Seat of the week: Werriwa

It’s a measure of Labor’s woes in Sydney that the seat of Gough Whitlam and Mark Latham is routinely being included on lists of the potential casualties.

Famously held by Gough Whitlam throughout a parliamentary career lasting from 1952 to 1978, the south-western Sydney seat of Werriwa has been in Labor hands since 1931. However, it is now considered endangered for the first time in living memory after the margin was cut from 15.1% to 6.8% in 2010, followed by the devastating example of the state election the following March. The electorate in its current form covers suburbs clustered around the South Western Freeway and the Campbelltown rail line, from Macquarie Fields south to Ingleburn and Minto and north to Hoxton Park and Liverpool South, together with Liberal-voting semi-rural territory further to the west. The seat has been fundamentally altered a number of times since its creation at federation, at which time it covered Goulburn 200 kilometres to the south-west of Sydney. It was shifted eastwards to the Illawarra in 1934, when it commenced its life as a safe Labor seat, then moved northwards as far as the Sutherland Shire in 1949, and finally adopted its south-western Sydney orientation in 1955, when it covered Cabramatta and Liverpool. In remaining at Sydney’s outer edge since, it has tended to be pushed further south-westerwards over subsequent redistributions.

Labor’s Hubert Lazzarini followed his shifting electorate from 1919 until his death in 1952, except for a term after the 1931 election when it fell to the Country Party. Lazzarini was succeeded by Gough Whitlam, whose tale does not need reiterating here. John Kerin became member in 1978 when Whitlam quit in the wake of the 1977 election disaster, going on to serve a forgettable stint as Treasurer after the failure of Paul Keating’s first leadership challenge in June 1991. Kerin was followed in 1994 by the seat’s second Labor leader, Mark Latham. Although Labor’s hold on the seat was never endangered, Latham went through a wild ride in his time here in more ways than one: the seat swung 9.3% to the Liberals in 1996, 6.5% to Labor in 1998, and 4.8% to the Liberals in 2001. Latham was also disrupted when his strongest party branches were removed from the electorate in the redistribution before the 2001 election. His factional enemies, who were apparently not in short supply, argued he should instead be made to try his luck in marginal Macarthur.

Latham quit politics in January 2005 and was succeeded at a by-election by Chris Hayes, an official of the Right faction Australian Workers Union, who easily retained the seat in the absence of a Liberal candidate. Another round of Labor upheaval followed when the redistribution before the 2010 election effectively abolished the safe Labor inner Sydney seat of Reid (which survived in name but was effectively merged with neighbouring Lowe). Labor’s member for Reid was Laurie Ferguson, brother of Martin Ferguson, with whom he formed the base of a Left sub-faction that had counted Julia Gillard among its number. Ferguson was at first determined to be accommodated in Fowler, to be vacated at the election by Julia Irwin, but a deal was in force reserving the seat for the locally dominant Right. He instead settled for Werriwa under a deal Gillard was able to reach against opposition of Anthony Albanese and the Left, in which Hayes would take Fowler instead. That in turn froze out Ed Husic, national president of the Communications Electrical and Plumbing Union, for whom Fowler had been earmarked, but he was accommodated in Chifley following Roger Price’s decision to retire.

The Liberal candidate for the coming election is Kent Johns, the Liberal mayor of Sutherland Shire, who was once a Labor mayor of Rockdale before becoming an independent. Johns reportedly won preselection with backing from factional moderate Scott Morrison. This has generated grumblings from locals aligned with the Right, who complain of having an outsider foisted upon them. Chief among the aggrieved is thwarted preselection hopeful Mark Koosache, a local school librarian and former soldier who has campaigned against cuts to entitlements for defence personnel, who says he is contemplating running as an independent and directing preferences to Labor. There has also been talk that Ferguson might bow out at the election, but he has told the local media his nomination forms have been submitted and he is set on serving another term.

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.

1,128 comments on “Seat of the week: Werriwa”

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  2. There is an outbreak of seriously and willfully false reporting on the JG announcement today.
    Surely PMJG is within her rights to give some chosen ones a real public dressing down, bring their professionalism into severe doubt.

  4. The name Gillard reached England in the great wave of migration following the Norman conquest of 1066. It is based on the Norman given name, Willard. This name is derived from the Germanic roots, will, meaning desire, and heard, meaning strong or hard.

    Source, House of Names.com

  6. rossmcg:

    Thanks for that. I had no idea WA parliament had wrapped up. Whatever happened to local 730Report on Fridays – my usual catch up of state politics?

  8. Player One:

    [Have you not read the forum guidelines? – see point 7:]

    Oh dear … I must concede I hadn’t read them. Oh well, maybe just this once … if I promise not to re-offend, I can be excused with a caution. I do kind of miss LP 😉

  9. Hi all,

    Haven’t logged in here for a while, been busy on stuff – but I’d like to cheer you up by explaining why the ALP is a near CERTAINTY to win the election in Sep.

    The astute among you should snap up the easy money on offer with the bookies. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

    Forget the polls which just reflect all the irrelevent beatups of the MSM.

    There is one big mother-of-all sleeper issues in this election year which is being carefully and almost totally avoided by the media, and for a very good reason. The media are afraid – very afraid. The mainstream media are going DOWN, DOWN like Coles’ big red finger. And the killer is Conroy’s baby, the NBN.

    You wouldn’t know about it from reading the OO’s trolls, but the sheer lust for the NBN is spreading like a wildfire through the minds of outer suburban and regional Australia.

    For skeptical or pessimistic readers who might think I’m going a bit over the top here, I invite them to click here, where they will find some 8000 pages of threads each containing between 5 and 100 pages, each page containing about 20 or so seperate comments: that’s about 500,000 seperate posts, and well over 2 million or so page views.

    A typical thread:NBN in Armidale started: 61 pages of comments.

    Apart from a few trolls, over 95% of the comments are positive – extremely so.

    There’s basically only one complaint, and it encapsulates the essence of the NBN as an electoral winner for the government:
    when is it coming to my street?

    The answer to this is glaringly obvious: probably never, if you vote for Tony.

    Come September, it’s game over. Bye bye Tony, nice knowin’ ya.

  10. William,

    May I make a request about SoTW (last one, I hope)? I find it difficult to read the names of the suburbs/towns on the electorate map, is it possible to get a higher resolution .gif, or at least one that’s a little clearer? If not, I’ll survive, I can always look on the AEC site.

  12. Psephos,

    You inspire in mysterious ways.

    I’m thinking Dawn French makes a good Trish Crossin or NT NT ALP substitute and Nova makes a good bride.

    Others dan fill in the gaps.

  13. William Bowe
    Posted Saturday, February 2, 2013 at 7:08 pm | Permalink

    I did check Charlton’s page on Wikipedia, where I learned that he “rose through the ranks of Andrew Fisher’s government” – whatever that means exactly. Obviously not that he served as a minister.

    He was the one I was thinking of, something of a Newcastle legend. I read a little of him in a bio of TJ Ryan.

    According to that account, he took over what was left of the Labor Party after the Hughes split. In the 20s, Ryan, the former Queensland Premier (with Theodore as his deputy, then successor) was a rising star in federal politics.

    According to this writer, Ryan should probably have been given the leadership, rather than the Deputy’s job. Apparently the feeling was that Charlton was a thoroughly decent bloke who had loyally tried to keep the party together after it had been decimated. Nobody wanted to push him aside.

    It might still have worked out eventually, except for Ryan’s sudden death, only in his early 40s.

  15. Hugh Riminton on Ten tonight

    Abbott = stability
    Gillard = ‘a certain messy quality’

    They just write the Liberal talking points for them

  16. [gloryconsequence
    Posted Saturday, February 2, 2013 at 7:03 pm | PERMALINK
    In 2010 during the election campaign, information was leaked about Gillard that made its way to the press. It was considered a bombshell and was the media’s free ticket to suggest Gillard’s authority was in tatters.]
    Yep, the infamous leaks of 2010.

    The first leak was on July 15. The big Oakes graced the Press Council Address, and the new-PM, JG graciously greeted Oakes.

    And what did Oakes have to leak? That JG had apparently given Rudd an iron-clad agreement that she would give him a couple of months’ grace to turn round the polls.

    But it didn’t happen.

    According to Ruddista Piping Shrike et al that was tantamount to heresy.

    We awaited the opinion polls with bated breath.

    There was an immediate drop in female support, but not in male support, for the JG PM.

    That wasn’t enough for News. Had to convince the males.

    So, on July 27, Laurie did the BIGGEST bombshell. That’s when leaked Cabinet discussions revealed that Julia Gillard had opposed not only increases in the aged pension (who gave a stuff about those who were about to die anyway) but that she queried the benefit of Paid Parental Leave.

    Oh my fkn nearest neighbours’ canary down the coal mine!

    After the Oz recovered from on-site CPR, it made every news service in town, as if Australia could not recover from a position where a Cabinet discussion did not include a devil’s advocate, declare that they hated Julia.Glory Be!

    And, yes, JG’s popularity sank like a stone.

    So, Murdoch had his “compromising” photo, without the lens.

    That’s how the fker operates, of course.
    Thanks Laurie, how about a Walkley for that?
    Okay, says Laurie, can’t get down on my knees, but I’ll accept.
    Duly done.

    Julia Gillard had every reason to try to play Murdoch’s game, but she didn’t and she STILL will not give in to Murdoch. She won’t play the Murdoch roulette.

    And Australia is a better country for it.

  17. [The name Gillard reached England in the great wave of migration following the Norman conquest of 1066. It is based on the Norman given name, Willard. This name is derived from the Germanic roots, will, meaning desire, and heard, meaning strong or hard.]

    That’s very interesting. There is a pattern of relationship between French words and names beginning with G and Germanic words and names beginning with W. French Guillaume, Germanic Wilhelm or William; French guerre, Germanic wehr or war; French guard, English ward; French guarantee, English warranty. The Prince of Wales in French is the Prince du Galles. General de Gaulle was descended from a Flemish family called de Waal. And so on. So the Norman French form must have been Gillard, not Willard. The Anglo-Saxon name Willard must have been changed at some time to the Norman French spelling Gillard, or maybe vice versa.

  19. Psephos:

    My problem with Fran Kelly is not that she is hostile to the regime but indolent and vacuous, and inclined to nurture/indulge it in her guests, whether they are discussing Australian politics or not.

    This of course does tend to favour the LNP, for obvious reasons, but that’s merely a symptom of the problem rather than the problem itself.

    I really don’t see that her show offers anything that you couldn’t get for free in the commercial media, so I wonder why she’s is being paid at all. Indeed, one can argue that her program is worse than empty airtime since her vacuity on the ABC lends credibility to the debauchery that passes for political discourse in the MBCM in this country.

    For mine, that makes her worse than Jones.

  20. Confessions

    Can’t help yo there on the 7 30 report. I am an afternoon shift worker and if there is one thing that can be said in favour of shifts is that you don’t spend a lot of time watching crap on tv. If I find or hear about something good I can always chase it up on the net but most of the time I Just don’t bother. Bit of an AFL tragic tho so it’s a different story in winter

  22. Psephos @ 95

    I’m not sure which part of your comment is FB’s and which part is yours.

    Nevertheless as a long term daily listener to FKelly it is my view that her problem is that she has poor I/V ing skills, like so many others. She is also usually deficient in intimate background knowledge of the subject matter.

    John Roy Slaven-Doyle whilst occupying her chair over the past 6 or 8 weeks(????) conducted all his interviews with great skill. His background prep even when I/V ing OS guests about matters not of common knowledge here, was excellent.

    The difference I think is in pure skill and talent.

    JRS-D guides the interviewee to participate in a pertinent discussion and does not overtly seek gotchas. In this way he creates a relationship such that the person cooperatively opens up about the matters at hand ….. a bit like Frost, Parkinson and our own Andrew Denton.

  23. Galaxy is in the field. Wife just got polled.

    First preference
    Gillard satisfied/dissatisfied
    Abbott satisfied/dissatisfied
    Preferred ALP leader – Gillard, Rudd, Shorten, other
    Preferred Liberal leader – Abbott, Turnbull, Hockey, other
    Do you approve/disapprove of Gillard announcing election early

  24. How much will the Libs fttn cost and how will they fund it? What will be the power infrastructure costs for the thousands of kerbside wardrobes?

    Why is nobody asking the question?

  25. Charlton was elected as ALP leader following the deaths of both Frank Tudor and T J Ryan because he was a decent chap and there was no-one else with any talent in the wake of the 1917 split. Little was expected of him, and he did not disappoint. They tried to bring in Theodore to replace him in 1925 but he unexpectedly failed to win Herbert. Charlton gratefully made way for Scullin in 1928.

  26. Fran,

    Indeed it was quite inspiring to listen to John Doyle over the break who always seemed to be across the topics he was discussing and skilfull enough to question his expert guests so as to challenge them and the listeners.

  27. Psephos@95


    From the last thread:

    @Fran: I’ve known Fran Kelly for (on and off) nearly 30 years so I’m somewhat biased in her favour. She certainly isn’t a Liberal stooge as some here have alleged, but she has strange ideas about journalistic “balance.” Her idea seems to be that the government of the day and the “serious” media must of necessity have an adversarial relationship. She sees it as the media’s job to criticise whatever the government does, and to give critics of the government far more airtime than supporters. Since we have a Labor government, this means of course that her programme is “objectively anti-Labor”, whatever she thinks she is doing.

    Bollocks. Fran Kelly is snide and nasty. She and Chris Uhlmann both epitomize what is wrong the ABC’s current idea of “balance”. Equal time means nothing when the presenters themselves make it so evident that they adore one side of politics, and hold the other in complete disdain.

  28. [I really don’t see that her show offers anything that you couldn’t get for free in the commercial media, so I wonder why she’s is being paid at all. Indeed, one can argue that her program is worse than empty airtime since her vacuity on the ABC lends credibility to the debauchery that passes for political discourse in the MBCM in this country. ]

    I’m afraid I have to concur with m’learned friend.

  32. [dedalus
    Posted Saturday, February 2, 2013 at 7:48 pm | PERMALINK
    Hi all,

    Haven’t logged in here for a while, been busy on stuff – but I’d like to cheer you up by explaining why the ALP is a near CERTAINTY to win the election in Sep.

    The astute among you should snap up the easy money on offer with the bookies. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.etc}

    Thank I have just logged back in and saw your comment, the main thing is to tell people NBN in its present form can only be delivered by ALP,LNP has some strange hybrid that won’t do the job. Keep it simple but remind people! But think you are quite correct in your assessment

  35. ruawake 124
    The ins and outs of this question are well known in the hard-core online community. The punters don’t much care. The guvmints paying for it. They just want it now.

    But which guvmint? The penny is starting to drop.

  39. gc:

    Interesting. Every election I continue to hold out hope for Boothby to flip, but it never does.

    Mumble has said he expects the SA polling to worsen for the feds the longer Labor remain in office in SA.

  40. I think the trouble with the fran Kellys of this world, and there are lot of them out there, is that they are all looking for the GOTCHA moment. How many times do they ask the same question in slightly different terms? And then they get stroppy when politicians wont answer. I got a link to the John Doyle interview with ms Gillard somewhere and watched a fair bit of it. Terrific radio. did Abbott go on?

  41. I reckon we will get all the big 5 over the next few days:

    Sunday: Galaxy
    Monday: Essential
    Tuesday: Newspoll
    Wednesday: Morgan
    next W/E: ACN

  42. [Mumble has said he expects the SA polling to worsen for the feds the longer Labor remain in office in SA.]

    They need to find a leader in SA first. Anyone but MHS will probably win next week.

  43. [gloryconsequence
    Posted Saturday, February 2, 2013 at 8:00 pm | PERMALINK
    Galaxy is in the field. Wife just got polled.

    First preference
    Gillard satisfied/dissatisfied
    Abbott satisfied/dissatisfied
    Preferred ALP leader – Gillard, Rudd, Shorten, other
    Preferred Liberal leader – Abbott, Turnbull, Hockey, other
    Do you approve/disapprove of Gillard announcing election earl]
    Hope your wife answered appropriately 🙂

  44. Charlton was elected as ALP leader following the deaths of both Frank Tudor

    I’ve just noticed an error on the Wikipedia page for Tudor, if there are any habitual editors about. It says that he was preceded as LOTO by Hughes, but of course while he was preceded as leader of the ALP by Hughes, he was preceded as LOTO by Cook.

  45. Again, on Channel 10 this time, another “Labor rocked…blah……blah” with loaded commentary passing for news.

    Hugh Rimmington however, did not quite stick to the script by suggesting Tony Abbott was running a “protection racket” with all the dud front benchers he was gutless to do anything about.

    It was all “Shock/horror” instability “what is going on?” crap with, of course the main visuals, the tears.

  47. [100
    confessions

    briefly:

    You’ll remember that Alannah MacTiernan copped similar treatment.]

    I sure do, confessions. I’ve known Alannah for nearly 40 years, long ago as a friend and over late years as a supporter and admirer. She has great energy and foresight….but not as much luck as she deserves.

  48. Don’t care how long anyone has know Fran Kelly, she almost gloated when she thought Abbott was going to become PM.

    She may think she has some role to play – mistakenly – in keeping the pollies honest.

    To me she just comes across as another Liberal apologist.

    On top of this, someone who knows, some time ago, suggested she has strong links back towards the old DLP.

    Others may know.

  49. [It was all “Shock/horror” instability “what is going on?” crap with, of course the main visuals, the tears]

    Michael Clark teared up when Ponting left, it is a natural thing to do. Of course Pyne would be dancing a jig because he got rid of a threat.

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