Division of North Sydney

This article is about the Australian federal electorate. For the historical New South Wales state electorate, see Electoral district of North Sydney.
North Sydney
Australian House of Representatives Division

Division of North Sydney in New South Wales, as of the 2016 federal election.
Created 1901
MP Trent Zimmerman
Party Liberal Party
Namesake North Sydney, New South Wales
Electors 107,083 (2016)
Area 53 km2 (20.5 sq mi)
Demographic Inner Metropolitan

The Division of North Sydney is an Australian electoral division in the state of New South Wales. It was proclaimed in 1900 and was one of the original 75 federation divisions contested at the first federal election.

Located along Sydney's North Shore, the division is named after the North Sydney area and includes the suburbs of Artarmon, Cammeray, Castlecrag, Crows Nest, Greenwich, Henley, Hunters Hill, Huntleys Cove, Huntleys Point, Kirribilli, Lane Cove, Lane Cove North, Lane Cove West, Lavender Bay, Linley Point, Longueville, McMahons Point, Middle Cove, Milsons Point, Naremburn, North Sydney, North Willoughby, Northbridge, Northwood, Riverview, St Leonards, Tarban, Waverton, Willoughby, Willoughby East, Wollstonecraft, and Woolwich; as well as parts of Chatswood, Chatswood West, Cremorne, Gladesville, Gore Hill, and Neutral Bay.

Second only to the nearby Division of Wentworth, the Division of North Sydney has the nation's second highest proportion (56.4%) of high income families.[1] As with all North Shore seats, the division has usually been a comfortably safe seat for the Liberal Party of Australia and its predecessors. Labor has usually run dead in this seat, though it came within 3.1 percent of winning it at the 1943 election landslide. North Sydney and Wentworth are the only two federation divisions in New South Wales to have never been held by Labor. It has been held by a member of a non-Labor party for all but six years of its existence, when held by "father of the independents" Ted Mack, from the 1990 election before choosing to resign from federal parliament after two terms at the 1996 election, for the same reason he previously chose to resign from state parliament after two terms − to avoid receiving a parliamentary pension.[2]

However, during Mack's tenure, North Sydney was always a safe Liberal seat in traditional two-party matchups, and it was a foregone conclusion that it would revert to the Liberals once Mack retired. As expected, when Mack retired in 1996, Joe Hockey reclaimed the seat for the Liberals and held it until 2015, serving as Treasurer from 2013 to 2015 in the Abbott Government. Following the successful September 2015 Liberal leadership spill Hockey moved to the backbench, however six days later he announced his intention to resign from parliament, taking effect from 23 October. The 2015 North Sydney by-election occurred on 5 December to elect his replacement, Trent Zimmerman, a former Hockey staffer, despite a large swing.[3][4]

Zimmerman won with 48.2 percent of the primary vote after a larger-than-predicted 12.8 percent swing against the Turnbull Coalition Government. This was only the second time in North Sydney since federation that the successful Liberal candidate did not obtain a majority of the primary vote and had to rely on preferences. Zimmerman faced a double-digit primary vote swing − more than triple that of the 2015 Canning by-election − even though Labor did not even contest the seat.[1]

The Liberal two-candidate vote of 60.2 percent against independent Stephen Ruff compares to the previous election vote of 65.9 percent against Labor.[1] The reduction of 5.7 percent cannot be considered a "two-party/candidate preferred swing" − when a major party is absent, preference flows to both major parties does not take place, resulting in asymmetric preference flows.[5][6]

Ian Macfarlane attempted to defect from the Liberal party room to the National party room with accompanying demands for additional Nationals cabinet representation, and the Mal Brough James Ashby diary controversy deepened in the last week of the campaign.[7][8] Along with the unexpected by-election swing and Turnbull's significantly lessened personal ratings in the concurrent December Newspoll, some News Corp journalists opined Malcolm Turnbull's honeymoon to be over.[9][10][11][12][13]

Zimmerman became the first openly-LGBTI member of the House of Representatives.[14][15]

Members

MemberPartyTerm
  Dugald Thomson Free Trade, Anti-Socialist 1901–1909
  Commonwealth Liberal 1909–1910
  George Edwards Commonwealth Liberal 1910–1911
  (Sir) Granville Ryrie Commonwealth Liberal 1911–1917
  Nationalist 1917–1922
  Billy Hughes Nationalist 1922–1929
  Independent Nationalist 1929–1930
  Australian 1930–1931
  United Australia 1931–1945
  Liberal 1945–1949
  William Jack Liberal 1949–1966
  Bill Graham Liberal 1966–1980
  John Spender Liberal 1980–1990
  Ted Mack Independent 1990–1996
  Joe Hockey Liberal 1996–2015
  Trent Zimmerman Liberal 2015–present

Election results

Australian federal election, 2016: North Sydney[16]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Liberal Trent Zimmerman 47,614 51.49 −9.42
Labor Peter Hayes 15,537 16.80 −3.22
Greens Arthur Chesterfield-Evans 12,036 13.02 −2.50
Independent Stephen Ruff 11,829 12.79 +12.79
Christian Democrats Sharon Martin 1,894 2.05 +1.08
Science James Coffey 1,629 1.76 +1.76
Liberal Democrats Daniel Leahy 1,289 1.39 +1.39
Family First Eddy Ku 649 0.70 +0.70
Total formal votes 92,477 95.24 +0.59
Informal votes 4,623 4.76 −0.59
Turnout 97,100 90.68 −1.57
Two-party-preferred result
Liberal Trent Zimmerman 58,825 63.61 −2.10
Labor Peter Hayes 33,652 36.39 +2.10
Liberal hold Swing −2.10

References

  1. 1 2 3 2015 North Sydney by-election: Antony Green ABC
  2. ↑ Independents' 'father' says trio will choose ALP: ABC AM 6 September 2010
  3. ↑ Gartrell, Adam (December 5, 2015). "Liberal Trent Zimmerman wins North Sydney byelection despite swing". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved December 6, 2015.
  4. ↑ Osborne, Paul (2015-10-26). "Zimmerman wins North Sydney preselection". Yahoo 7 News. Retrieved 2015-10-28.
  5. ↑ "A Comment on the Size of the Port Adelaide Swing, Antony Green". Blogs.abc.net.au. 2012-02-13. Retrieved 2012-07-26.
  6. ↑ An Example of Non-Monotonicity and Opportunites [sic] for Tactical Voting at an Australian Election: Antony Green ABC 4 May 2011
  7. ↑ Liberal MP Ian Macfarlane defects to Nationals in shock move against Malcolm Turnbull: SMH 3 December 2015
  8. ↑ Malcolm Turnbull suddenly has a lot of problems: Business Insider 3 December 2015
  9. ↑ The honeymoon is over: David Speers/Switzer 3 December 2015
  10. ↑ Turnbull’s ‘honeymoon’ coming to an end: Courier Mail 3 December 2015
  11. ↑ Honeymoon over for Malcolm Turnbull: Herald Sun 6 December 2015
  12. ↑ Is the Turnbull honeymoon over?: Courier Mail 7 December 2015
  13. ↑ Turnbull ducks talk on Brough's future: The Advertiser 8 December 2015
  14. ↑ Gartrell, Adam (December 5, 2015). "Liberal Trent Zimmerman wins North Sydney byelection despite swing". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved December 6, 2015.
  15. ↑ When an election’s not a battle but a limp formality: Daily Telegraph 26 November 2015
  16. ↑ North Sydney, NSW, Virtual Tally Room 2016, Australian Electoral Commission.

External links

Coordinates: 33°48′58″S 151°11′02″E / 33.816°S 151.184°E / -33.816; 151.184

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