Driving south-east from the Sydney CBD, you can see one of the most contentious issues in the beachside suburb of Coogee before you even reach the electorate. Temporary fencing and construction workers in hi-vis line the roughly 5km route , amid the seemingly never-ending construction of the new Sydney light rail line.
The project should have been a New South Wales election trump card for Gladys Berejiklian’s Coalition government: a brand new multibillion-dollar piece of public transport, due to open on the eve of the March 2019 vote, linking this eco-conscious, marginal electorate with the city.
But instead – running over budget, more than a year over schedule, and with the government embroiled in legal action with the private contractor – the light rail is, for now at least, a potential millstone for the local campaign.
“A schemozzle,” is how one man down by the Bronte ocean pool, in the electorate’s north, describes it, after he spent his early morning stuck in traffic around construction works.
Most analysts agree the major battlegrounds in this election are the state’s regions, and pockets of Sydney’s outer suburbs. But in the inner west and east, Labor is hoping to reclaim some former territory, including the marginal electorates of Coogee and Balmain.
Both were Labor seats for decades before the 2011 wipeout, when the public fury over corruption, scandals and perceived inaction – including over public infrastructure – helped the Liberals take Coogee and the Greens win Balmain.
Coogee is held on a narrow margin of 2.9%, while Balmain also remains close, on a 4.8% margin.
Climate change, overdevelopment, increasingly crowded public schools, the local environment, cycling and public transport are big issues for voters here.
So too is the handling of some of the government’s biggest infrastructure projects – from the light rail and knock-down and rebuild of Allianz Stadium in the east, to the Powerhouse Museum relocation and WestConnex road project encircling and tunnelling under the inner west (including Balmain).
One of Berejiklian’s slogans this election – “Let’s get it done” – is a nod to the frustration of many navigating construction on a regular basis. It’s a message Bruce Notley-Smith, the Liberal MP for Coogee, echoes.
“I’m still absolutely committed, that once it’s up and running, people are going to love it,” he says of the light rail.
“There’s inconvenience caused by any major infrastructure project, but retro-fitting light rail into some of the most densely populated areas in the biggest city in Australia was going to have challenges.”
He is apologetic about the inconvenience though. “I know it’s been painful, it’s been difficult,” he says, adding dryly: “It’s been particularly painful for me.”
The close race in Coogee is a reflection of the electorate’s incongruous demographics. It has some of the most valuable beachside real estate in the country in suburbs such as Tamarama and Bronte, but the presence of the University of NSW in Randwick, the abundance of apartments and proximity to the city, attracts a high proportion of younger voters.
Notley-Smith is a Liberal moderate who has so far managed to straddle this divide. The first openly gay MP in the lower house, his political views are broadly in line with those of his friend and mentor Malcolm Turnbull, who on Friday released a video backing his campaign.
“He is a champion for this community, he knows it, he loves it,” said the former prime minister.
The video emphasised the candidate and not the party both men were from – ending with the slogan “Back Bruce”.
Notley-Smith points to the impending $720m upgrade of the Prince of Wales hospital and his advocacy for the container deposit scheme as among his proudest achievements.
But he’s knows he’s got a fight on his hands: “I just put my head down and do what I’ve got to do to campaign.”
Trying to unseat him is Labor’s Marjorie O’Neill, an academic, community activist, Waverley councillor and women’s rugby coach at UNSW.
Her campaign is emphasising Labor’s environmental policies – including the delivery of seven gigawatts of renewable energy statewide by 2030 – and local projects such as a promised new public high school.
She is also campaigning against what she characterises as the government’s record of “poorly run infrastructure projects”.
“I’ve been an activist in the community for a very long time and watched what this government is doing – the sheer waste of money, how they treat people with their lack of community consultation,” she says. “This community, our community, deserves a lot better.”
Some residents are apprehensive about returning to Labor though.
Back at the Bronte ocean pool, Randwick resident Tom, 71, says he is concerned about the “incompetence” and “lack of transparency” of the government.
But, he says: “I lived through the last government and [corrupt former minister] Eddie Obeid, it was just chaos … so it’s a choice between a lack of transparency on the one hand, and chaos.”
Labor lost Balmain, like Coogee, in the 2011 landslide – but not to the Liberals. It became the first seat the Greens won at a state election in NSW and it is one of three inner-west Sydney seats that are predominantly Labor-Greens contests.
Two are considered fairly safe. The Greens’ Jenny Leong won the seat of Newtown with a margin of 9.3% at the last election, while Labor’s Jo Haylen won Summer Hill with a margin of 10.5%. Balmain remains tighter.
The 2011 victory was symbolic not just because of the Greens’ breakthrough, but because the Labor party was born in the electorate. It was formed at Unity Hall hotel more than 100 years ago, when the waterfront of the inner-west peninsula heaved with industry and the cottages that still line its narrow streets were home to stevedores and factory workers.
Balmain remains socially progressive but the demographics have changed.
“It’s one of the the most affluent, highly educated, most professionally employed electorates in the state,” says the ABC’s election analyst, Antony Green. “And the Greens do well in that sort of inner-city electorate.”
But Balmain retains a vigorous spirit of community activism.
The day Guardian Australia visited, a small but noisy community protest happened to be taking place before 9am.
Parents, children and councillors chanted and waved signs in Buruwan Park, a tiny patch of green space set to be acquired as part of the WestConnex construction.
This project, like the light rail in Coogee, looms large in the election.
The Coalition’s pitch has long been that the 33km network of tolled motorways – above and below ground – will reduce congestion. But while that may fly with commuters in the outer suburbs, it’s long drawn ire in the inner west, where residents have been dealing with home acquisitions and damage, and where the call for better public transport, not toll roads, resonates.
In Balmain, it’s about to get closer to home: under stage three of the project, eight lanes of traffic will run underneath the inner west in twin tunnels, and a huge underground interchange is to be built at Rozelle, in the heart of the electorate. Another road is planned to run under the Balmain peninsula to the north shore, called the Western Harbour Tunnel.
“This project is working against the communities’ interests and in the interest of toll operators and private corporations,” is how one resident, Brian Gorman, summed up the mood of many in a submission to a recent parliamentary inquiry into WestConnex.
The Greens, including Balmain MP Jamie Parker, have been among the most vociferous opponents of the project – particularly stage three.
Labor, by contrast, has walked a political tightrope. Inner-city MPs have lashed the project and key elements of the rollout – including the sale of 51% to a private consortium led by Transurban – but the party says cancelling the contracts that have been signed for stage three would pose an unacceptable risk to the state’s finances. However, it ruled out building the Western Harbour Tunnel.
Gorman, 57, an architect who lives Rozelle, has voted for both Labor and Greens in the past and is undecided this time around. His concerns about the project also include the health and environmental impacts of unfiltered exhaust stacks and years of construction in his community.
“I think the Greens have a strong foothold because the people of the inner west feel like they are listening to them, while the other parties are not,” he says. “Whether they’re able to deliver the changes we need remains to be seen.”
For him, WestConnex is by far the biggest issue: “If any party says they will cancel the Rozelle interchange and Iron Cove link, I’d vote for them.”
The Greens strongly oppose that stage of the project, but Labor has cast doubt on their ability to do anything about it.
“[The Greens] are not a party of government, it’s really difficult to deliver on the promises they make,” says the Labor candidate, Elly Howse.
“The longer you are in office the more people will be expecting you to do the things you said you would do.”
But Parker, a former mayor of Leichhardt, argues the Greens’ role on the crossbench is valuable.
He is campaigning on his record of advocacy, including against the development of the vast green space of Callan Park and in favour of a new public school in Ultimo.
“A vote for the Greens means there will be an MP doing everything they can on WestConnex, rather than another MP who supports it,” he says.
“The Greens can be incredibly influential with keeping Labor on track, or holding a Liberal government to account. We’ve demonstrated that we can achieve results at a local level and we’re effective at influencing the other parties.”
Howse, a 30-year-old public health researcher from Labor’s left, is a new candidate, succeeding the former MP Verity Firth, who lost in 2011 and was defeated again in 2015. Howse’s campaign is emphasising policies that might appeal to progressive voters – a program to install 500,000 solar panels and support for the floundering live music industry, as well as local promises such as an LGBT pride centre in the inner west.
She ran unopposed for preselection, and says she is is optimistic about Labor’s ability to take back the seat. She doesn’t accept it’s permanently slipped from grasp.
“The Victorian election and the Batman byelection [where Labor defeated the Greens in an inner Melbourne federal seat] show us that changing demographics doesn’t mean that Labor support goes or reduces,” she says.