The electorate of Mackellar on Sydney’s northern beaches may not be on your drinking bingo card come election night. Not like, say, those iconic seats of Eden-Monaro or the “bellwether” Bass, which scores you a vodka shot or three.
The electorate is named after eminent surgeon and politician Sir Charles Mackellar and his daughter Dorothea. This is the Dorothea whose poem My Country eulogised Australia as a nation “of droughts and flooding rains”, which is still quoted by climate change sceptics 114 years after it was written.
Could it be the issue of climate change that finally wrests the seat out of Liberal Party hands after 73 years?
It would be seismic for this wealthy, overwhelmingly white enclave that has traditionally prized stability and steady-as-she-goes conservatism above all else. It’s not called the “insular peninsula” by the rest of Sydney for no good reason. Cruelly isolated by COVID restrictions in the Christmas of 2020, Sydney’s west said “Meh”.
There is no river, mountain or any man-made landmark of note to show where Mackellar begins at Dee Why, about 25km north of the Sydney CBD, or where the electorate of Warringah ends (“Warringah” you’ll remember from your 2019 bingo card, because it probably got you legless). Some bureaucrat just got out a ruler in 1949 at Dee Why and kept going until running out of land at Barrenjoey Head.
The beach suburbs of Narrabeen, Warriewood, Mona Vale, Newport, Avalon, Whale Beach and Palm Beach are in here. The less well-known postcodes of Belrose, Duffys Forest, Cromer, Terry Hills and Frenchs Forest are up the back a bit.
The electorate is spectacularly blessed by nature. Bounded by the vast Pacific Ocean to the east, Pittwater to the north, and the mighty Hawkesbury River and Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park to the west. Often referred to as “God’s country” by those who live here, it’s always been a safe, comfortable place.
But nature’s gifts also bring the increasing calamities of beach erosion, bushfire and flood. Epic rainfall from the cataclysmic La Niña weather recently submerged the streets and triggered dangerous landslides, undermining swathes of hillside where the luckiest perch mansions that jostle for the best view of proceedings. Climate change has well and truly come home to Mackellar.
After Mackellar’s inception in 1949, William (Bill) Wentworth, minister in the Gorton and McMahon governments, held the seat for 28 years, save for a torrid two months after crossing the floor and declaring himself an independent. At the 1977 election, revenge was swift for Bill the Backbench Rebel who stood for the Senate and recorded a miserable 2.1% of the vote.
Liberal Jim Carlton won the coveted blue-ribbon seat and served as health minister in the Fraser government. He represented Mackellar for 17 years until 1994.
Enter Bronwyn Bishop for the next 22 years until she was helicoptered out in a preselection battle, still protesting at the age of 73 that she was up for the fight.
Time for new blood, said the party. Come on down, Jason Falinski.
Falinski has trodden the well-worn path into modern political office: he has been a former president of the Australian Young Liberals, staffer for opposition leader John Hewson and former NSW premier Barry O’Farrell, and a councillor on the Warringah Council (until it was merged with the Northern Beaches Council in 2016).
On the occasion of his anointment as candidate for Mackellar, he declared: “There’s no other seat that I’ve ever wanted to represent in the federal Parliament than Mackellar.”
His instinct for a secure tenure was solid. In the 2019 election, Falinski won 53.01% of first preferences.
Can he hold on to his prized seat? Or will his independent challenger, the climate change warrior and Narrabeen GP Dr Sophie Scamps do a Zali Steggall? Just like down the road in Warringah where former PM Tony Abbott was dumped last election.
That’s got everyone up this way talking. As a resident of Collaroy for the past 28 years, I’m pleased to sign on for Crikey to keep a watching brief during campaign 2022 on all candidates and developments in Mackellar.
Keep your bingo card handy and lay in a decent supply of locally produced craft beer and artisan gin* for the night.
*Low alcohol beverages also recommended. Weird party hats, mandatory.
