Seat of the week: Hume – The Poll Bludger

The electorate of Hume extends from the south-western outskirts of Sydney southwards to Goulburn, and westwards to the shires of Upper Lachlan and Boorowa. The recently published draft redistribution proposes dramatic change to the electorate by drawing it into the rapidly growing urban fringe centre of Camden, formerly in Macarthur, which is to provide the electorate with around 45,000 out of slightly more than 100,000 voters. Counter-balancing losses are at the western end of the electorate, including Cowra, Young and Cootamundra (where 29,000 are transferred to Riverina) and an adjoining area to the north of the Australian Capital Territory (where 14,000 go to Eden-Monaro). A further 3000 voters at the eastern end, including the Southern Highlands towns of Wingello and Bundanoon, are to be transferred to the seat of Whitlam, as the Illawarra seat of Throsby is to be renamed. Despite the extent of the changes, they have little impact on the Liberal margin, which is up 0.4% to 11.9%.

2013 ELECTION RESULTS

PAST RESULTS

DEMOGRAPHICS

Hume has existed as an electorate in name since federation, but its territory has changed almost entirely since that time, when it covered Albury and surrounding territory near the Victorian border. Its main population centre, Goulburn, was accommodated by Werriwa and then Eden-Monaro before 1984, then by Gilmore until 1993. Subsequent redistributions continued to reorient the electorate eastwards, including the current draft proposal, which brings it into Sydney’s orbit for the first time. Hume changed hands between the Country Party and Labor with great regularity between 1919 until 1974, after which the Labor vote went into a long-term decline. This pattern was reflected in Goulburn, which provided Labor with a strong base of support until the mid-1960s, but has since become strongly conservative.

The Liberals gained Hume from the Nationals when the seat absorbed Wagga Wagga in the redistribution that expanded the size of parliament in 1984, resulting in a contest between Nationals incumbent Stephen Lusher and Wal Fife, the Liberal member for Farrer and a former state member for Wagga Wagga. Fife retained the seat for the Liberals until his retirement at the 1993 election, at which time another substantial redistribution added Goulburn from Gilmore. The seat was then won for the Nationals by John Sharp, who had previously been the member for Gilmore, which fell to Labor in his absence. A travel rorts scandal cost Sharp his job as Transport Minister during the first term of the Howard government, and he retired in 1998.

In a remarkable turn-around on the previous three-cornered contest in 1993, the Nationals polled less than 10% of the vote with Sharp’s departure at the 1998 election, when the seat was easily won for the Liberals by Alby Schultz, who had held the state seat of Burrinjuck since 1988. When Schultz retired at the 2013 election, there were suggestions the seat might be contested for the Nationals by Senator Fiona Nash or Katrina Hodgkinson, who succeeded Schultz in Burrinjuck in 1999 and became Primary Industries and Small Business Minister after the 2011 state election. However, the party agreed to leave the field clear for the Liberals during post-redistribution coalition negotiations, as reports of internal polling suggested they were unlikely to be competitive in any case.

Hume duly passed at the 2013 election to Liberal candidate Angus Taylor, a 45-year-old Sydney lawyer, Rhodes Scholar and triathlete who had the backing of Schultz and Tony Abbott, and was also said to be close to Malcolm Turnbull. Taylor was one of a small number of Liberal MP whose loyalties were rated as “uncertain” by The Australian in its accounting of the numbers at Malcolm Turnbull’s September 2015 leadership challenge. He has long been rated as a ministerial if not leadership contender, and there was some surprise when he failed to win promotion off the back bench when Turnbull became leader.

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. View all posts by William Bowe

7 comments on “Seat of the week: Hume”

meher baba says:

Friday, January 8, 2016 at 8:13 am

As I’ve posted previously, I am most dismayed at the prospect of the AEC excising Camden, the town founded by the Macarthurs, from the seat named Macarthur. It sucks.
kakuru says:

Friday, January 8, 2016 at 9:30 am

What’s the Lib margin in Macarthur, with Camden calved off?
Corio says:

Friday, January 8, 2016 at 1:55 pm

“The Liberals gained Hume from the Liberals when the seat absorbed Wagga Wagga …” should, of course, read “The Liberals gained Hume from the Nationals …”
blackburnpseph says:

Friday, January 8, 2016 at 5:24 pm

The new Hume boundaries are yet another example of bizarre boundary making by the AEC commissioners. The new Hume is effectively a population dumb-bell with two population centres – Camden in the north and Goulburn in the south with the Southern Highlands that lie between excised and sent to Whitlam.

Hume, Cook, Whitlam, Eden Monaro are all examples where the commissioners just lost it in southern NSW.
William Bowe says:

Friday, January 8, 2016 at 10:18 pm

Thanks Corio, corrected.
kakuru says:

Monday, January 11, 2016 at 10:16 am

Well I looked this up myself – apparently Macarthur has shifted from safe Lib to marginal lib (~ 2.8%).
markmulcair says:

Tuesday, January 12, 2016 at 1:40 pm

@4

I remain hopeful that they’ll reverse some of the stranger proposals in their final report.

2013 ELECTION RESULTS

PAST RESULTS

DEMOGRAPHICS

Author: William Bowe

7 comments on “Seat of the week: Hume”

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