ALP 13.8%
Incumbent MP
Sharon Claydon, since 2013.
Geography
The seat of Newcastle covers most of the City of Newcastle, and a small part of the Lake Macquarie council area. Major suburbs include Newcastle, Hamilton, Merewether, Lambton, Kotara, Adamstown, Mayfield, Maryland, Wallsend and Waratah.
Newcastle is an original federation electorate, and has been held by the ALP for its entire history. Indeed, the seat has only ever been held by five people in 110 years.
The seat was first won in 1901 by David Watkins, a former coal-miner and state member for the seat of Wallsend. Watkins held Newcastle for decades until his death in 1935. He was succeeded at a 1935 by-election by his son David Oliver Watkins. Watkins junior held the seat for another twenty-three years, retiring in 1958.
After being held for 57 years by members of the Watkins family, Newcastle was won in 1958 by Charles Jones, then the Lord Mayor of Newcastle. Jones went on to serve as Gough Whitlam’s Minister for Transport from 1972 to 1975. He retired in 1983, and was succeeded by Allan Morris.
Morris held the seat for eighteen years, and was succeeded at the 2001 by former school principal Sharon Grierson, who held the seat for the next twelve years.
Labor’s Sharon Claydon was elected in Newcastle in 2013, and she has been re-elected twice.
Assessment
Newcastle is a safe Labor seat.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Sharon Claydon | Labor | 47,137 | 45.7 | -1.4 |
| Katrina Wark | Liberal | 30,107 | 29.2 | -0.7 |
| John Mackenzie | Greens | 16,038 | 15.6 | +1.9 |
| Geoffrey Scully | United Australia Party | 3,471 | 3.4 | +3.4 |
| Darren Brollo | Animal Justice | 3,300 | 3.2 | +3.2 |
| Pam Wise | Christian Democratic Party | 1,928 | 1.9 | -0.3 |
| B.J. Futter | Great Australian Party | 1,086 | 1.1 | +1.1 |
| Informal | 6,014 | 5.5 | +0.8 |
2019 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Sharon Claydon | Labor | 65,784 | 63.8 | 0.0 |
| Katrina Wark | Liberal | 37,283 | 36.2 | +0.0 |
Booths have been divided into three parts: central, east and west.
Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 64.2% in the east to 66.9% in the centre.
The Greens primary vote ranged from 11.1% in the west to 21.4% in the east.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| East | 21.4 | 64.2 | 24,696 | 24.0 |
| Central | 16.3 | 66.9 | 21,397 | 20.8 |
| West | 11.1 | 66.4 | 18,211 | 17.7 |
| Pre-poll | 13.5 | 60.3 | 28,000 | 27.2 |
| Other votes | 13.4 | 61.8 | 10,763 | 10.4 |
Election results in Newcastle at the 2019 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, the Liberal Party and the Greens.
That fact that this will likely be surrounded by coalition seats with Macquarie,Dobell,Paterson,Shortland and Hunter all falling should seriously scare Labor. All of them are marginal and Labor has learned 0 from the last election and have gone further to the left. Albanese is from Labor’s left so there is no denying the party has gone to the left under his leadership.
Newcastle should hold for Labor but could get a scare and could potentially make this a marginal! Seat but won’t fall as the margin is too great
I don’t see Newcastle going anything close to blue even if Labor loses badly in other Hunter seats. Almost no swing in 2019 compared to huge swings in Hunter/Paterson/Shortland. Other factors aside, it’s a progressive city the size of Canberra, historically ALP, with a large university, 16% Green vote and a long term incumbent. Liberals got the state seat in 2011 but even that was due to poor OPV preference flows to Labor unlikely to be repeated federally (and that member got on the wrong side of ICAC).
In fact I think the question in the other seats will be if “Newcastle suburbs” will be enough to outweigh LNP gains in coal country.
Macquarie, Dobell, Paterson, Shortland and Newcastle should be Labor wins with only Hunter a chance to go to the Nationals. What chance of the coalition picking up seats in NSW to stave off losses elsewhere has been dealt a severe setback by the New South Wales Government’s handling of the Omricon surge.
The Greens have polled very well in parts of Newcastle so a Labor vs Greens scenario in Newcastle (or at the state level) is a definite possibility. Maybe not in this electoral cycle but possiblt in the next.
There are times I wonder whether Daniel should just give up on posting for NSW Seats. Of those seats, Only Macquarie would be the most likely to fall (the reason why it didn’t last time was because the Liberal Party ran such a bad campaign, thinking they could win just from the Hawkesbury). Dobell is a seat the Liberal Party wins in strong performances while the Liberal Party has never won Shortland and I doubt they ever will.
John T – Too early to make the call on Omicron. On the flip side, the move from Perrottet to go as it is, if the results follow what happened in South Africa, means that he has pulled off a Master-Stroke. it is too early to call on Omicron at this stage.
Redistributed is onto something here. Newcastle becoming Labor v Greens is possible, especially with the rising demographic being university students in the area. It is not out of the question for this to happen.
Hawkeye
The state seats covered by Shortland were all won by the Libs in the 2011 landslide so it is possible for the Libs to win. I really can’t see the Libs winning many if any seats in 2022 but Shortland seems to be a future possibility in a Liberal good year – possibly more so than Dobell. If for some reason in a redistribution it slides into Merewether, it might tip over. Combined with my comment above re Newcastle, the Newcastle metro area may not be a sure thing for Labor down the track.
I believe this is now the safest Labor seat in the country post election. Grayndler, Sydney, Fremantle and Brand not far behind. Swings against Labor in Scullin, Calwell etc in Melbourne pushed them higher up the pendulum.