Why the Liberal Party is fixated on winning back traditional wealthy areas instead of outer suburban battlers

The elevation of Kellie Sloane to the NSW Liberal leadership is a sign the party is more focused on winning back its traditional wealthy heartland, where more voters drive electric cars instead of outer suburban battlers worried about household bills.

The former Nine Network TV reporter is now one of three state Liberal leaders who are pro-net zero moderates holding an ultra-wealthy seat that overlaps with a Federal teal electorate.

That means the state parties have to aggressively differentiate themselves from the federal counterparts on climate change to keep those affluent voters who have turned on the Liberal Party.

The NSW Liberal Party lost even more of its heartland at a Federal level and if May’s election was replicated at a State level, the party would lose two-thirds of its seats and be able to fit into a seven-seater Toyota LandCruiser.

The NSW party’s support remains concentrated in Sydney’s wealthiest suburbs with 14 of its 24 seats in the city’s northern and eastern suburbs.

Ms Sloan’s Vaucluse electorate in Sydney’s affluent eastern suburbs overlaps with Allegra Spender’s Wentworth electorate. Her unopposed rise took place three days after Jess Wilson became leader of the Victorian Liberals, also elected unopposed, with her Kew electorate overlapping with Monique Ryan’s Federal teal seat of Kooyong.

This week’s developments happen eight months after the West Australian Liberal Party chose former Weekend Sunrise host Basil Zempilas as their leader, also elected unopposed, who has clashed with his Federal counterparts to speak in favour of net zero by 2050. His seat of Churchlands, taking in City Beach, overlaps with Kate Chaney’s teal electorate of Curtin.

State of decay

The NSW Liberal Party holds 24 seats in the 93-member lower house of State Parliament. Six overlap with a Federal teal electorate. That’s a quarter of its MPs concentrated in the affluent electorates of Vaucluse, Manly, North Shore, Wahroonga, Davidson and Willougby.

Despite losing the 2023 election, the Liberals kept those seats by offering $5540 State Government incentives to buy electric vehicles.

North of Dee Why, the Liberal Party no longer holds any State or Federal seat on Sydney’s northern beaches. The Federal Liberal Party’s decision to dump net zero means the State party has to clearly differentiate itself to keep what it still has.

Another 10 State Liberal seats overlap with a Federal Labor seat, including the lower north shore seats of Lane Cove, Ryde and Epping with a higher-than-average proportion of Teslas, and the upmarket electorates of Drummoyne and Miranda.

Just seven overlap with a Federal Liberal seat, mainly in Sydney’s north in seats like Castle Hill, Kellyville, Hawkesbury and Hornsby where every polling booth backed Anthony Albanese’s Labor Party in May, turning Julian Leeser’s seat of Berowra and Alex Hawke’s Mitchell electorate into marginal seats.

These are areas where Labor has never won a seat at a State level, even in 1978 when re-elected premier Neville Wran netted almost two-thirds of the electorates in what was the biggest landslide at the time to decimate the Liberal Party.

Labor Premier Chris Minns could win a similar landslide in March 2027 if a 59 to 41 poll result, from DemosAU in October, is replicated.

If the 2025 Federal election results are duplicated a State level in 16 months from now, the State Liberal Party would lose 16 seats or two thirds of its parliamentary representation. Its heartland seats in the Hornsby and Hills shire council areas would become marginal.

State Liberal leaders at both a State and Federal level have traditionally come from areas where the party has held overlapping electorates.

Former NSW Liberal leader Mark Speakman was the last Coalition Opposition leader to have a State seat overlapping with a Federal Liberal electorate. His electorate of Cronulla, overlapping with former prime minister Scott Morrison’s old seat of Cook, is one of Sydney’s few remaining Liberal Party strongholds, alongside Badgerys Creek, where most voters live on live acreages.

Apart from Queensland Premier David Crisafulli, no state or territory leader holds an electorate that overlaps with a Federal Liberal seat.

The heartland is lost and getting it back will be hard. And dirty.

Federal Liberal frontbencher Tim Wilson, who regained the Melbourne bayside seat of Goldstein in May from teal MP Zoe Daniel, has been using X this week to point out his predecessor denied voting for $2 billion of fossil fuel rebates.

Former Federal Liberal MP Jason Falinski, who lost the Sydney northern beaches seat of Mackellar in 2022 to teal Sophie Scamps, highlighted how teal MP Zali Steggall in 2019 received a $100,000 donation from former coal investor John Kinghorn.

To defeat Labor at a State or Federal level, the Liberal Party has to first destroy the environmental credentials of the teals to even have a chance of forming government.