The woman who beat high-profile Labor candidate Kristina Keneally in the Sydney seat of Fowler says she will be a "real independent", not a "teal" one.
Fairfield Deputy Mayor Dai Le overturned Labor's 14 per cent margin in the electorate to secure a narrow victory over the former senator and NSW premier.
Ms Le is a former ABC journalist who has previously stood for the Liberals in state elections and believes her back story resonated in the diverse electorate held by Labor since its creation in 1984.
Ms Le, who was born in Vietnam, arrived in Australia aged 11 after spending three years in a refugee camp in the Philippines.
She said Labor paid the price for an "arrogant" decision to parachute Ms Keneally, who lives on the northern beaches, into the previously safe seat.
"So I think a lot of, especially the Labor voters, they thought it was a slap in the face, it was an insult to them," Ms Le told ABC News Breakfast today.
"Those were the comments that I received when voters were coming to vote for me and they have never voted anybody else other than Labor."
The former Liberal Party member teamed up with an ex-Labor mayor to lead a majority independent council in Fairfield following December's local government elections.
Asked to compare herself with the wave of "teal" independent women who swept to power in inner-city seats at the weekend, Ms Le drew a distinction between their climate-focused campaigns backed by multimillionaire Simon Holmes a Court.
"The teal independents — I'm a real independent," Ms Le said.
"This is is a grassroots community campaign and we care about the needs of our community.
"My electorate here has a different need to the electorates that the teal independents are representing.
"But I have no doubt, you know, there would be some other issues that we will ... have some conversation over."
She said people in the electorate felt abandoned and "demonised" by the major parties during Sydney's lockdown, with the west and south-western suburbs bound by harsher rules than their eastern counterparts.
Ms Le said locals wanted to see better health services, infrastructure and roads and more support for small businesses decimated by the pandemic.
"We were treated like second-class citizens," she said.
"So I think the community kind of got together and we connected ... and said, 'No, it's time for us. It's time that we have somebody from the community speaking up for us'."
This morning, incoming Wentworth MP Allegra Spender — one of the three so-called teal independents to win seats in Sydney — said even if Labor managed to form a majority government, the crossbench would have a significant say on policy.
"I think you look at the NSW government that started with a majority and ended up with a minority," she said.
"If it is that slim a majority of the crossbenches are always going to be powerful and something to be borne in mind."
Ms Spender defeated Liberal MP Dave Sharma in the blue-ribbon seat of Wentworth which he held for three years.
Mr Sharma said he was glad to have played a part in Australia's adoption of a net-zero emissions target by 2050 and policy responses to China's "growing assertiveness".
"Australia today faces a more challenging global outlook than we have seen for several generations, and in the face of such challenges the quality of our political and national leadership will matter greatly," he said in a statement.
