Seat of the week: Robertson

Roy Morgan’s effort to pull the rug from under Newspoll on Tuesday, as noted in the update to the previous post, has deprived me of my usual Friday poll thread. It us thus left to Seat of the Week to fly the flag on its lonesome. The latest instalment looks at the NSW Central Coast seat of Robertson, held for Labor by what on present indications looks to be an undefendable margin of 1.0%.

One of the happier aspects of the 2010 election for Labor was an apparent tactical win in New South Wales, where a statewide swing of 4.8% yielded the Coalition a notional gain of only four seats – half of what would have been achieved on a uniform swing. Remarkably, the four marginals Labor retained against the trend – all of which were outside Sydney – were the only four in the state which swung in Labor’s favour: Eden-Monaro (2.0% swing), Page (1.8%), Dobell (1.1%) and, most fortuitiously, Robertson, where a winning margin of just 0.1% from 2007 became 1.0% in 2010. This was despite the unceremonious departure of Labor’s accident-prone sitting member, Belinda Neal.

Robertson covers the coast about 60 kilometres north of Sydney, with the Hawkesbury River marking its southern boundary with Berowra. All but a small share of its voters live at its coastal end, which includes Labor-leaning Woy Woy, Liberal-leaning Terrigal and marginal Gosford. The remainder of the electorate covers Popran National Park, McPherson State Forest and the Mangrove Creek dam. Although technically a federation seat, it was a different beast when it was created, covering the inland rural areas of Mudgee, Singleton and Scone.

As Robertson was drawn over time into the increasingly urbanised coast, the conservatives’ hold weakened to the point where Barry Cohen was able to gain it for Labor in 1969, and to withstand the party’s disasters of 1975 and 1977. The seat drifted back slightly in the Liberals’ favour thereafter, and was held by them throughout the Howard years by Jim Lloyd, who unseated Labor’s Frank Walker with a 9.2% swing in 1996.

Robertson returned to the Labor fold in 2007 when a 7.0% swing delivered a 184-vote winning margin to their candidate Belinda Neal, wife of Right faction powerbroker and then senior state minister John Della Bosca. Neal had earlier served in the Senate from 1994 until 1998, when she quit to make a first unsuccessful run in Robertson. Once elected Neal soon made a name for herself with a peculiar parliamentary attack on a pregnant Sophie Mirabella, and an episode in which she allegedly abused staff at Gosford restaurant-nightclub Iguana Joe’s. In 2009 her husband, who had been present during the Iguana Joe’s fracas, resigned as state Health Minister after it was revealed he was having an affair with a 26-year-old woman.

Suggestions that Neal’s preselection might be in danger emerged soon after the Iguana Joe’s incident. A challenger emerged in the shape of Deborah O’Neill, an education teacher at the University of Newcastle and narrowly unsuccessful state candidate for Gosford in 2003. O’Neill won the favour of local branches and, so Peter van Onselen of The Australian reported, “NSW Labor Right powerbrokers”. The national executive allowed the decision to be determined by a normal rank-and-file ballot, in which O’Neill defeated Neal 98 votes to 67. O’Neill went on to prevail at the election against Liberal candidate Darren Jameson, a local police sergeant.

The preselected Liberal candidate for the next election is Lucy Wicks, who has contentiously been imposed on the local branches by the fiat of the party’s state executive. Barclay Crawford of the Daily Telegraph reports this occurred at the insistence of Tony Abbott, who lacked confidence in the local party organisation owing to its poor performance at the 2010 election and the recent preselection of a problematic candidate in Dobell.

The solution was to impose candidates on both electorates; to choose women for reasons of broader electoral strategy; and to share the spoils between the warring Alex Hawke “centre Right” and David Clarke “hard Right” factions (local potentate Chris Hartcher being aligned with the latter). Robertson went to soft Right in the person of Lucy Wicks, who according to the Telegraph was a particularly galling choice for members due to her tenuous local credentials and membership of the very state executive which imposed her as candidate.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

2,210 comments on “Seat of the week: Robertson”

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  10. @2055 What is it with the US? Poor bastards pick all the best places – Darwin, Exmouth, Alice Springs – no one update their maps!

  11. thanks to all who didnt participate in the thommo poll

    Kept meaning to ask but had real life happening. What was that masked poll?? 🙂

  12. Without wanting to belittle our future King and Queen, here is a snapshot of the types of conversations they have (WARNING: CONTAINS UN-ROYAL LEWD SUGGESTIONS):

    btw, this is an example of the Rupert Murdoch inspired hacking of private phone calls

    [Scanner Enthusiast: December 18th

    Camilla: I know it would revive me. I can’t bear a Sunday night without you.

    Charles: Oh, God.

    Camilla: It’s like that programme Start the Week. I can’t start the week without you.

    Charles: I fill up your tank!

    Camilla: Yes, you do

    Charles: Then you can cope.

    Camilla: Then I’m all right

    Charles: What about me? The trouble is I need you several times a week.

    Camilla: Mmmm, so do I. I need you all the week. All the time.

    Charles: Oh. God. I’ll just live inside your trousers or something. It would be
    much easier!

    Camilla: (laughing) “what are you going to turn into, a pair of knickers?

    Both laugh

    Camilla: Oh, You’re your’e going to come back as a pair of knickers.

    Charles: Or, God forbid a Tampax. Just my luck! (Laughs)

    Camilla: You are a complete idiot (Laughs) Oh, what a wonderful idea.

    Charles: My luck to be chucked down the lavatory and go on and on forever
    swirling round on the top, never going down.

    Camilla: (Laughing) Oh, Darling!
    ]
    http://www.textfiles.com/phreak/camilla.txt

  14. MM:

    [i think for it to be truly Australian our local monarch should be voted via gold lotto. you win 5 years at Yarralumla – all expenses paid and a team of constitutional lawyers who will give you all the advice you need.]

    Two problems with that:

    (1) Clive Palmer would buy most of the tickets and thereby move into Yarralumla.

    (2) Because Clive Palmer knows more about the Constitution than the combined wisdom of all Oz constitutional lawyers EVAH, he’d ignore that advice….

    … but YES, there’s a slight money-saver there.

    Enjoy the 10:30pm bottle 🙂

  15. Compact Crank

    [@2055 What is it with the US? Poor bastards pick all the best places – Darwin, Exmouth, Alice Springs – no one update their maps!]
    The NT during the Build Up. They will have fun. 😆

  16. dwh:

    [I think Lord John Howard would make a perfect first local monarch.]

    And Lady Hyacinth as the perfick (trouser-wearing) First Consort?

    NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO………………………

  17. Fiona

    [“The Nine Tailors” is definitely up there in my canon of best evers.]

    Were you around a few weeks back when we were discussing this, I mentioned that in 1982, after asking about & hunting around Fen towns for quite some time, I found the church with the angel ceiling, exactly as described in The Nine Tailors?

    A few hours later, I was watching PD James’s Unnatural Causes and there it was, about 30 mins into the DVD, with the angel ceiling. I’ve just timed it (when I posted the info originally, I’d backed the DVD & thought it was only about 10min in!)
    In 1982, about 3 weeks later, we were dining in a Salisbury restaurant at Poultry Cross, opposite the Cathedral, when bell-ringing practice began; the whole repertoire – again as described in The Nine Tailors.

  20. With respect william
    Connie was defending herself what

    Disgusted, absolutley the last straw,

    So no one can defend them e selves any more

  21. [Kept meaning to ask but had real life happening. What was that masked poll?? ]

    good Q

    just a personal thingy

    will collate the results and send to thommo

    it was enlightening that many believed in the person, not the machine
    also sorta restores my faith in how we see our MP’s

    ps I am not belittling the other optionees

    just pleased as punch , many saw it as the act of a person, not some trickery or stunt

  26. OzPol Tragic,

    Yes, ’twas moi. How lucky you were to find the church. We went hunting too, back in 1979, but didn’t find the exact one. Nevertheless, we explored many wonderful places, and had a great time even though I had to shoehorn OH in and out of the hired Mini.

    In retrospect, it’s not surprising that he was so averse to stopping at places, and just kept on driving. Mind you, I did gain a surprisingly complete knowledge of the motorways of England.

  29. MrDenmore liftsus above the banal Royalt worship of a dysfunctional family. The tabloids are all over this Royalty stuff, which just goes to prove…

    [What we’re seeing now in the mainstream media is classic creative destruction in the Schumpeter model, This refers to the idea in capitalism in which technological innovation disrupts (and in some cases completely destroys) an established business model. Of course, the degree to which you see this process as ‘creative’ or ‘destructive’ will depend on whether you are on the sharp end of it (like the sub-editors Fairfax is letting go).
    ]

    http://thefailedestate.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/burying-lead.html

  30. It seems many here are so engrossed in themselves
    They see no o es elses
    Pain,
    Stop read look and see whsts said sometimes.

    To other people stand up for them

    Like the pm does,
    Oopen your eyes

  31. h­ttp://delimiter.com.au/2012/06/01/us-telco-verizon-launches-300mbps-unlimited-fibre/

    Turnbull really better update his position on the NBN methinks. 🙂

    This is not future prognostication. This is a real company, with a similar customer base to the NBN, with exactly the same technology, and with millions of existing and active connections. The similarity to what Australia is planning locally — even down to the comparison with the HFC cable networks — is pretty exact, apart from the fact that Verizon is not an infrastructure monopoly — it has competitors, such as the aforementioned cable networks. And Verizon is thinking about the future — not about how many of its customers merely want to buy basic voice telephony services.

  32. [@2008 Can you point out any inappropriate actions by the Monarchy or her representatives In the Governance of Australia since 11/11/1975?]

    Yes. They just are.

  33. Well back to the bike racing

    No royals in this
    Family

    Nihht connie thank you for your company over the last few years.

  37. French Left and Greens in New Govt
    _______________
    The new Socialist Pres has also formed a leftGovt and given two cabinet seats to the Greens

    In 10% of the conservative held seats where Greens with the support of /Socialsts and /far-left will have a good chance …the left parties will drop out in the second round and give the Greens a good chance
    The first round is on June 19…after that the bargaining begins
    Predictions are for a left wing majority of about 100 seats in the 560 or so seats in the Assembly

    In France the Greens once before were in a left-coalition with Socialists and Communists

    Odd when I hear such hatred of the Greens from some on this site,,,curious too in view of the similar attitude of the Libs to the Greens…who might pull off a real surprise result in the coming Melb by-election(state)
    Rumours are that the ALP-Greens are running at 50-50…in the absence of the Libs

  38. I’m all for an elected monarch/president, but I don’t want to see politicians in the job. So how about a random selection of, say, 20 candidates from the electoral roll who are put up as potential presidents. Then we go to the polls and pick one of those 20 random people to be president for 4 years.

    Apolitical. Independent of moneyed power. Hugely entertaining.

  39. r

    The comparison between boom and bust is a good one, IMHO. There is another useful comparison is between this jubilee celebration and the only other one. That one had nigh on a couple of hundred battleships and cruisers. For this one it was thought that there were not enough naval ships for a decent review. Official silence.

  40. PM: Tony Abbott
    Treasurer: Joe Hockey
    Governor General: John Howard.

    Much to look forward to under Gillard Labor. Will have to drink a toast to the brilliant determination to take the ship down one and all.

  42. L

    [@2008 Can you point out any inappropriate actions by the Monarchy or her representatives In the Governance of Australia since 11/11/1975?]

    They have stuck around with extensive establishments paid for by the taxpayers of Australia?

  43. [PM: Tony Abbott
    Treasurer: Joe Hockey
    Governor General: John Howard]

    why do i suspect this is written in your exercise book at least a thousand times accompanied by kisses and hearts

    just admit it TP, you want the #fibs, and bad

  44. Ladies and gentlemen,

    Three enclosures ago you may have observed one that was empty.

    Your observation was correct: that enclosure houses a chimera.

    Ignore and it will continue to go away.

  45. Finally a day of high DRAMA on Poll Bludger. It has been too long since the last one.

    It seems many here are so engrossed in themselves
    They see no o es elses
    Pain,
    Stop read look and see whsts said sometimes.

    my say you are the biggest bully on Poll Bludger. You have bullied me non-stop since I arrived here, constantly questioning my identity and my honesty. You are a text book passive aggressive, always taking the guise of an innocent just asking harmless questions.

    You are fortunate that many people can’t read exactly what you say and that the rest of us (including the moderator) just ignore you as not worth bothering about.

  47. [Obviously the office of monarch in a constitutional monarchy is not elected but so can many public offices in a ‘democracy’. I am a contrary sort of “socialist” ]
    FFS mate, the Head of State isn’t a dog catcher, it is a nation’s sovereign. For that person to not be elected, either directly or indirectly, is in complete conflict with democratic principles that the populace should have a say in who represents them.

  50. LSL

    You are right, but take my advice and don’t let the bullies get to you.

    They lash out because they are afraid, and they do indeed have much to fear given where the ALP is and their current trajectory.

    Just enjoy it and don’t let them get to you! 😉

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