“I’ll work with all sides of politics”: Who is Nicolette Boele and what are her “common sense” policies?

You’ve heard her name and seen her on corflutes around the Bradfield electorate. But who is Nicolette Boele, the independent hoping to win over the longtime Liberal stronghold - and what is she promising?

With the federal election looming, the Lorikeet caught Boele on a sunny Thursday morning while she was appearing at Willoughby polling booths.

“I just love how pre-polling and polling day brings out the best of what I love about living in Australia,” she said. “Whole different groups of people, with different political views, happy to smile at each other and wish each other a good weekend. That civility is what I hold on to.”

Some context

The Bradfield electorate stretches from Wahroonga to St Leonards and has been held by retiring Liberal MP Paul Fletcher since 2009. The Liberal Party has put forward Gisele Kapterian to replace Fletcher, but Boele will be hoping to continue strong swings in her favour experienced in the 2022 election. The outcome of next Saturday’s national vote is balanced by a delicate margin.

Boele thinks the major parties have failed and is campaigning on the slogan “better is possible” and “for people, not political parties”.

She describes herself as a finance and “clean energy” executive who grew up in Bradfield after her parents moved from Holland to Australia in the ‘60s. Educated at Gordon East primary, Killara High, then at University of Technology Sydney’s Ku-ring-gai campus, she now lives with her family in Gordon. Most recently, Boele was an advisor to a start-up delivering cheaper electric cars to Australian consumers.

First of all, what exactly is Boele (pronounced “buller”) promising?

According to her website, Boele promises to:

🧒🏼 Advocate for universal early childhood education: “We need universal, high-quality childcare to give every child a fair start in life.”

🛒Make groceries more affordable: “We need real supermarket competition and stronger consumer protections to ease the cost of living crisis.”

🏡Address the housing crisis: “No matter whether you’re looking to rent, buy, or are in need of housing support – the housing market isn’t working.”

👔 Cut red tape for small businesses: “We need fairer, simpler rules to help businesses thrive.”

🌏Take serious climate action: “Australia has boundless plains, endless sunshine, and plenty of wind. But major parties have failed to seize these opportunities, and now we're falling behind. That needs to change.”

➡️ This includes preserving Bradfield’s environment: “In Bradfield we cherish our natural environment and strong sense of community. We can ensure that new housing developments add to quality of life rather than destroying it.”

🔋Cut power bills: “We need cheap, reliable energy for everyone.”

🛡️Launch a parliamentary enquiry into AUKUS: “Any time Parliament commits to spend $368 billion we should at least have a full parliamentary inquiry.”

You can find Boele’s other policies (such as healthcare, HECS debts, social media, and domestic violence) on her website.

So, how is campaigning going lately?

“We’ve got almost 1300 volunteers, and in one month we had more donations than we did in the whole campaign in 2022,” Boele told the Lorikeet. “I haven’t said that out loud to any journalist before. There is a lot of support.”

Boele said her campaign has amassed over 950 donors. Her website discloses all donors over $1500.

“Someone added up that I’ve been campaigning for 1500 days,” she said, “just over three and a half years nearly. It feels very very close. Some days I come away and go ‘oh that was a tough one’. Other days I come away and I go, ‘that was hopeful’. It’s a really close seat so we’ll see how it goes.”

Much of the criticism of Boele has been around her fundraising, and particularly how many donations she has received via Climate 200. Boele said the group’s contribution was “less than a third at the moment” and as donations were still coming in, “is going to be even smaller than that.”

“But I am very grateful to Climate 200 donors for their contribution because it does some of the heavylifting fundraising for us and it means I get more time out listening to people and talking about the solutions I want to pursue so they want to trust me with their vote.”

Has anything surprised her?

“I had a gentleman come up when I was on pre-poll at Gordon. He said to me he hasn’t voted since 1961, for Robert Menzies - and me standing for election has given him the reason to come out and vote again. I was [so] honoured that he thought democracy in our local area is in with a chance - putting our communities’ values at the centre of our representation rather than just party politics and special interest.”

In the headlines

Boele used a recent Bradfield forum to address past controversy over an allegedly antisemitic 2022 social media post made, according to Boele, by a volunteer, acknowledging it as “disgraceful” and reaffirming her commitment to combating antisemitism.

Bradfield has the second-largest Jewish population in NSW after the seat of Wentworth.

While the audience appeared more receptive to her Liberal opponent according to AFR, Boele outlined steps she’s taken to educate herself, expressed openness to a judicial inquiry into campus antisemitism, and emphasised her independence from party preference deals, including a firm stance on not preferencing the Greens.

How does she feel about being in the headlines?

“It’s not unexpected. The kinds of things that have been happening are what we expect from the major parties. It’s why people are turning away from the major parties. All of the mudslinging and ripping people down instead of putting forward solutions: that’s a different politics. It’s not how I run my campaign. We want to focus on solutions.”

“If I’m elected, I’ll work with all sides of politics to deliver sensible, evidence-based policies that deliver real improvement for all Australians,” her website reads.

Read our other profiles of North Shore candidates below: