NEW SOUTH WALES BY-ELECTIONS

Overview

New South Wales has its second round of state by-elections since the March 2015 election on Saturday, April 6, and the first since Gladys Berejiklian succeeded Mike Baird as Premier in January. One of the three is in Baird's own seat of Manly; another is in its similarly blue-ribbon neighbour, North Shore, where former Health Minister Jillian Skinner has resigned after being dumped from Berejiklian's reconstituted ministry. The only one of the three being contested by both major parties is in Gosford, where Labor's Kathy Smith has resigned following a cancer diagnosis. The previous round of by-elections, on November 12, 2016, encompassed the safe Labor seats of Canterbury and Wollongong, where the Liberals did not field candidates; and the rural seat of Orange, where the Nationals suffered a morale-sapping defeat at the hands of Shooters Fishers and Farmers candidate Phil Donato, while Labor made no headway.




Gosford

Margin: Labor 0.2%
Region: Central Coast
Federal: Robertson

RESULTS AT 2015 ELECTION
CANDIDATES IN BALLOT PAPER ORDER
ABIGAIL BOYD
Greens
ANDREW CHURCH
Christian Democratic Party
SKYLA WAGSTAFF
Animal Justice
LIESL TESCH
Labor
LARRY FREEMAN
Shooters Fishers and Farmers
JILLY PILON
Liberal
PREVIOUS ELECTION RESULTS MAP

The town of Gosford is located 75 kilometres to the north of Sydney, and the seat bearing its name was among the eleven that were recovered by Labor in 2015 after being swept away in the 2011 landslide. The electorate is dominated by Gosford and Woy Woy, which respectively occupy the northern and southern shores of Brisbane Water, from which it extends northwards for about 50 kilometres through lightly populated semi-rural, state forest and national park areas.

While the electorate has existed in name since 1950, its continuity was disturbed by the abolition of neighbouring Peats in 2007, which Labor had held since its creation in 1973. Gosford had hitherto encompassed coastal territory that was transferred to the new seat of Terrigal, and Gosford absorbed most of Peats, while retaining Gosford's town centre. Marie Andrews, who had held Peats for Labor since 1995, then became member for Gosford, while the existing Liberal member for Gosford, Chris Hartcher, passed on to Terrigal.

Andrews spared herself the lash of the 2011 election by retiring, and Labor's 4.9% margin was duly obliterated by a 16.7% swing to Liberal candidate Chris Holstein, the former mayor of Gosford. Gosford narrowly returned to the Labor fold at the 2015 election after a 12.2% swing, with Labor candidate Kathy Smith defeating Holstein by a margin of 203 votes. Smith won Labor preselection after an intervention by the party's national executive to prevent a comeback by Belinda Neal, the controversial former member for the corresponding federal seat of Robertson, who retained clout in local branches.

Smith was granted extended leave from parliament in July 2016 after being diagnosed with cancer, and announced her resignation following its return in February. The new Labor candidate is Liesl Tesch, a local school teacher and gold medal-winning Paralympian who has been an incomplete paraplegic since suffering a mountain bike accident at the age of 19. The preselection was again determined by national executive intervention to thwart Belinda Neal, who had been the subject of a complaint to the party's appeals tribual over alleged irregularities involving branch membership attendance records.

The Liberal candidate is Jilly Pilon, a co-owner of a local aluminium manufacturing business who became an advocate for organ donation following the death of her son in a skateboarding accident in 2015. Also in the running are candidates from the Greens, the Christian Democrats, Animal Justice and Shooters Fishers and Farmers.




Manly

Margin: Liberal 24.5% versus Greens
Region: Northern Sydney
Federal: Warringah

RESULTS AT 2015 ELECTION
CANDIDATES IN BALLOT PAPER ORDER
HARIS JACKMAN
Independent
JOHN COOK
Independent
KERRY BROMSON
Voluntary Euthanasia Party
ANNIE WRIGHT
Christian Democratic Party
CLARA WILLIAMS ROLDAN
Greens
JAMES GRIFFIN
Liberal
BRIAN CLARE
Independent
RON DELEZIO
Independent
KATHRYN RIDGE
Independent
VICTOR WATERSON
Independent
W BUSH
Independent
ELLIE ROBERTSON
Animal Justice

The electorate of Manly covers the northern harbour foreshore from Middle Harbour to the coast, including Seaforth, Balgowlah and Clontarf at the former end and Manly and Curl Curl at the latter. The entire area is strongly conservative, particularly the harbourside booths at Seaforth and Balgowlah Heights. It has existed as an electorate since the abolition of proportional representation in 1927, and was held from then until 1945 by Major Alfred Reid, who represented the seat both as an independent and under various conservative banners (including even the Country Party) before the modern Liberal Party was established in 1944. His successor Douglas Darby held the seat for the Liberals from 1945 to 1978, barring a period from 1962 to 1965 when he sat as an independent.

With Darby's retirement in 1978, Manly set the high-water mark for the “Wranslides” of 1978 and 1981 in being won for Labor by Alan Stewart. David Hay recovered the seat for the Liberals amid their better performance at the 1984 election, but its penchant for quirky behaviour returned in 1991 when independent Manly councillor Peter MacDonald defeated Hay by 0.7% after preferences. The narrowly unsuccessful Liberal candidate in 1995 was David Oldfield, later to emerge as a key adviser to Pauline Hanson, an upper house One Nation MP and more recently a talk radio presenter. MacDonald retired at the 1999 election and ran unsuccessfully against Tony Abbott in Warringah in 2001, polling 27.8%. The Liberals' hopes of recovering the seat with MacDonald's departure were then thwarted by Manly deputy mayor David Barr, who ran as an independent with MacDonald's endorsement and secured a 1.3% margin over Liberal candidate and Warringah councillor Darren Jones.

After Barr's re-election by a similarly narrow margin in 2003, the seat was finally recovered for the Liberals by Mike Baird in 2007. Baird was the head of corporate banking with HSBC and the son of Bruce Baird, former Greiner/Fahey government minister and later federal member for Cook. Despite his pedigree and the backing of John Howard, Peter Debnam and Alan Jones, he had only a fairly narrow 75-63 win in the preselection over Michael Darby, son of long-serving former member Douglas Darby and an arch right-winger. Baird went on to to win election with a decisive 4.5% swing, before enjoying a 25.1% increase in his primary vote in the absence of independent competition in 2011.

Baird was already being tipped as a future leader before entering parliament, and he attained the position of Treasurer with Barry O'Farrell's election win in 2011. Following O'Farrell's unanticipated departure in April 2014, he emerged as leader unopposed as part of a ticket that included Gladys Berejiklian as deputy. It was reported that O'Farrell had manoeuvred to have the vote delayed to give Berejiklian time to marshall her forces, but she chose not to contest as she feared being undermined as Premier by the various forces of the Right, who considered Baird acceptable due to his socially conservative views. Baird led the party to a solid victory at the March 2015 election, despite a 9.9% correction in Labor's favour after the unprecedented defeat of 2011. He announced his resignation as Premier and from parliament on January 19, and shortly took up a senior position with the National Australia Bank.

The ensuing Liberal preselection was won by James Griffin, a director at KPMG Australia who had the endorsement of Mike Baird. Griffin won a preselection vote by 71 to 37 against Walter Villatora, a local ally of Tony Abbott's and campaigner for democratisation of party preselections, in what was broadly perceived as a contest between moderates and the Right. There are eleven other candidates in the field, including from the Greens, the Christian Democrats, Animal Justice and the Voluntary Euthanasia Party, and seven independents.




North Shore

Margin: Liberal 21.2% versus Greens
Region: Lower North Shore
Federal: Warringah (57%)/North Sydney (43%)

RESULTS AT 2015 ELECTION
CANDIDATES IN BALLOT PAPER ORDER
HARRY FINE
Independent
CAROLYN CORRIGAN
Independent
IAN MUTTON
Independent
FELICITY WILSON
Liberal
BRIAN BEAUMONT OWLES
Voluntary Euthanasia Party
JUSTIN ALICK
Greens
ILA LESSING
Animal Justice
SYLVANA NILE
Christian Democratic Party

The Liberal stronghold of North Shore extends from Manns Point east to Middle Harbour, taking in North Sydney, Kirribilli and Mosman on the harbour, along with St Leonards and Balmoral to the north. It was created in place of safe Liberal Kirribilli at the 1981 election, at which it produced a shock result with the defeat of party leader Bruce McDonald. Following Peter Coleman's loss of Ryde in 1978, this made for the second successive elections at which Liberal leaders had suffered defeat in the face of the two “Wranslides“. However, in McDonald's case the defeat came at the hands of an independent, North Sydney mayor Ted Mack, rather than Labor.

Mack comfortably retained the seat at the next two elections, but bowed out shortly after his 1988 victory in protest against the parliamentary pension entitlement for which he would shortly become eligible, and lately served two terms as federal member for North Sydney. The by-election initiated by Mack's departure was won by another independent who had his endorsement, North Sydney councillor Robyn Read. However, Read's position was weakened when a redistribution added much of the territory of its abolished eastern neighbour, Mosman, and she was defeated at the 1991 election by the Liberal member for Mosman, Phillip Smiles, by a margin of 2.5%.

Phillip Smiles was compelled to resign as member for North Shore after being convicted on tax charges in 1994. Robyn Read ran again at the ensuing by-election, but it was comfortably retained for the Liberals by Jillian Skinner, a former journalist who had run unsuccessfully against Mack in 1984 and 1988. An influential factional moderate, Skinner became deputy party leader after the 2007 election and served as Health Minister after the election of Barry O'Farrell's government in March 2011. She relinquished the deputy leadership upon Barry O'Farrrell's departure in April 2014 but again ran at the March 2015 election despite being 70, and reportedly facing pressure to bow out. She remained as Health Minister after the election but was dropped after Gladys Berejiklian succeeded Mike Baird in January 2017, and subsequently announced her resignation from parliament.

The new Liberal candidate is Felicity Wilson, who has held senior positions with the Property Council and Caltex. Wilson won a narrow 104-98 vote victory in the preselection ballot ahead of Tim James, former chief-of-staff to Planning Minister Anthony Roberts, in what was generally interpreted as a victory for moderates over the Right, as was the preselection in Manly. The other seven candidates for the by-election include representatives of the Greens, Christian Democrats, Animal Justice and the Voluntary Euthanasia Party, along with three independents. The highest profile of the latter would appear to be Ian Mutton, a law firm director who won the endorsement of North Sydney mayor Jilly Gibson when she withdrew her own candidacy shortly before the closure of nominations.

Return to top of page