Because this Sydney seat matters so much to these elections

At Little India, a vibrant strip of restaurants in Harris Park in the parramatta electorate, some local businesses are covering their bets in the federal elections on May 3.

On the Billu’s fence, a culinary reference point in the suburb for 25 years, hang the posters of Corflute both for the Labor member Andrew Charlton and for his liberal challenger Katie Mullens.

Charlton’s Corflute was first there. But when Mullens showed up at the restaurant for a meal, the owner of the restaurant, Youvie Gaba, he also wanted to put his signs.

“It’s not the party that I usually go. I’m going to the person,” he says. “I don’t mind (whoever wins), as long as those who win dependent on us.”

Gaba’s misunderstanding is emblematic of the attitude that many rooms have in the various seats that will be a key battlefield in the federal survey.

Rodney Smith, Australian politics professor at Sydney University, says that the vote in the Parramatta region has the tendency to “float” between Labor and liberal at all levels of government: the federal, state and local council.

“It is not really a place that both the main parts can feel comfortable in retaining,” he says.

When John Howard entered power in 1996, Parramatta was part of a Sydney’s Western SWAG of Western seats, the liberals snatched from work. He remained in liberal hands for two other elections before returning to the ALP in 2004. The seat has been strictly contested since then.

The state electorate of Parramatta was liberal from 2011 to 2023 when he went to work and helped Chris Minns to become a premier of the new South Wales. But the following year, after the local council elections, a The liberal mayor, Martin Zaiter, was elected to replace a predecessor of work.

Another close race for the federal place looms on May 3.

The historical operator, Andrew Charlton, Make titles in 2022 When the Labor leader Anthony Albanese paratrooped the economist instructed in Oxford as Labor candidate for the seat to replace the Alp retired stalwart, Julie Owens.

Charlton had worked as an economic consultant Senior for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd before founding successful advice called Alphabeta Advisors (subsequently acquired by the Accenture Professional Services giant for a great sum). But it was a stranger who lived in the eastern suburbs.

Despite the criticisms of the “choice of the captain” of the Albanians, Charlton won the seat in the midst of a national level swing at the ALP.

This time a federal redistribution cut the charlton margin of almost 1 percentage of points at 3.7 percent, making one of the most vulnerable seats of the ALP in the new South Wales Parramatuta. Many families in the district have been affected hard by the costs of living pressures that can count against the local member.

“Parramatta is the type of electorate in which the debate on the cost of living will be important,” says Smith.

Charlton’s liberal opponent is Katie Mullens, a lawyer who lived and worked in the district for 17 years. It is not his first political inclination: Mullens was for the Parramatta state headquarters in 2023 But lost against Donna Davis, former mayor of Lord Lord.

He is managing a cost of life cost: food and petrol prices have become so expensive that people are saying that they are choosing between prescription drugs, he says.

“I feel the same message several times: people are really fighting,” he says. “I believe that if you work hard, you should be rewarded for this effort. You should be able to aspire to buy a house, start a business, have a family and you shouldn’t be in living survival mode of paycheck for the paycheck.

“When people are struggling financially, you see a crime increase. See also mental health problems.”

Charlton agrees that living costs are on their heads for parramatta voters, but supports access to health care, which is linked to families’ finances, is one of the main concerns.

“That’s why we made health a great focus of this government and great attention at local level,” he says.

Just before Herald Interviewed Charlton, he was delivering flyers to voters About two “urgent care clinics medicine from Bei di Massa” recently established in the area.

Peter Dutton visited Parramatta’s electorate in the first week of the election campaign, underlining the importance of the seat. The liberal leader must win a group of marginal voters and mortgage belts like this if he has to become prime minister.

A radiant Mullens remained on the shoulder of his leader as he filled a white fuel Ute in a petrol station in Carlingford. So he joined Dutton in a press conference in which he appeared the coalition’s commitment to cut fuel excise duties and other policies to facilitate the pressure of the cost of living.

A mobile billboard parked nearby brought a photo of Mullins and the promise: “Every 25c cheapest liter voting liberal”.

Mullens describes Dutton as a “firm and compassionate leader” and mentions it frequently during an interview with the Herald.

The Albanian also spent time in Western Sydney at the beginning of the election campaign; Charlton claims to be popular in the area.

“The prime minister has always been good here in Parramatta,” he says. “I think people like their values ​​and they like them.”

According to the electoral betting markets, Charlton is favored to win the seat, but Parramatta can produce the unexpected, says Andy Marks, executive director of the Center for Western Sydney at the Western Sydney University.

“We have looked at these surveys in the Western Sydney for a long time (e) we have seen an accelerated drift from the main parts,” he says. “I think we will continue to see it, and I think that seats like Parramatta will vomit some surprises, simply through the influence of the flows of preferences through the independent.