Camden
Margin: Liberal 22.8%
Region: South-Western Sydney
Federal: Macarthur (91%)/Werriwa (9%)
Candidates in ballot paper order
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DANICA SAJN COLIN BROADBRIDGE CHRIS PATTERSON MARIO TABONE CINDY CAGNEY |
2011 BOOTH RESULTS MAP |
PAST RESULTS |
DEMOGRAPHICS |
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Two-party preferred booth results from 2011 state election showing Liberal majority in blue and Labor in red. New boundaries in thicker blue lines, old ones in thinner red lines. Boundary data courtesy of Ben Raue of The Tally Room.
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One of 32 seats gained by the Coalition from Labor in 2011, Camden covers an area of Sydney’s south-western outskirts from Camden itself north to Bringelly and Badgerys Creek. The redistribution has added 3.9% to the Liberal margin through an exchange for suburban territory along the Hume Motorway corridor for semi-rural areas. Reflecting population growth on the city fringe, the losses are greater than the gains. Eight thousand voters in Kearns, Raby and Eschol Park have been transferred to Macquarie Fields, and another 5000 in Eagle Vale and Claymore immediately to the south go to Campbelltown. Compensating gains from Wollondilly in the south, Mulgoa in the north-west and Macquarie Fields in the north-east add around 2000 voters each.
Camden was created in its modern incarnation at the 1981 election and held for Labor for its first term by Ralph Brading, who went on to defeat in 1984 at the hands of future Liberal Premier John Fahey. Fahey moved to the new seat of Southern Highlands when new boundaries eliminated his margin at the 1988 election, at which Peter Primrose won the seat for Labor on the narrowest of margins. The redistribution at the 1991 election sent the pendulum the other way, and Primrose was defeated by Liberal candidate Liz Kernohan.
The Liberals dispiritingly failed to carry the seat when Kernohan took her personal vote into retirement at the 2003 election, with former local mayor Geoff Corrigan securing the seat for Labor on an 8.9% swing. Corrigan gained a handy 3.3% boost when the 2007 redistribution shifted the electorate closer to city, but his margin was pared back from 8.7% to 4.0% in 2007, and then demolished by a 22.8% swing in 2011.
The victorious Liberal candidate was Chris Patterson, who like Corrigan had previously been the mayor of Camden, and had first unsuccessfully contested the seat in 2007. Patterson attained the position of government whip in August 2014 in place of Charlestown MP Andrew Cornwell, who resigned from parliament after admitting he had received a bribe from a property developer. Labor’s candidate is Cindy Cagney, a former Camden and Campbelltown councillor who briefly served in the latter capacity as a Liberal.