New South Wales election 2015

Canterbury

Margin: Labor 7.4%
Region: Inner Western Sydney
Federal: Watson (64%)/Barton (28%)/Grayndler (8%)

Candidates in ballot paper order

canterbury-alp

canterbury-lib

TONY ISSA
Christian Democratic Party

TONY MAIORANA
No Land Tax

LINDA BURNEY
Labor (top)

LINDA EISLER
Greens

NOMIKY PANAYIOTAKIS
Liberal (bottom)

2011 BOOTH RESULTS MAP

PAST RESULTS

DEMOGRAPHICS

Two-party preferred booth results from 2011 state election showing Labor majority in red and Liberal in blue. New boundaries in thicker blue lines, old ones in thinner red lines. Boundary data courtesy of Ben Raue of The Tally Room.

Located about 10 kilometres south-west of central Sydney, Canterbury was one of 20 seats by retained Labor at the 2011 election. Its new boundaries encompassing Earlwood and northern Kingsgrove along the Cooks River, from which it extends north to Campsie, Canterbury and Hurlstone Park. The electorate has been strongly affected by the creation of the new seat of Summer Hill to the north-east, to which it loses 15,000 voters in Ashbury and parts of Ashfield, Summer Hill and Dulwich Hill. Immediately to the west, it also loses 3800 voters in southern Croydon Park to Strathfield. Compensating gains are in the west of the electorate, where it absorbs 20,000 in Kingsgrove, Belmore and eastern Roselands from Lakemba. Despite their extent, the changes have not had much impact on the Labor margin, which is down from 8.3% to 7.4%.

Labor has held Canterbury for all but one term since 1913, the exception being after the 1932 election when it fell to an independent. Linda Burney, a former director-general of the NSW Department of Aboriginal Affairs, became the state’s first indigenous MP when she came to the seat in 2003. She had won preselection with the backing of Left faction heavyweight Anthony Albanese after the previous member, Kevin Moss of the Right, reluctantly agreed to step aside. Burney was promoted to parliamentary secretary in August 2005, then to Fair Trading Minister after the 2007 election, and again to Community Services Minister when Nathan Rees assumed the leadership in September 2008.

Following the 2011 election defeat, Burney was elected to the party’s deputy leadership without opposition, and further took on the portfolios of planning, infrastructure and heritage, and sport and recreation. In October 2012 she exchanged planning and infrastructure for family and community services and Aboriginal affairs, and in December 2013 she swapped sport and recreation for early childhood education. Following John Robertson’s resignation as leader in December 2014 she briefly held the party leadership in an acting capacity, but did not put her name forward for a leadership vote, the position instead going to Luke Foley without contest.

Corrections, complaints and feedback to William Bowe at pollbludger-at-bigpond-dot-com. Read William’s blog, The Poll Bludger.

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