW powerbroker Graham “Richo” Richardson called the election result as a win for Labor and said he was seeing the “same picture everywhere” across Australia.

“We’re home,” he said on Sky just before 7pm.

“Let’s crack the champagne.”

An outgoing veteran Labor MP has defended Anthony Albanese’s series of gaffes during the campaign, declaring: “there’s a difference between not knowing something and not being able to remember a number”.

Retiring Labor member for Hunter Joel Fitzgibbon appeared on the Sky News election panel for Australia Decides: Election Night Live.

“I thought Albo won the campaign easily ... Albo had a few gaffes, he owned them, he was on the biggest political stage of Australia for the first time up against a wildly experienced campaigner,” Mr Fitzgibbon said.

“But he had a good campaign for two reasons, one he stuck to his plan, and he stuck to the policies.

“No matter how many gaffes he made, or how many gotcha questions came, he stuck to the plan and he gets great credit for that.”

Mr Fitzgibbon was pressed on how Mr Albanese couldn’t answer on something as basic as the national unemployment rate, in the now infamous moment during the first day of the campaign.

“I know Albo very well, I know he’s always across numbers like this. There’s a difference between not knowing something and not being able to remember a number,” he said.

With Jess Malcolm, Ashleigh Gleeson and Katie Davies