NAT 2.4% vs IND
Incumbent MP
Pat Conaghan, since 2019.
Geography
Cowper lies on the mid-north coast of New South Wales, stretching from Port Macquarie to Coffs Harbour. The seat covers the towns of Coffs Harbour, Port Macquarie, South West Rocks, Nambucca Heads, Bellingen and Kempsey.
Redistribution
Cowper slightly contracted on the northern end, losing Korora at the northern fringe of Coffs Harbour to Page. These changes had a minimal effect on the margin.
History
Cowper was an original federation seat, and has almost always been held by conservative parties, with the Country/National Party holding it for all but two years since 1919.
The seat was first held by Francis Clarke of the Protectionist Party, who was defeated by Free Trader Henry Lee in 1903. Lee was defeated by John Thomson in 1906. Thomson first held the seat for the Protectionist Party and held the seat for successive non-Labor parties for the next 13 years.
In 1919, Thomson, then representing the Nationalists, was defeated by Earle Page, who joined the Country Party the next year. Page held the seat for over 40 years.
Page became Country Party leader in 1921 and led the party into government for the first time in 1922, forcing the senior Nationalists to drop Billy Hughes as Prime Minister. He served as Treasurer in the Bruce government until 1929. He also served as a minister in the second and third terms of the Lyons government, and served as acting Prime Minister for three weeks upon Lyons’ death.
Page refused to serve in a government led by Lyons’ deputy Robert Menzies, but the Country Party rebelled and replaced Page with a new leader. Page returned to government in 1940 as a minister, and again served as a minister from 1949 to 1956. Page continued to serve in Parliament until the 1961 election. At that election, he was too ill to campaign and fell into a coma before the election. In a surprise upset, Page was defeat by the ALP’s Frank McGuren, and he died days later.
McGuren only held the seat for one term, which was the only term the ALP has ever held Cowper. He was defeated in 1963 by the Country Party’s Ian Robinson. Robinson transferred to the new seat of Page in 1984, and Garry Nehl won Cowper for the Nationals.
Nehl retired in 2001, and was succeeded by Luke Hartsuyker. Hartsuyker has held the seat ever since.
A redistribution shifted the seat south at the 2016 election, and former independent MP Rob Oakeshott, who previously represented Lyne to the south, contested Cowper and came within 5% of defeating Hartsuyker.
Hartsuyker retired in 2019 and Oakeshott took another shot at the seat, but lost to Nationals candidate Pat Conaghan by a slightly increased margin. Conaghan was re-elected in 2022, again defeating an independent.
Assessment
Cowper is quite a marginal seat but the performance of the independent here is dependent on local issues that might not match the national swings.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Pat Conaghan | Nationals | 43,909 | 39.5 | -7.6 | 39.5 |
| Caz Heise | Independent | 29,206 | 26.3 | +26.3 | 26.2 |
| Keith McMullen | Labor | 15,566 | 14.0 | +0.2 | 14.0 |
| Faye Aspiotis | One Nation | 9,047 | 8.1 | +8.1 | 8.2 |
| Timothy Nott | Greens | 6,518 | 5.9 | -0.1 | 5.9 |
| Simon Chaseling | Liberal Democrats | 4,316 | 3.9 | +3.9 | 3.9 |
| Joshua Fairhall | United Australia | 2,674 | 2.4 | -0.6 | 2.4 |
| Informal | 5,770 | 4.9 | -2.9 |
2022 two-candidate-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Pat Conaghan | Nationals | 58,204 | 52.3 | 52.4 | |
| Caz Heise | Independent | 53,032 | 47.7 | 47.6 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Pat Conaghan | Nationals | 66,153 | 59.5 | -2.4 | 59.5 |
| Keith McMullen | Labor | 45,083 | 40.5 | +2.4 | 40.5 |
Booths have been divided between the five local government areas: Bellingen, Coffs Harbour, Kempsey, Nambucca and Port Macquarie.
The Nationals won a majority of the two-candidate-preferred vote in Port Macquarie-Hastings (50.4%) and Kempsey (58.3%). Independent Caz Heise won 50.3% in Nambucca Valley, 53.8% in Coffs Harbour and 63.5% in Bellingen.
| Voter group | ALP prim | NAT 2CP | Total votes | % of votes |
| Coffs Harbour | 13.7 | 46.2 | 14,957 | 13.7 |
| Port Macquarie-Hastings | 14.5 | 50.4 | 12,322 | 11.3 |
| Kempsey | 15.7 | 58.3 | 8,725 | 8.0 |
| Nambucca Valley | 15.0 | 49.7 | 7,222 | 6.6 |
| Bellingen | 9.6 | 36.5 | 5,984 | 5.5 |
| Pre-poll | 13.6 | 56.3 | 49,031 | 44.9 |
| Other votes | 16.2 | 51.4 | 10,872 | 10.0 |
Election results in Cowper at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-candidate-preferred votes (Nationals vs Independent), two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Nationals, independent candidates and Labor.
Thoughts on this seat? The teal is running a hard campaign but I’m curious to see what everyone else thinks the result will be.
@James Nationals hold. The south votes Nationals and the north voted marginally for the teal. The teal (Caz Heise) did best in Coffs where she’s from. Apparently she now has ads in the movies now though. I feel like that’s kinda overkill.
@np i doubt the coalition will lose any seats
Caz Heise is one of several teal independents who will be re-running this election.
It’ll be interesting to see if she or anyone of them will hold firm or improve their vote with more exposure and experience. She knows her weak areas but at the same time, Pat Conaghan knows his weak areas and strong areas. I expect Labor to run dead. Their votes may or may not flow to Heise.
I don’t think she will improve, it was very different three years ago.
We should start a tally of every seat where it has been mentioned that Labor will ‘run dead’.
Cowper above, Casey the other day and then are the seats where they will – current Teal seats plus Indi, Mayo then Bradfield, Wannon. It almost seems that Labor could ‘run dead’ themselves into oblivion? Who knows what it will do to their senate vote.
Labor ‘running dead’ or ordinarily Labor voters voting for independents to try and defeat the Coalition in unwinnable seats for Labor is the reason Labor’s vote is at a record low of around 30%. If not for all these seats it would easily be upwards of 35%.
That’s what I think is going on @Adam, and additionally the 2PP in teal/progressive independent seats is likely to still be one favouring the Liberals. Labor are in a stronger position than the polls suggest
There’s not that many seats where the teals are the clear challengers, and not that many voters who will vote tactically even though it’s enough in a few cases to turn the teal into the clear challenger. At most it can account for maybe 1% of the primary vote.
Where teal candidates have been successful the seats have either had LNP members who didn’t align with the views of the wider population or they said that they are aligned but when in government didn’t actually act that way
Good teal vote
Boundaries strange
What Adda wrote. The numbers don’t support it being the full difference between 28% and 35% that’s truely wishful thinking from Labor aligned people.
Apparently Conaghan is running ads with the Nats Port Macquarie By-election candidate
An article in the Saturday Paper shows that the Caz Heise campaign is confident of picking this up. The article even says that this seat is more likely to flip than Bradfield. Climate 200 polling shows a 2CP of 53/47 going the teal’s way.
Worth a read. It has seat polling for other seats though I take seat polling (especially ones with a political motive) with a grain of salt.
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2025/03/22/polling-shows-teals-support-growing-coalition-base
Yeah of the three most competitive regional seats independents are targeting (Wannon, Calare and Cowper) I’d say the ingredients are best for the IND here – growing cities and evolving demographics, a coalition primary already below 40%, and candidate that appears likeable and inoffensive
Surprisingly the AEF is putting Cowper as a really close race between the Nationals and Heise and recently I’ve been seeing a lot more people (including Anglo Election Insights) thinking Cowper could be a Teal gain
I’ve heard a lot about the campaigns in Bradfield and Wannon but not in Cowper. Is there any reason there’s a sudden burst of optimism specifically for Caz Heise and not for Dyson (or any other Teals, but mainly Dyson bc a lot of predictions I’m seeing put Cowper as Teal gain but Wannon as LIB retain)
In Port Macquarie there’s a lot of Nationals signs, as well as many Caz Heise signs and very few Labor signs.
@ NP
Caz Heise seems to be running strong campaign like AlexDyson in Wannon. A Climate 200 independent faces a tougher task here as there is a larger right wing minor vote such as ONP compared to Kooyong, Goldstein etc
@Nimalan I’m told her ads are everywhere like last time (at the movies, on TV, on signs) but that wasn’t enough in the southern end of the seat.
I’m gonna say Nationals hold with a swing to them. Haven’t driven through Coffs yet but in Port and Kempsey it’s mostly Pat Conaghan signs.
@ Nether Portal
I agree i think will be a status quo result in Cowper and Wannon.
Was recently in the seat. Seems to be a very active campaign by the Indy. Even an office in South West Rocks which was well staffed. South West Rocks is a town of about 6000 people so I am told.
@Nimalan yeah I agree, not sure about what it’s like on the ground in Wannon but still should be a Liberal hold.
@Mike South West Rocks is a coastal town near Kempsey. It’s pretty touristy but also not far from some rural towns (the largest being Frederickton) as well as some smaller coastal towns with campsites along Smoky Cape like Arakoon (where the old Trial Bay Gaol is, though the current local jail is in Aldavilla just west of West Kempsey). Hat Head also isn’t far, it’s a much smaller town but similar in that it’s coastal and touristy with campgrounds.
As as I’m concerned the independents have no hope the National Party will rule this forever on more. No hope for any other party
whatsoever not now, not in the near future, not ever. How people turn against their loyal national party that would be very nasty.
this is probably the most likely teal gain
Can has spent truckloads of money in this campaign, but I feel it may still not get her over the line.I suspect people are going to be wary of teals after seeing their voting record in parliament where they have predominantly backed the greens.
The underlying sentiment is towards the nationals, Rob Oakshot comes to mind when he backed labor and his rising star quickly lost its lustre.
This has the smallest Coalition vs teal margin. Wannon and Bradfield have higher Coalition margins. Wannon, especially north of Princes Highway, is more dependent on primary industries than Cowper is so the climate change message would resonate more in Cowper.
There’s a bigger field of candidates which has the potential to split votes for either side.
I thi k the bigger field.and higher position on the ballot should help the nats over the line
I’ve just spent a few weeks in this area. The support Caz Heise appears to have across a wide variety of demographic groups and regions reminds me a lot of Helen Haines in the seat INDI – which covers a similarly large physical area. Caz & her volunteers are very active and there are a lot of signs on private fencelines and it looks like a well planned and disciplined campaign
Caz might need to run up a score in Coffs or peel off a few extra votes in Port Mac suburbs, if she does either she will be elected – I would be surprised if she doesn’t get in here. Absolutely one to watch on the election night.
Preferences have fallen into line here. Both Labor & Greens are preferencing Heise – not each other. Question is did Heise max out here in 2022? Or can she go the extra 3%?
I drove through the north coast over Easter. The number of Caz Heise signs and particularly billboards was quite remarkable. I find it interesting that she’s chosen to use teal unlike many regional independents who’ve chosen other colours (orange is pretty popular) to separate themselves from independents in wealthy urban electorates.
Also worth noting that by taking in Coffs Harbour and Port Macquarie, Cowper is significantly more urbanised than both Lyne and Page. Not exactly sure what difference that’ll make, but this is definitely a seat to watch.
i think this is the teals best hope of a gain and wil say its probably lineball if not favouring the teal. though id say she will be aone hit wonder after she sides with labor on a whole bunch of stuff
though the melbourne cup field and the nats being higher on the list might save them
In terms of generic coalition vs IND this seat strikes me as the most vulnerable to being flipped, but I am beginning to think the NATs are going to hold up a little better than the Liberals, this is lineball
I agree with everyone that this is a lineball game at this point. I’m reminded of Barnaby on Election Night 2022, stating on live TV that the voters were “ungrateful” for electing teals, whom he saw as just a bunch of women wanting to make a point, while “tossing out good MPs who had a future career ahead of them”. While I’m tipping the Nats to hold this time, the party may need to think about doing some soul-searching. It’s felt like they’ve largely been protected by these demographic shifts, but an ill wind is blowing unless they can moderate their message in some areas. As the comment above from 15 April indicates, some people think that the Nats have a god-given right to these areas, just as Barnaby felt that Goldstein and Wentworth belong to the Libs, and that kind of thinking is not especially pragmatic for a 21st century political party.
i think this might be a teal gain but it will be a one term wonder
@john no if she wins its a hold for 15 years.
Not if she supports a Labor minority govt.