Parramatta – Australia 2016

ALP 1.3%

Incumbent MP
Julie Owens, since 2004.

Geography
Western Sydney. The seat of Parramatta covers the centre of Parramatta and surrounding suburbs, including Granville, Holroyd, Wentworthville, Westmead, Carlingford, Dundas and Rydalmere, and parts of Merrylands, South Granville and Toongabbie.

Map of Parramatta's 2013 and 2016 boundaries. 2013 boundaries marked as red lines, 2016 boundaries marked as white area. Click to enlarge.
Map of Parramatta’s 2013 and 2016 boundaries. 2013 boundaries marked as red lines, 2016 boundaries marked as white area. Click to enlarge.

Redistribution
On Parramatta’s southern boundary, Parramatta gained parts of South Granville from Blaxland and lost parts of Merrylands to Blaxland. On its northern boundary, Parramatta lost a small area north of the M2 to Mitchell, and on the western boundary gained parts of Toongabbie and Pendle Hill from Greenway. These changes increased the Labor margin from 0.6% to 1.3%.

History
Parramatta is an original Federation electorate. The seat has long been a marginal seat, focused on the Parramatta CBD. The seat has shrunk substantially from its original boundaries, when it covered most of what is now northwestern Sydney and stretched as far as Lithgow.

The seat was first won in 1901 by Joseph Cook, a former minister in George Reid’s Free Trade colonial government. Cook held the seat for the first twenty years of Federation, successively for the Free Trade Party, Anti-Socialist Party, Commonwealth Liberal Party and the Nationalists.

Cook served as Leader of the Anti-Socialist Party following George Reid’s retirement in 1908, and agreed to merge with Alfred Deakin’s Protectionists in 1909 to form the Commonwealth Liberal Party. He served as Defence Minister in Deakin’s final government and became Liberal leader after Deakin’s defeat at the 1910 election.

Cook won the 1913 election, becoming Prime Minister, but with a Labor majority in the Senate his government was stifled, and he called a Double Dissolution in 1914, which he lost.

In 1916, Labor Prime Minister Billy Hughes left the ALP over the issue of conscription, and Cook agreed to merge his Liberals with the Labor rebels to form the Nationalist Party, with Cook as Hughes’ deputy. He retired in 1921 to serve as High Commissioner in London.

The ensuing by-election was won by Herbert Pratten. Pratten moved to the new seat of Martin in 1922, and was replaced in Parramatta by fellow Nationalist Eric Bowden. Pratten held Martin until his death in 1928, while Bowden held Parramatta until 1929, when he lost the seat.

Labor candidate Albert Rowe won in 1929, but only held it for one term, losing it to United Australia Party candidate Frederick Stewart in 1931. Stewart went on to serve in a variety of ministerial roles in the Lyons and Menzies governments, and retired in 1946.

Parramatta was won in 1946 by Liberal candidate Howard Beale. Beale served as a minister in the Menzies government from its election in 1949 until his retirement in 1958, when he became Ambassador to the United States.

The seat was won in 1958 by prominent barrister Garfield Barwick, who held the seat for the Liberals until 1964, when he was appointed Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia.

The 1964 by-election was held by Liberal candidate Nigel Bowen. Bowen joined Harold Holt’s cabinet following the 1966 election and remained there until the election of the Whitlam government. He left Parliament in 1973 to serve on the NSW Supreme Court.

The 1973 by-election was a key contest during the Whitlam government. Bowen had held on by a slim margin in 1972, but Liberal candidate Philip Ruddock managed a 7% swing and won the seat.

Ruddock was re-elected in 1974 and 1975, but moved to the new seat of Dundas in 1977. He held Dundas until its abolition in 1993, when he moved to Berowra, which he still holds today. He served as Minister for Immigration then Attorney-General in the Howard government.

Parramatta was won in 1977 by the ALP’s John Brown. Brown served as a junior minister for the first two terms of the Hawke government, and was promoted to Cabinet in 1987, but was forced to resign as a minister in 1988 after misleading the House, and retired in 1990.

Brown was succeeded by former Mayor of Parramatta Paul Elliott, also an ALP member. Elliott served as a Parliamentary Secretary in the final term of the Labor government, and lost Parramatta to Liberal candidate Ross Cameron in 1996.

Cameron was appointed a Parliamentary Secretary after the 2001 election, and continued in similar roles until the 2004 election, where he was one of the few Liberal MPs to lose their seat, with Labor candidate Julie Owens winning the seat.

The 2007 redistribution pushed Parramatta north and made it notionally Liberal, but a big swing saw Owens retain the seat. Owen’s margin was cut in half from 9.9% to 4.4% in 2010, and cut further to 0.6% in 2013, with Owens narrowly holding on to her seat.

Candidates

Assessment
Parramatta is a very marginal seat, and could well change hands but Julie Owens has been successful at holding Parramatta against unfavourable trends in the past, and the Liberal Party’s late preselection suggests the seat is not the highest priority.

2013 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Martin Zaiter Liberal 35,724 44.3 +3.6 43.4
Julie Owens Labor 33,261 41.3 -3.2 42.3
Phil Bradley Greens 4,261 5.3 -2.7 5.2
Alex Sharah Christian Democratic Party 1,957 2.4 -0.6 2.5
Ganesh Sahadev Loke Palmer United Party 1,760 2.2 +2.2 2.3
Miechele Williams Democratic Labour Party 1,626 2.0 +2.0 1.7
Kalpesh Patel Independent 1,204 1.5 -0.3 1.3
Tania Rollinson One Nation 822 1.0 +1.0 0.9
Others 0.4
Informal 9,474 11.8

2013 two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Julie Owens Labor 40,765 50.6 -3.8 51.3
Martin Zaiter Liberal 39,850 49.4 +3.8 48.7
Polling places in Parramatta at the 2013 federal election. North-East in green, North-West in orange, South in blue. Click to enlarge.
Polling places in Parramatta at the 2013 federal election. North-East in green, North-West in orange, South in blue. Click to enlarge.

Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into three parts: north-east, north-west and south. The north-east covers all booths on the north-eastern side of the Parramatta river, while the south covers booths in the CBD and further south and the north-west covers booths to the west of the CBD.

The ALP won over 55% in both the south and the north-west, while the Liberal Party won over 53% in the north-east.

Voter group ALP 2PP % Total votes % of votes
North-East 46.8 24,085 29.7
South 55.1 17,755 21.9
North-West 55.7 16,666 20.6
Other votes 50.3 22,563 27.8
Two-party-preferred votes in Parramatta at the 2013 federal election.
Two-party-preferred votes in Parramatta at the 2013 federal election.

18 COMMENTS

  1. If the Libs were more on the ball with this seat in the past they may have actually won it. Their tardiness in selecting a candidate means they have written the seat off. Labor will hold it comfortably.

  2. W of S
    Julie Owens is by far the most impressive labor MP in the country.
    No way the Libs will get this while she is around. Expect a very significant swing toward her. Well deserved too.
    It is often said that she has never been promoted because she has no factional support. Whatever that means.
    IMV it is because she would look, sound, & act so great, it would make the rest of them look even worse !!!!. I’d make her leader of the opposition in a heartbeat.

  3. I am aware of her skill and you’re completely right. She has well and truly proven herself quite capable, it takes a dedicated local and grassroots politician to not only buck the nationwide trend once in 2004 against an incumbent, but again in 2013.

  4. W of S
    Owens is way more , & better than that even. Whenever i’ve seen her in action, she has been positive, & constructive.
    (Somehow ) Julie also manages to talk without all those scripted party lines, repetitive policy statements.
    Owens shows what can be done, in terms of communication, advocacy, & true political debate, & representation.
    That it can done easily, with grace, charm, & good humour.
    Julie fully demonstrates HOW adversarial debate, & politicking, accomplish little by simply refusing to engage in it, with her own absolute dignity.
    A really remarkable woman. I am a huge fan.

  5. Of my understanding she is factionally aligned to the left but not strongly, similar to Anna Burke in Chisholm, albeit from the right.
    I would have thought this would be a reasonable Lib prospect but they haven’t looked particularly particularly serious here. Then again this is an election where the Libs aren’t on the offensive.

  6. L96
    No the Libs are no chance at all here. The redistribution moved the CUB areas of Merrylands etc,into McMahon. These had been swinging hard against labor. So i’d reckon Julie got 2 to 3 % ( not 1 %) as the change she’s supposed to have received.

  7. It is remarkable how fluid Paramatta’s boundaries have been ever since federation. It has been pushed back and forth every which way by redistribution. Anyway, Owens should have built up enough community profile to hold this.

  8. GG
    We haven’t seen any thing yet !!!.
    EAST 25000 new resident to go into Camelia / Rosehill
    NORTH N Parramatta redevelopment 10s thousands
    Parramatta itself.

  9. From what I’ve heard, Michael Beckwith, LendLease Development Ops Manager has won preselection defeating Charles Camenzuli.

    Julie Owens should have no trouble being re-elected this time.

  10. PRP
    Beckwith sounds like a capable bloke. It’s a shame he will be wasted here. Greenway would have been far more fertile ground.

  11. I’m in the eastern part of the electorate and she is rarely seen here tbh. She must get around the western part a ton. I haven’t seen her for ages but she does seem to care about the area. Probably ranks in the top 5 or so Labor MP’s in the country and I have some time for her, despite my strong Abbott conservative beliefs.

    It surprises me why the Coalition always preselects a candidate so late here though this Beckwith seems like a very capable person with links to the property and building industry. I’d expect a campaign on negative gearing and the ABCC.

    Here’s his LinkedIn: https://au.linkedin.com/in/michael-beckwith-718aa63

  12. GG,
    Correct.I live in Turramurra which was in Parramatta after 1906 and up to the creation of Bradfield apart from a brief period of being in Martin.The boundaries of this seat will shrink with all the apartment construction.Whilst the seat contains areas south of Parramatta Rd,the ALP will be at an advantage.

  13. FWIW, an anti-WestConnex group apparently commissioned a poll here, which showed 52-48 to Labor.

    Unlike some other commissioned polls, that number actually looks pretty sensible and consistent with the neutral polling.

  14. That poll is definitely surprising. I always doubted that the Libs would win this seat but it is pretty close considering the statewide swing and Owens’ popularity. Maybe its indicative of strong Liberal support in Sydney?

    IMV this would definitely have been retained by the Liberals had it been picked up at the last election.

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