Seat of the week: Warringah

There are roughly as many seats in the House of Representatives as there are weeks until the next election. Time to get get cracking then on the 2016 election guide. Taking it from the top …

Tony Abbott’s electorate of Warringah covers Sydney’s affluent northern beaches from Manly north to Dee Why, extending inland to Balgowlah, Mosman, Middle Cove and Forestville. Out of the 150 federal electorates, it ranks fourth highest for median family income after Wentworth, North Sydney and Curtin. Warringah accommodated the entire northern beaches as far as the Hawkesbury River from its establishment in 1922 until 1949, when the creation of Mackellar caused it to be reoriented around Mosman and Seaforth. A relatively static population has since seen it expand back to the north over successive redistributions, recovering Manly in 1969 and being anchored on the north shore of Port Jackson thereafter.

Warringah has been never been held by Labor, and has only once slipped from Liberal control since the party’s foundation in 1944. That occasion was in March 1969 when one-term member and instant loose cannon Edward St John raised concerns in parliament over then Prime Minister John Gorton’s indiscreet behaviour with a female journalist, prompting him to resign from the party pending expulsion. St John contested as an independent at the election the following October, but was only able to poll 20.6% against 50.2% for Liberal candidate Michael Mackellar. Mackellar went on to serve in the Fraser government as minister first for immigration and then for health, resigning from the latter role in 1982 over a failure to declare to customs a television set he brought into the country.

The mid-term retirement of Mackellar in February 1994 initiated a by-election at which the seat safely passed to its present incumbent, Tony Abbott. Abbott had famously studied to become a priest after leaving school, but soon became set on a course for parliament via student politics, a stint as a journalist with The Bulletin, and the position of press secretary to Opposition Leader John Hewson. After securing a safe seat in parliament at the age of 36, Abbott became a parliamentary secretary with the election of the Howard government in 1996, winning promotion to cabinet as Employment Services Minister after the 1998 election and then to workplace relations in 2001 and health and ageing in 2003.

Abbott first publicly declared his leadership ambitions after the Howard government’s defeat in 2007, but he withdrew from the contest when it became clear he would not have the numbers. In late November 2009 he was one of a number of front-benchers who quit as part of a revolt against leader Malcolm Turnbull’s support for the government’s emissions trading scheme, which initiated a leadership spill. Presumed favourite Joe Hockey was unexpectedly defeated in the first round, and Abbott prevailed over Turnbull in the second 42 votes to 41. Abbott’s first year in the leadership saw Kevin Rudd deposed as prime minister in favour of Julia Gillard and Labor lose its majority at the August 2010 election, but he was unable to secure the necessary support of independents in order to form government.

Despite weak personal approval ratings attributed to his abrasive political style, Abbott’s hold on the party leadership was consolidated during Labor’s second term by crushing opinion poll leads on voting intention, which eventually wrought the downfall of a second Labor prime minister on Abbott’s watch in June 2013. Abbott became Australia’s twenty-eighth prime minister after the Coalition easily defeated Labor and its newly returned leader Kevin Rudd at the ensuing election on September 7, gaining a national two-party swing of 3.4% and securing what appears at the time of writing to be an absolute majority of 16 seats.

UPDATE (Essential Research): The new government’s first opinion poll is testament either to the absence of a honeymoon bounce, or the particular pollster’s tendency towards constancy in its results. The poll is from Essential Research and is the normal fortnightly rolling average, which it to say half of it was conducted over the weekend of the election itself. It has the Coalition on 44% (45.6% at the election on current figures), Labor on 36% (33.6%) and the Greens (9%). The published 53-47 two-party preferred (the current election result being 53.4-46.6) is weaker for Labor than the primary vote shifts suggest it should be, which may be because they are still using preference allocations from 2010.

Further questions finding 38% thinking the election of micro-parties to the Senate “good for democracy” against 25% for bad, although I’d like to see more specific questions in relation to this topic. Forty-four per cent believe the lack of a Coalition Senate majority will make for benefit against 30% for worse. Respondents were asked about various aspects they might expect to get better or worse under the new government, including the surprising finding that cost of living and interest rates are expected to be worse. Other questions relate to the country’s economic outlook, all of which you can see here.

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.

2,109 comments on “Seat of the week: Warringah”

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  2. Only the ALP could have made Latho look reasonable and prescient 6 years later. he’s mellowed there’s life after alp hate after all.

  6. Steve777,

    Re fairness – if professions were paid according to social utility, nurses and teachers would earn a lot more than corporate lawyers and tax accountants.

    Are you trying to subvert the social order prescribed by our betters? Shame on you!

  14. I didn’t see Mr Palmer on TV tonight, but gather he was trying to get an injunction to stop the count in Fairfax. Good luck. The last candidate I can remember asking for such a thing was Hun Sen in Cambodia in 1993. The courts are unlikely to get into issuing injunctions when Mr Palmer will have a perfect right to go to the Court of Disputed Returns in due course. And if he gets there, he will have to either put up some evidence, or lose and look like a big-mouthed goose, most likely the latter.

  24. “I am disappointed that there is not at least two women in the cabinet” (even though it’s my decision) says the Monkey, and this goes right over the heads of the suckers who voted for him.

  26. Mr Palmer may have had a bucket load of his own money to put into his party, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s necessarily more robust structurally than some of the other micro-parties, where all sort of funny things can happen, eg the internal brawling that’s gone on over the years with the DLP and what’s left of the Democrats, and more recently with the Wikileaks Party. The PUP senators will be in place for six years unless there’s a double dissolution, and there’s nothing that Mr Palmer can do about that. And if he doesn’t make it into the House but tries to heavy sitting senators, he will need to be careful that he doesn’t find himself being dealt with for breach of parliamentary privilege.

  27. @dmccrorey: @JulianBurnside what most Christian Right do not seem to want to understand in the New Testament is the greatest Socialist document

  28. [ The PUP senators will be in place for six years unless there’s a double dissolution, and there’s nothing that Mr Palmer can do about that. ]

    As I think William foreshadowed earlier, they’ll probably all be independents by the next election.

  30. @RyanSheales: Fun facts: Australian women make up 53.3% of all professional jobs but just 5.3% of the cabinet (via @GMegalogenis) #Lateline

    Goodnight

  32. Fiona. I was trying not to think of all the gory details and everything associated with that description….. I need to go to bed soon. It’s a disturbing bit of imagery!

  33. I reckon the pup senators will go coalition – not unlike the experience in qld with one nation mps. After all a turncoat cum LNP senator has a better bet for survival than an independent.

  34. Guytaur,

    You are now guilty of anathema.

    I am a militant atheist, but I can recognise a serious socialist movement when I see it – which is what the gospels document.

    Now, here’s a thought: let’s stress the socialism underpinnings of Christianity and encourage a move to – oh, I dunno, Shintoism, Hinduism, Anamism, Buddhism, Islam …

  37. [Anthony Albanese ‏@AlboMP 4m
    If there was any intention of improving the future rep of women in senior roles in the Abbott Govt why is only 1 of 12 Parl Secs a woman?]

  38. 2 new Tweets

    Ken Dally ‏@Cowcakes 2h
    Are u young, old, physically or mentally disabled, a woman, a scientist,
    ? You are officially not as worthwhile as sport. #Cabinet #auspol

    Retweeted by RichardTuffin
    Expand

  39. @pedant 2026

    It always fascinates me when I discover that not only do the Democrats still exist, but they’re still endlessly bickering among themselves. You have to wonder why they even bother.

    And, yes, like One Nation before them, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see PUP spectacularly imploding at some point in the next 3-6 years. Sudden, flash-in-the-pan style surges in popularity for newly formed minor parties rarely seem to go well for them in the long-term.

  41. My Say

    The Disabled do not need a special minster

    The Disabled need the Min for Education, Min for Employment and the Min for Health to do their job properly.
    —————————————————–
    Sean

    How is the Liberal Party’s 50/50 rule?

  42. Anthony Albanese ‏@AlboMP 7m
    If there was any intention of improving the future rep of women in senior roles in the Abbott Govt why is only 1 of 12 Parl Secs a woman?

    Expand

  43. 10m
    How can Julie Bishop be in the cabinet? She has no kids, is not married. She doesn’t understand working families. #qanda

    Retweeted by red wombat

  44. I am sick of this crap “everyone underestimated the Monkey”.

    The real state of affairs is that everyone unpredicted Abbott.

    Few ever anticipated the lengths he would go to to trash the “dignity of parliament”.

    Few ever anticipated the unfettered lack of media scrutiny he would enjoy.

    Few ever anticipated the extreme descriptors he would be allowed to use unquestioned (whyalla, budget crisis etc) and the extent that these would be amplified by the media, let alone questioned.

    Few ever anticipated that 100% of his party would turn a blind eye to these things.

    Few ever anticipated that the electorate would fall in behind his lies, deceit and hyperbowl.

    So let all those who voted for him feel the first stones he throws. Amen.

  45. My Say

    As someone that supported Gillard that isn’t appropriate, yes i know its a retweet but Gillard was childless and was unmarried.

  47. Part of Labor’s current woes are reflected in the fact that people like Larissa Waters felt compelled to join the Greens, not Labor. Articulate, strong, educated and assertive young men and women are the future of Labor. We need a lot more of the likes of Michelle Rowland. I see Larissa Waters as one who got away… Nick X on the other hand. An endless disappointment. Though I think he’s on the money with Senate voting reform. OPV, below the line, is the simplest and therefore best solution to vote harvesting. I just hope that better organized, politically aligned parties (Labor and Greens, plus X in SA) come to mind as groups that could at least come to a consensus on HTV card allocations. Obviously non binding but mutually advantageous. Having advocated a threshold requirement on the PV, I have (yet again) changed my mind – Senator X has put forward a sensible idea, of which he is perfectly capable from time to time, which would fix the problem of the micro party scams.

  48. [My Say

    As someone that supported Gillard that isn’t appropriate, yes i know its a retweet but Gillard was childless and was unmarried.]

    I’m pretty sure the tweet was ironic.

  50. My Say

    But Bishop has faithfully “served” three men leaders of the party.

    She’s a great woman, because she knows a woman’s place is no higher than second, to a man.

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