Can one mistake cost an incumbent their seat? In Reid, we may be about to find out

The MP for one of NSW’s most marginal Liberal seats looks grim. Reid’s Dr Fiona Martin is doing long days at pre-poll in her Western Sydney seat and the strain is showing. When I ask her what voters want to talk about, she parrots the party line and says “border security”.

But I doubt that very much. Last week, in a live radio debate, she appeared to mix up her Labor opponent, Sally Sitou, with another Asian-Australian woman (which she denies), and the electorate has been in an uproar. 

During a debate on 2GB, which was also filmed, Martin accused Sitou of moving to the electorate because she “couldn’t run in Fowler”, and said Kristina Keneally “kicked you out of Fowler too”.

At the time, Sitou looked confused, saying she had never run as a candidate in Fowler. But commentators quickly concluded that Martin had in fact been referring to lawyer Tu Le, who had hoped to run in the seat of Fowler in Sydney’s south-west until Labor parachuted in Keneally. Sitou’s ancestry is Chinese while Le’s is Vietnamese.

After the debate, Sitou tweeted, “My opponent either has me confused for a different Asian-Australian, or she is deliberately misleading people. Either way, she should apologise. In high pressure situations like this, people make mistakes. All I’m asking Dr Martin to do is admit a mistake and say sorry.” Footage of the exchange ran on social media for days, evoking a highly critical reaction.

According to the census, Reid has the third-highest number of residents with a Chinese ancestry in the country. The incident has been written about by the local Chinese-language media and even made its way to the South China Morning Post, which ran interviews with locals calling it “disappointing” and “disrespectful”.  

Martin has flatly denied making the mistake and last Thursday issued a statement on Facebook saying that she was the “granddaughter of Greek migrants” and that her “record makes clear I would never direct a racial slur at anyone”.  

“I won’t be distracted by desperate political games played by the Labor Party and its seat shopping candidates.”

That post has 863 comments on it and although I didn’t read every single one, I did read enough to register that the overwhelming number of people commenting felt that she should own up to her mistake and apologise. The next day Martin posted a photo with eight supporters, seven of whom appear to be Asian-Australians. 

Martin was elected in 2019 when millionaire publican Craig Laundy decided to retire. At that time she had Scott Morrison and Gladys Berejiklian campaigning for her, but this time fellow Liberal moderates Andrew Bragg, Paul Fletcher and Marise Payne have been turning up to support her at pre-poll. 

When I visited yesterday, Sitou was situated just 10 metres down the path from Martin, looking relaxed. Homebush has a high percentage of Chinese-Australian residents and the young PhD candidate greeted the voters with a broad smile, switching effortlessly between English and Mandarin. 

Former NSW Labor leader Jodi McKay was there to help out; as the former member for the neighbouring state seat of Strathfield, she is well known in the area. Also handing out how-to-votes was the former member for Bennelong, Maxine McKew; Sitou worked on her campaign in 2007 and the two are good friends. While I was there, former Labor leader Bob Carr rang in and spoke to Sitou, offering advice.  

But the radio interview is not the only problem for Martin. The child psychologist with a PhD is facing another issue that could cost her votes. The Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) has launched a well-funded campaign targeting Liberal MPs who crossed the floor to help defeat the government’s religious discrimination bill. 

Along with Bridget Archer in Bass, Dave Sharma in Wentworth, Trent Zimmerman in North Sydney and Katie Allen in Higgins, Martin has been targeted by the ACL, which has labelled them an “ideological cancer” on the party.

The problem for Martin is that Reid, along with other multicultural electorates in Western Sydney, has large faith-based communities who, as the marriage equality debate showed, are very conservative on social issues.

A new study from the Centre for Western Sydney has found that Reid is one of five seats in Western Sydney that have become extremely unpredictable and volatile. The study found that growing political literacy, combined with higher rates of multilingualism, cultural diversity and religious faith have resulted in “an unpredictable battleground”.

“Western Sydney’s quiet Australians are restless and it’s unlikely either of the major parties will be able to claim the region as its own for some time,” the report said.

“Western Sydney voters are expressing a diversity in opinion at the ballot box to an extent that defies prediction and conventional political logic.”

Perhaps the last word on the issue should go to the satirists, for whom situations like this are a godsend.  The comedians at The Shovel said that Martin had apologised to Labor’s Penny Wong for the mistake, while The Betoota Advocate ran a photo of the radio interview, saying she had complimented Sitou on appearing in Charlie’s Angels (it was actor Lucy Liu).

But Martin isn’t laughing and neither is a good chunk of the electorate. Ladbroke’s betting agency now has Sitou at $1.25, with Martin on $3.75. No wonder she looks worried.