Meryl Swanson, pictured on election night in 2022, is Labor MP for the seat of Paterson. The next federal election, due May next year, could see Ms Swanson in the spotlight as a boggling mix of Paterson voters heads to the polls. A winning pitch for Ms Swanston will need to be clever, compelling, and appealing in every nook of the electorate.
Good luck with that.
Ms Swanson confronts an electoral map that would send the most experienced political operators dizzy.
Paterson takes in the New England Highway corridor to Newcastle's west and the Pacific Highway corridor to the north. It includes three of the Hunter's key regional centres, Maitland, Raymond Terrace and Nelson Bay. It hosts Newcastle airport and the Williamtown defence complex.
The electorate is old rural and new-build urban. Its composition is quirky, and with its new boundaries, which boot Labor-stronghold Kurri Kurri into the neighbouring seat of Hunter, Paterson has become one of the nation's most marginal seats.
The seat will be eagerly contested, but not only in the scrap for a parliamentary majority. Perhaps more importantly, the political message that wins Paterson is highly likely to win big across Australia.
Addressing the needs of elderly Australians is critical for Meryl Swanson. The 2021 census shows the Nelson Bay end of Paterson is dominated by the elderly. Most suburbs around the bay have median ages in the low 50s, while the median age of Shoal Bay residents climbs to 59 years and Fingal Bay to 63 years. Crucially, average household incomes for the bay's retirees are modest. Managing rising living costs with a fixed income isn't fun.
Another world sits at the other end of Paterson, at least demographically. Maitland City is one of Australia's fastest growing urban areas. New houses sprout like pumpkins, kitted out from nearby bulky goods retailers, occupied by Australia's youngest households. At the 2021 census, the suburb of Metford showed a median age of 35 years, Thornton and Chisholm 32 years, Farley and Gillieston Heights 30 years, and Cliftleigh a ridiculously young 27 years.
Rising living costs have hit this nappy belt hard. A double whammy comes from high interest rates. Nappy-belt families have a narrow shot at home ownership. New estates on the urban fringe offer cheaper dwellings, but two incomes are a must.
Many men from the estates are in mining, with long daily commutes, the sun at their backs each way. Others are in construction, driving each way into the sun, one building site to another, battling traffic, on roads not designed for today's level of use.
The most common jobs for young women in the nappy belt are in health and social care, in hospitals, aged care, child care, NDIS. Many have multiple work sites, most are car dependent, many are casual employees, on low rates.
We know from national surveys that young folk are detached from politics, few listen to regular news broadcasts, fewer read newspapers. The American elections suggest the nappy belt will vote out an incumbent unable to offer a cost-of-living solution.
And then there are the politics of climate change. Paterson is home to over 2,600 workers in the mining sector. Labor's plans to decarbonise the Australian economy are well underway, and investments in renewables in the Hunter are central. Coal-fired power stations are closing. An end to coal mining is coming - young workers in Ms Swanson's electorate will live to see the day. At the same time, Ms Swanson confronts a very rowdy anti-renewables lobby, concerned at proposals for the erection of wind turbines 20 kilometres out to sea, off Port Stephens.
Certainly, a portion of the opposition to Labor's energy policies in Paterson has little regard for scientific facts or common decency. But federal Labor isn't ditching its strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Ms Swanson has much to do to turn Labor's climate policies into vote winners. And opposition candidates are sure to move the dial to ugly on this issue alone.
