Can the Liberal Party sell a new face in a former stronghold? Meet Scott Yung
The young conservative with a background in public housing, small business and party machine politics.
Melissa Mantle
March 31, 2025
The seat of Bennelong - once owned by former Liberal Prime Minister John Howard - is currently held by Labor’s Jerome Laxale. Well, it is and it isn’t.
A boundary redistribution after the 2022 election saw the seat of Bennelong move further east into wealthier suburbs, and for Laxale this was not good news. In fact, although it’s his name that has the “MP” next to it, Bennelong is now “notionally” considered to be a Liberal seat.
In conservative world, this means a return to the natural order. For Laxale, it poses an immense challenge.
So what do we know about the Liberal who is “notionally” the favourite on May 3? His name is Scott Yung. Yung has not responded to our requests for an interview, so we can only go on what’s publicly available.
Well-educated and home to a large Chinese-Australian community, Bennelong spans suburbs traditionally seen as “North Shore” as well as parts of Ryde and the City of Parramatta. In the 2022 election, Laxale narrowly beat Liberal candidate Simon Kennedy, and holds the seat by a wafer thin margin of 0.98 percent.
From public housing to preselection
According to LinkedIn, Yung joined the Liberal Party seven years ago. He served as president of the Young Liberals’ Georges River branch and founded the party’s Chinese Youth Council in 2017. He was preselected for Bennelong more than a year ago and previously ran for state parliament in Kogarah in 2019.
A graduate of Sydney Boys High School and UNSW (Bachelor of Commerce), Yung worked as a Westpac bank teller and later in sales for Yellow Brick Road, becoming Head of Recruitment there in 2016.
Born in Sydney to Chinese migrant parents, Yung grew up in public housing and now lives in Ryde, where he runs The Primary Way, an education business serving local families.
He has said in an Instagram video he is “extremely grateful” for his housing commission upbringing, calling it proof that “this is what Australia’s about - equal opportunity for everyone”.
Yung speaks Cantonese, Mandarin and Shanghainese.
What will Yung’s campaign focus on?
He has said his campaign focus will be easing cost-of-living pressures and backing small businesses.
“We need a long-term economic plan to ensure we are better insulated in the future against potential economic shocks,” he posted on social media earlier this month. “That’s why one of my top priorities will be building back a strong economy - because when the economy does well, everyone benefits.”
In the same post, he shared a Sky News article claiming that interest rate hikes since 2022 had added at least $20,000 annually to the mortgage repayments of Bennelong families with $750,000 loans.
“Compassion, integrity and empathy” are the values Yung said guide his politics, according to a recent Instagram video.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported earlier this month that Yung misled his party about the amount raised at a 2019 fundraiser.
Thumbnail images: Liberal Party (right), Australian Parliament House (left)