ALP 0.2%
Incumbent MP
Fiona Phillips, since 2019.
Geography
Gilmore covers parts of the south coast and the southern Illawarra. This includes the entirety of the City of Shoalhaven and Kiama LGA, and northern parts of the Eurobodalla council area. The southernmost significant settlement is Moruya.
Redistribution
Gilmore contracted very slightly at its southern border, losing Tuross Head to Eden-Monaro. This change made no difference to Labor’s margin.
History
Gilmore was created in 1984 when the House of Representatives was expanded in 1984. The seat was first held by the National Party’s John Sharp until 1993, when he moved to the nearby seat of Hume. Sharp served in the first Howard cabinet until he resigned over the travel rorts affair in 1997.
The seat was won by the ALP’s Peter Knott in 1993, and he was defeated by Joanna Gash of the Liberal Party in 1996. The seat was considered marginal after the 1996 and 1998 elections, but a large swing in 2001 saw Gash hold the seat by a much larger margin. This was cut back to a margin of about 4% in 2007.
Gilmore’s boundaries were redrawn before the 2010 election, making the seat a notional Labor seat. Gash gained a 5.7% swing.
Gash announced her impending retirement in 2012, and was elected as the directly-elected Mayor of Shoalhaven.
In 2013, Gash was succeeded by Liberal candidate Ann Sudmalis, who won despite a 2.7% swing to Labor. Sudmalis suffered a further 3% swing in 2016, but narrowly won a second term.
Sudmalis retired in 2019, and a contentious Liberal preselection resulted in the imposition of a candidate, and the leading preselection candidate running as an independent. A former state minister also ran as a Nationals candidate. Labor candidate Fiona Phillips defeated this crowded conservative field.
Phillips faced a strong challenge for re-election in 2022. State Bega MP Andrew Constance, who had also been Minister for Transport, quit state parliament to challenge Phillips. Constance gained a 2.4% swing but fell less than 400 votes short of winning.
Assessment
Gilmore is Labor’s most marginal seat, and Constance is running again. There is a real chance Constance could win Gilmore at this election.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Andrew Constance | Liberal | 46,941 | 42.0 | +12.8 | 42.0 |
| Fiona Phillips | Labor | 40,175 | 36.0 | -0.2 | 35.9 |
| Carmel McCallum | Greens | 11,417 | 10.2 | +0.3 | 10.2 |
| Nina Digiglio | Independent | 4,721 | 4.2 | +4.2 | 4.2 |
| Jerremy Eid | One Nation | 4,453 | 4.0 | +4.0 | 4.0 |
| Jordan Maloney | United Australia | 3,108 | 2.8 | -0.6 | 2.8 |
| Adrian Fadini | Liberal Democrats | 890 | 0.8 | +0.8 | 0.8 |
| Informal | 5,170 | 4.4 | -0.8 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Fiona Phillips | Labor | 56,039 | 50.2 | -2.4 | 50.2 |
| Andrew Constance | Liberal | 55,666 | 49.8 | +2.4 | 49.8 |
Booths in Gilmore have been divided into five areas. Polling places in Eurobodalla and Kiama council areas have been grouped along council boundaries. Those polling places in Shoalhaven have been divided in three. From north to south these are: Nowra, Jervis Bay and Ulladulla.
The ALP won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in four out of thoe five areas, ranging from 51.6% in Ulladulla to 54.3% in Kiama. The Liberal Party polled 50.4% in Batemans Bay.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 10.2% in Nowra to 18.2% in Kiama. The Greens did much better in Kiama than in the rest of the electorate.
| Voter group | GRN prim | ALP 2PP | Total votes | % of votes |
| Nowra | 10.2 | 52.5 | 13,149 | 12.0 |
| Batemans Bay | 10.8 | 49.6 | 7,653 | 7.0 |
| Jervis Bay | 10.4 | 53.7 | 7,134 | 6.5 |
| Ulladulla | 11.2 | 51.6 | 6,071 | 5.5 |
| Kiama | 18.2 | 54.3 | 5,992 | 5.5 |
| Pre-poll | 9.3 | 49.2 | 55,037 | 50.1 |
| Other votes | 9.8 | 48.0 | 14,716 | 13.4 |
Election results in Gilmore at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, Labor and the Greens.
Constance seems to be a bit of a flip flopper when it comes to climate change. Like he believed it when he was fighting the fires in 2020 and then recently just said that he’s changed his mind and that Australia should drop the 2035 emissions target and pull out of Paris.
I’m sure the good people of Nelligen, Batemans’ Bay, Kiama, Shoalhaven area who’ve lost their houses and lives in Black Summer will appreciate those remarks given what they’ve gone through, but no apparently off-short wind farms are more harmful than natural disasters that have evidently worsened in frequency and intensity in recent years. Give me a break.
They’ll probably vote him in given the slim margin, but Constance is no saint.
off-shore sorry
Did anyone see the Daily Telegraph and Sky News reports about an exit poll where there has been a large primary vote increase for Labor and drop for Liberal?
I wouldn’t put much trust into small sample exit polls
Disappointing if true to hear that Andrew Constance has decided to play dumb on climate change for political reasons. He’s an intelligent guy, so there’s no chance he’s genuinely joined the cookers; it’s a cynical political move that has a potential by-product of further hobbling our country’s progress. So that’s great.
I think he’ll still take this but by a very slim margin. Interesting that the comments a few months ago felt strongly that people would turn against Labor for such a great candidate, and that this was a thoroughbred Liberal seat that happened to go Labor once due to a bad candidate choice in 2022. I don’t buy that, and I expect his win won’t be by many more votes than his loss three years ago. Expect Kate Dezarnaulds might get into the low 10s, which would still be saying something.
Certainly not the easy victory some people dreamed it would be.
Yeah, Andrew Constance’s flip-flopping on climate change might give the teal, Kate Dezarnaulds, some more leverage. Constance has a path to winning if the teal peels off too much from Labor.
I also wonder if people still remember him. He left state parliament in late 2021 and so he was fresher in people’s minds at the 2022 election.
Phillips is polling very well again at Albion Park pre-poll which provided the crucial winning votes for her in 2022. Expect her to win. Dezarnaulds without the benefit of Labor tactical votes will be lucky to get her deposit back?
Can confirm that the how to vote card for the “teal” or “community independent” – Dezarnaulds mentions that it’s up to the voter to determine their preferences but it is recommending preferences to Phillips (ALP) above Constance (Lib).
Polling by YouGov, commissioned by AMC, and between April 17 and 24 has showed Labor coming in at 54 per cent on a two-party preferred basis, compared to 46 per cent for the Coalition. Constance-Dutton personally on nose and is likely cause a crash in first preference vote for Constance (Lib).
@Aaron got a link to that poll?
@North by West
Only a news article link: https://v.gd/i7zbGM
According to the guy who edits a lot of the election related pages on Wikipedia, YouGov seems to have done polls of a number of seats from the 17th-24th, which I assume were all part of the same poll. But he hasn’t listed a source for it either. Bit of a mystery.
Yea those polls look at bit odd to me tbh until I see official results
Dutton visiting here today with Constance to announce some pork barrelling at a local football club
Andrew Constance on Sky News standing up for his voting base in Berry following on a year old email from independent candidate Kate Dezarnaulds who described the town as a “miserable, backwards retirement village” during her time as Berry Business Chamber president
Apparently Labor have given up on this seat to focus on others.
That’s interesting Greg, I thought Labor were confident here.
@Greg – interesting observation. I think Labor should be trying to sandbag here but either way it’s an odd choice considering losing here would mean an extra seat to gain (which is very possible).
If Labor have given and going to sandbag somewhere else – where is the somewhere else – Whitlam? Eden Monaro? or further afield?
Good question Redistributed, if locally based volunteers I think Whitlam. If they flew in (or drove) from elsewhere it could be Sydney seats or even Hunter or Patterson.
I don’t think it’s Eden Monaro. I think that’s an easy Labor hold.
Or could Labor be thinking they are home and hosed and there are more worrisome seats?
This seat certainly is in play and whoever wins will not win by that much. People wrote off this seat in 2022 for Labor and the fact that they retained it against the odds shows that this seat cannot be predicted easily. Local libs always underestimated the local popularity of Fiona Phillips.
@Greg – not the feeling I have got from on the ground – would love to know why you think this.
should have been an easy lib gain but the lackluster liberal start and labor scare campaigns and their effectively vote buying campaign makes is competitive
After Dutton’s performance in Gilmore yesterday…
John to be fair the libs are also vote buying.
Isn’t it much more likely Labor think they are secure here so are moving resources where they are more needed? Even someone like me who thinks the Libs might be more competitive than the polls suggest wouldn’t suggest Labor have given up here.
If offering 25 cents a litre off petrol (for a year!) isn’t vote buying, I’m not sure what is.
To repeat Phillips is polling very well again at Albion Park absentee pre-poll which provided the crucial winning votes for her in 2022. Is anybody else on this link actually in or close to the seat?
Albion park isn’t in the electorate.
@Stew Rockdale – there is a pre-poll booth used for Whitlam at Centenary Hall that is also unofficially used as a pre-poll for Gilmore. I think it’s mostly just voters in the Jamberoo-Curramore area, as well as some voters who find it easier to vote there than at Kiama for example.
A caveat is that as @Roger Roughead said, the Albion Park PPVC for Gilmore is an absentee booth. So any votes cast there are absentee votes. Admittedly I don’t believe the AEC publishes a 2PP for any absentee pre-poll booths so it’s a question whether his comment about Fiona doing well there is factual, yet I would presume so.
…which is why Roger called it the absentee pre-poll.
The feeling is Labor are honing in on Bennelong, Werriwa, Whitlam (which I never saw as in play) and to a lesser extent Paterson. Gilmore could still go either way but I’m hearing Labor are preparing for a loss.
@greg. Feeling from where or who? Based on my interactions (admittedly only at the northern end of the electorate), they have not abandoned their belief or effort.
@Real Talk tax cuts are not vote buying, it’s letting people keep more of what they earn (which was always their property to begin with).
When Labor offers tax cuts, it’s electoral prostitution.
When the Coalition does it, it’s Responsible Economic Stewardship™.
Funny how “letting people keep their money” only becomes a moral crusade when it’s the Libs handing it out.
The hypocrisy from the blue cheer squad couldn’t be more transparent if it were laminated.
The latest *published* YouGov poll released today suggests there is a swing towards Labor in this seat.
@Real Talk the coalition isn’t even making a permanent tax cut, it’s a one time benefit.