LIB 16.4%
Incumbent MP
Sussan Ley, since 2001.
Geography
Farrer covers a great expanse of southwestern NSW. The seat covers most of the NSW-Victorian border, stretching from the Greater Hume area around Albury all the way along the Murray River, and further north to cover areas along the Murrumbidgee River. Main towns include Albury, Griffith, Leeton, Deniliquin and Corowa.
History
Farrer was created at the 1949 election as part of the expansion of the House of Representatives. In its time it has always been held by conservative parties, primarily the Liberal Party, although it was held by the Nationals from 1984 until 2001.
The seat was first won in 1949 by Liberal candidate David Fairbairn. He was included in the Menzies ministry from 1962 until 1969, when he challenged John Gorton for the leadership and moved to the backbench. He returned to cabinet for one year in 1971 after William McMahon became Prime Minister, and retired from Parliament in 1975.
He was succeeded by Wal Fife, who had been a minister in the Liberal state government of New South Wales since 1967. Fife went on to serve as a minister in the Fraser government from 1977 until its defeat in 1983. He moved to the seat of Hume following the 1984 redistribution, which had moved Wagga Wagga from Farrer into Hume, and he retired in 1993.
The seat was won in a three-cornered contest in 1984 by Nationals state MP Tim Fischer, with the Liberal coming third. Fischer became leader of the National Party in 1990 after then-leader Charles Blunt lost his seat.
Fischer went on to serve as Deputy Prime Minister from 1996 to 1999, retiring at the 2001 election. Another three-cornered contest in 2001 saw the Liberal Party’s Sussan Ley win the seat back from the Nationals.
Sussan Ley has been re-elected seven times. She served as Minister for Health from 2014 until 2017, and as Minister for the Environment from 2019 to 2022. She was elected deputy leader of the Liberal Party after the party lost power in 2022.
Assessment
Farrer is a safe Liberal seat.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Sussan Ley | Liberal | 52,566 | 52.3 | +1.6 |
| Darren Cameron | Labor | 19,097 | 19.0 | +4.4 |
| Eli Davern | Greens | 9,163 | 9.1 | +4.5 |
| Richard Francis | One Nation | 6,363 | 6.3 | +6.3 |
| Paul Britton | Shooters, Fishers and Farmers | 5,339 | 5.3 | +5.3 |
| Julie Ramos | United Australia | 3,270 | 3.3 | -1.0 |
| Amanda Duncan-Strelec | Independent | 3,189 | 3.2 | +3.2 |
| Ian Roworth | Liberal Democrats | 1,595 | 1.6 | +0.5 |
| Informal | 8,256 | 7.6 | -1.5 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Sussan Ley | Liberal | 66,739 | 66.4 | -3.5 |
| Darren Cameron | Labor | 33,843 | 33.6 | +3.5 |
Booths have been divided into seven parts. Polling places in the towns of Albury, Griffith and Deniliquin have been grouped together, and the remainder of the seat’s population has been split into north-east, north-west, south-east and south-west.
The Liberal Party won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all seven areas, ranging from 55.4% in Albury to 74.8% in the north-west.
The Greens came third, with 18.6% in Albury and less than 7% elsewhere.
| Voter group | GRN prim | LIB 2PP | Total votes | % of votes |
| Albury | 18.6 | 55.4 | 13,371 | 13.3 |
| South-East | 6.1 | 70.3 | 7,813 | 7.8 |
| South-West | 3.8 | 74.3 | 7,386 | 7.3 |
| Griffith | 6.6 | 70.1 | 7,327 | 7.3 |
| North-East | 5.4 | 67.4 | 6,300 | 6.3 |
| North-West | 4.2 | 74.8 | 3,976 | 4.0 |
| Deniliquin | 4.9 | 66.5 | 1,607 | 1.6 |
| Pre-poll | 9.5 | 65.4 | 40,978 | 40.7 |
| Other votes | 8.0 | 68.7 | 11,824 | 11.8 |
Election results in Farrer at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, Labor and the Greens.
Any reason the greens do so well in Albury, especially compared to the rest of the seat.
@ North East Younger Demographic due to University in Albury
@North East – this was stated on the Farrer 2022 thread, but in short, a lot of regional cities like Albury have undergone their own gentrification and densification in recent years. There’s a lot of young, progressive voters in the CBDs of some regional cities like Toowoomba, Wagga Wagga, Armidale and Albury have decent Green votes in the inner-city booths there. Furthermore, there is a Charles Sturt University campus in Albury, which would likely have a lot of students staying in inner Albury as presumably house and apartment prices would be cheaper. I suggest the Farrer 2022 thread would be a lot more detailed though.
Another example (which I’ve mentioned) is Armidale, where some of the polling-day booths vote Labor on the 2PP and some of them actually voted Yes in the Voice referendum (Armidale, Armidale South, Madgwick). That’s thanks to the UNE campus located near the inner city which has likely brought younger and more progressive voters into the inner city.
There was also a bit of a novelty factor to the Greens candidate in 2022. He was a local 18 year old Albury High School student.
I’m astounded at how big this electorate is, even though I’m aware of the need for it to be somewhere near quota. But even though I believe that Miss Ley has her pilot’s licence, I wonder why this is separate from Parkes.
Broken Hill (the only city of any size in the far west) is actually about 100kms closer to Albury than it is to Moree. And given that
both electorates are huge, would it not make sense for an MP to be based in Broken Hill and work from there?
Doing so might allow some of the Riverina towns to have their own electorate (maybe including Albury or Wagga), or just stretching from Moama up to West Wyalong or thereabouts.
I appreciate that there are communities of interest questions, but I am not sure (as it stands) that Broken Hill and either Moree or Albury have all that much in common.
There simply is not enough quota to make that happen.