Published: 28 February 2023
Last updated: 5 March 2024
STEVE MEACHAM asks the four aspirants in the leafy upper north shore seat to nominate their top policy priorities.
South African-born businesswoman Karyn Edelstein distinctly remembers the night that put her on the path to becoming Labor’s candidate for the “leafy” North Shore electorate of Davidson in the forthcoming NSW state election.
It was Saturday May 18, 2019. Edelstein and her husband had been out with friends and were listening to the car radio as the unthinkable happened. Scott Morrison had won what he called the “miracle” election.
“I was shocked and surprised,” she recalls. “The pundits and the pollsters had consistently put the Coalition behind [Bill Shorten’s] Labor.
“I’d voted for Labor ever since we’d arrived from South Africa, but I’d never been a member of a political party. I resolved that night to transition from being a passive supporter and enrol as a member of my local Labor party.”
Davidson - which stretches from Lindfield in the south to North Turramurra and includes St Ives, Gordon, Killara, Belrose and Davidson itself - has 60,040 registered voters, and is widely regarded as a safe Liberal seat. In 2019 the Liberal candidate Jonathan O’Shea retained the seat with 75% of the two-party preferred vote.
As part of the larger Bradfield Federal electorate, Davidson also has the largest number of Jewish voters north of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. “It has the second biggest concentration of Jews outside Waverley,” Edelstein claims. She is one of them.
Since the electorate was created in 1971, all four men (and naturally they’ve all been male) elected have been Liberals: Dick Healey (1971-81), the controversial Dr Terry Metherell (1981-92) who helped bring down Nick Greiner’s Liberal government, Andrew Humpherson (1992-2007) and the retiring former Speaker Jonathan O’Shea. (2007 until now).
In 2023 there are four candidates registered for Davidson.
This time there’s a difference.
Three are women. Apart from Edelstein, there’s Caroline Atkinson of the Greens and Independent Janine Kitson - a former Ku-ring-ai councillor who also chaired the Northern Suburbs branch of the ABC Friends for many years.
The one male, Liberal Matt Cross, was a ministerial adviser to former NSW Premier Mike Baird and other party luminaries.
When O’Dea announced his retirement, several senior Liberals wanted the seat to go to a female - especially Natalie Ward, Minister for Metropolitan Roads, Women’s Safety and the Prevention of Domestic and Sexual Violence.
That ended in tears - according to the Sydney Morning Herald - which reported that Ward (currently in the upper house) had the backing of both current Premier Dominic Perrottet and Treasurer Matt Kean to increase the Liberals’ minuscule female representation in the lower house.
The SMH reported that, in his pre-selection address, Matt Cross proposed mini-nuclear reactors could be “cited in every suburb to lower energy prices” to reduce CO2 emissions.
The paper also reported he had been assiduously organising local numbers to replace O’Dea “for years”.
The Lindfield resident has clearly been marked out as one of the Liberals’ rising stars. He ticks so many boxes. Raised locally; educated at St Leo’s Catholic College; a Harvard Master of Public Administration; corporate jobs for the top end of town like KPMG Australia.
Clearly cognisant of the importance of the Jewish vote in Davidson, Cross posted a moving message on World Holocaust Day about his visit to Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem museum.
He has also walked the Kokoda Track and has run several marathons in support of Lifeline, the suicide prevention charity he has championed for many years.
By comparison Caroline Atkinson, the Greens candidate, is a bushwalker, a businesswoman and a passionate environmentalist who has an MBA, a Masters in Environmental Management and a PhD in Corporate Environment.
She has lived in Davidson for 15 years, loves the Blue Gum forests of Darug country and now works with the federal Greens party on its national environment strategy.
Janine Kitson, the Independent, has a skeleton staff, mainly gathered around her kitchen table.
She stood unsuccessfully for Bradfield (the Federal electorate that includes Davidson) in 2022, is a long-standing member of Friends of Ku-ring-ai Environment and remains a staunch advocate of Davidson’s natural and built heritage.
The Jewish Independent asked each candidate what they think are the three main issues that will determine this election.
Climate change and finding a way to rapidly “implement ‘on the ground’ renewable solar roof community projects”, came first on Janine Kitson’s list, followed by stronger planning and environment laws, citing the proposal to “rezone 227.3 hectares of pristine bushland around Lizard Rock in Belrose to build 450 homes in a high bushfire area” as an example.
Thirdly she wants a Royal Commission into NSW’s planning and environmental laws. “They are no longer fit for purpose,” she claims.
Greens candidate Caroline Atkinson put “building affordable housing, along with the green spaces, schools, roads and public transport that make communities liveable” as her first choice.
Her second pick is “keeping fossil fuels in the ground…burning coal and gas is fuelling record-breaking, community-destroying floods and bushfires across the state and fuelling the climate crisis”.
Third was stopping “the corrupting gambling influence in NSW”, she said. “Our plan goes much further than Liberal or Labor, pulling the pin on pokies and cutting the harm caused to the vulnerable in our community.”
Matt Cross replied, “The top issue that comes up most with the local community is concern about our current economic uncertainty, and the impact on local businesses and family budgets. Only the Perrottet government has the long-term plan to grow our economy, and keep our state moving forward.”
Secondly, “I’m against overdevelopment that comes without the supporting infrastructure and associated risks, such as bushfires and floods.”
Finally, “through my support of Lifeline and [adolescent youth health group] KYDS, I know how important mental health services are. I want to continue to promote the tremendous work these organisations provide for our community.”
Labor’s Karyn Edelstein accepts that Davidson is the Liberals’ seat to lose. Despite the shrinking margin of blue victory, it is still regarded as one of the safest Liberal seats in NSW, as evidenced by its 65% share of the primary vote from 2019.
“So why am I putting myself out there? Several factors aligned together to give Labor a better chance,” she insists.
Renewing manufacture in NSW and “halting the relentless privatisation of public assets and infrastructure by the Liberal government” are her first two aims. These include a renewed investment into local schools and hospitals.
Like her rivals she pledges to preserve “our urban forest environment and neighbouring national parks, furthering climate change mitigation, biodiversity conservation and fire control.”
Edelstein also believes Dominic Perrottet’s embarrassing press conference where he revealed he had worn a Nazi uniform at his 21st birthday party in 2003 will also have traction in this election.
“That has particular resonance among Davidson’s Jewish residents,” she claims. “Perrottet was outed by members of his own party, which shows the factional in-fighting within the Liberals.
“On a personal level, I was appalled, hurt and ashamed by revelations of the Premier’s fascist fancy dress. Almost all of my maternal grandfather’s family was murdered during the Nazi’s occupation of Lithuania.”
Photo: ALP candidate Karyn Edelstein
