LIB 3.5%
Incumbent MP
Jenny Ware, since 2022.
Geography
Hughes covers southern parts of Sydney. A majority of the seat lies in the Sutherland Shire, including Menai, Bangor, Sutherland, Como, Jannali, Illawong, Barden Ridge, Engadine, Heathcote, Waterfall and Bundeena. The remainder of the seat lies at the southeastern end of the City of Liverpool, including Moorebank and Wattle Grove, or in northern parts of the City of Campbelltown, including Ingleburn, Macquarie Fields, Glenfield and Bardia.
Redistribution
Hughes shifted west, which meant that the Sutherland Shire now makes up less than 60% of the electorate. The City of Liverpool makes up just under one fifth of the roll, and almost a quarter of the electorate now lives in the City of Campbelltown, to the west of the Georges River.
To be more specific, the Sutherland Shire suburbs of Grays Point, Kareela, Kirrawee and Oyster Bay to Cook, gained the suburbs of Bardia, Glenfield and Macquarie Fields from Werriwa and also gained the suburb of Ingleburn from Macarthur.
These changes cut the Liberal margin from 7.0% to 3.5%.
History
Hughes was first created in 1955 and has been held by the ALP for much of its history despite generally covering relatively affluent areas that would usually be thought of as more favourable to the Liberals. Its first MP was Les Johnson, who held the seat for Labor until he was defeated in the 1966 landslide by the Liberal Party’s Don Dobie. Dobie transferred to the newly created seat of Cook in 1969, and Johnson regained Hughes for the ALP, going on to serve as a minister in the Whitlam government.
Johnson resigned in December 1983, and was succeeded at a by-election by Robert Tickner, who went on to serve a high-profile tenure as Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs from 1990 until losing his seat when the Keating government lost office in 1996.
Danna Vale won the seat for the Liberals in 1996 and held the seat for the next five terms.
Vale retired in 2010 and Liberal candidate Craig Kelly won the seat, increasing the Liberal margin to 5.2%. Kelly has been re-elected three times.
Kelly resigned from the Liberal Party in February 2021 to sit as an independent, eventually joining the United Australia Party.
Liberal candidate Jenny Ware won in 2022, with the sitting MP coming a distant fourth.
- David Moncrieff (Labor)
- Catherine Elizabeth Dyson (Greens)
- Elvis Sinosic (Libertarian)
- Alex Scarfone (Trumpet of Patriots)
- Nathaniel Marsh (Family First)
- Jenny Ware (Liberal)
- David Miller (Citizens Party)
- Deborah Swinbourn (One Nation)
Assessment
Hughes has become much more marginal due to the redistribution, as it has been pulled into historically strong Labor suburbs in Campbelltown. The suburbs of Hughes (both on the 2022 and 2025 boundaries) have been more favourable for the Liberal Party in recent years than they were a decade earlier, and that combined with the Liberal Party being on an upswing should be enough to retain the seat. Ware should also have a personal vote which should help her, particularly with Craig Kelly out of the race now.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Jenny Ware | Liberal | 42,148 | 43.5 | -9.7 | 40.4 |
| Riley Campbell | Labor | 21,828 | 22.5 | -7.9 | 27.9 |
| Georgia Steele | Independent | 13,891 | 14.3 | +14.3 | 10.9 |
| Craig Kelly | United Australia | 7,186 | 7.4 | +4.9 | 7.3 |
| Pete Thompson | Greens | 6,118 | 6.3 | -0.6 | 6.4 |
| Narelle Seymour | One Nation | 2,600 | 2.7 | +2.7 | 3.4 |
| Linda Seymour | Independent | 3,138 | 3.2 | +3.2 | 2.5 |
| Others | 1.1 | ||||
| Informal | 4,387 | 4.3 | -0.8 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Jenny Ware | Liberal | 55,244 | 57.0 | -2.8 | 53.5 |
| Riley Campbell | Labor | 41,665 | 43.0 | +2.8 | 46.5 |
Polling places in Hughes have been divided into four parts. Polling places in the Campbelltown and Liverpool council areas are grouped as “north-west”, while central, east and south covers the Sutherland Shire booths.
The Liberal Party won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in the Sutherland Shire sub-areas, ranging from 50.4% in the east to 64.1% in the centre. Labor polled 53.7% in the north-west.
Two teal independents stood in Hughes, and they polled a primary vote ranging from 5.1% in the north-west to 27.3% in the east, although the north-west includes a number of booths that weren’t in Hughes in 2022 and where no independent candidate was on hte ballot.
| Voter group | IND prim | LIB 2PP | Total votes | % of votes |
| North-West | 5.1 | 46.3 | 16,035 | 16.3 |
| Central | 14.1 | 64.1 | 15,967 | 16.2 |
| South | 21.8 | 54.1 | 10,155 | 10.3 |
| East | 27.3 | 50.4 | 9,148 | 9.3 |
| Pre-poll | 11.7 | 52.1 | 34,254 | 34.9 |
| Other votes | 11.1 | 54.4 | 12,729 | 13.0 |
Election results in Hughes at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, Labor and independent candidates.
Liberal hold. Jenny Ware should get enough of a sophomore surge and the absence of a teal (for now) should increase her vote enough to hold on.
Interesting that on these boundaries Labor would have won here in 2007.
@SpaceFish unsurprising given it should be an area Labor focuses on, it’s just not.
It’s sandwiched between the Liberal-voting, blue ribbon Shire and Labor-voting, working-class Wollongong in the east and Labor-voting, working-class Campbelltown, the ethnic yet now politically diverse Liverpool area and the Liberal-voting, rural Southern Highlands. So you’d think it’d be a pretty mixed, centrist seat. Federal Labor just underperforms even though the last MP was literally Craig Kelly.
This electorate looks like three geographically-separated pieces randomly joined up together.
Jenny Ware will score a swing. Presumably, there won’t be Craig Kelly or a teal running. The redistribution has removed the teal-ish areas of Oyster Bay and the eastern part of Jannali.
I’ve long thought that the swing away from Labor will correlate with mortgage/rental stress. West of the Georges River has some mortgage belt territory but is newer and lower-income. There are large South Asian and Indo-Fijian communities. There might be some anti-Labor swings due to the Palestine issue amongst the South Asian Muslim communities. Further north-east, Moorebank, Holsworthy and Hammondville are mortgage belt suburbs but are more established and middle-class.
@Nether Portal, I don’t agree that Labor should’ve focused on this. It hasn’t been that winnable for Labor since 1996. The Liberals tends to get 55% to 60% 2PP. It was mainly Sutherland Shire-based with a bit of Liverpool LGA in it for decades. Sutherland Shire is mainly Anglo-Celtic and is quite conservative. The Liverpool part was either very small or contained Moorebank, Holsworthy and Hammondville – they tended to vote Liberal with a 2PP of low to mid 50s.
Think liberal retain
All of Menai in the seat.
Nsw state election figures an alp won
Labor are definitely not acting like this is a winnable seat, despite the redistribution and decent results at other tiers. Their preselected candidate, a staffer, isn’t even featured on the ALP website.
This seat would be better if stretched southwards to Helensburgh than westwards. Helensburgh has more in common and is closer to Sutherland Shire than Moorebank and Macquarie Fields are.
Hughes once stretched down all the way to the northern suburbs of Wollongong so there’s a precedent. The state seat of Heathcote stretches across Royal NP and unites Sutherland Shire with the northern suburbs of Wollongong, including Bulli and Thirroul.
@Blue Not John – agreed. On state results this seat would be notionally Labor, especially with big swings to Labor around Engadine and Sutherland. Yet I’m tipping the Liberals to retain with a swing to them, especially as there doesn’t seem to be a teal running that would hurt the Liberals, and pretty obviously, Labor aren’t bothering here despite a good set of boundaries for them to go off of. You would also expect Jenny Ware to get a sophomore surge.
The Labor candidate was “moved on” from his job working for the State MP for Heathcote. Questions to be asked there as to why I believe…
anything happening here cause on the margin and overlapping state seats id think theres something to watch here with current polling
If there’s a “surprise” Liberal loss, this is it due to changing demographics in Sutherland and re-distribution.
I was completely caught off guard by this seat, this was one of those seats labor lost in 1996 landslide defeat and was assumed it wouldn’t return.
I did think this was a smokey for Labor if they had a good night, especially with the Campbelltown booths that got added. Did go massively under the radar with the polls we were seeing
Well, credit to @midnight and @greg for picking this.
Wasn’t on my radar…
West of Georges River is low SES and ethnic. The rest of the seat especially the Shire part is stereotypical Middle Anglo Australia and this is very symbolic as ir was a Howard Battler seat and one of the surprises of the 1996 election. It is the first time in almost 30 years that any part of the Shire has been represented Federally by the Labor part.
1. I think there might be a mistake on the Macquarie Fields East booth count. Some preferences have gone awry somewhere.
2. Definitely not foreseen result. Why the big swings in Menai and the areas east of the Woronora River? Is there a local who can provide some insight?
Maybe nuclear backlash because Lucas heights is nearby. Jenny ware is vocally pro nuclear
ABC calls this seat a “surprise win”. It wasn’t on my radar either.
The Macquarie Fields part had swung to the Greens strongly at the expense of both Labor and Liberals.
The South Coast train line suburbs from Como to Sutherland and Loftus are quite teal-ish and may have cohorts of Tree Tories. Along the line down to Heathcote, the big swings to the ALP and Greens were due to the absence of the teal candidate who ran last time. Also, the Labor candidate is an ex-staffer of the state MP for Heathcote.
@Votante I don’t think anyone would’ve predicted this one.
@Mitch where do you think the boundary for this one should be?
There doesn’t seem to be enough population in the western part of the Shire for its own seat. I guess options are
– Move remove northern part of Cook and add more of the shire there. Then Hughes has only Menai/Bangor
– Push Hughes north and push out Banks and Werriwa west
It has nothing to do with population as Hughes which is based in the shire has lost areas to Cook then Hughes expands into Macarthur and Werriwa. If Hughes had population issues it could expand into Cook.
I would of moved it north to the georges river before moving it into campbelltown.
The definition of gerrymandering is to manipulate boundaries so as to favour a particular party. You can disagree with the boundaries that were made but the AEC is scrupulously neutral and unwarranted accusations can go in the bin.
It wasn’t gerrymandering that got Labor the win.
The biggest swings were in historically conservative Sutherland Shire. Holsworthy and Moorebank also saw big swings to Labor. I think it was the absence of a teal candidate who ran in 2022. I’m guessing that people who voted teal had switched to Labor. There were big primary vote swings to the Greens west of Holsworthy Barracks.
@ Votante
I am not sure if i would say Tree Tories to descrbe the suburbs along the rail line. I actually feel they are steortypical Middle Australia suburbs a bit like Deakin suburbs such as Heathmont, Ringwood East, Croydon etc. I do take the point that a purely Sutherland Shire and Liverpool lGA east of the Georges River like in 2022 is probbaly very difficult to win these days for Labor. Before 2001 Hughes took parts of the Illawara and want better for Labor. In Liverpool LGA the Georges River acts as a social divide so when the seat goes west it does a massive help for Labor.
The fact that Cambridge Avenue seperates the Campbelltown and the Liverpool part of the seat isn’t quite nice to see. They could expand into Fowler taking Chipping Norton or added Casula into the seat keeping the old Hughes boundary line with Cook.
I mean just adding Chipping Norton and Casula with the old Hughes boundary line with Cook. Makes more sense with 2 councils in 1 seat being the Shire and Liverpool
@Nimalan, the train line suburbs (except for Sutherland) are low-density, middle Australia suburbs. I used the term “tree Tories” because of the high teal vote in 2022 and also because of the abundance of parks and being surrounded by national parks.
Interestingly, there were strong swings to the Greens and even Greens getting double-digit primary votes. This might’ve been due to the absence of a teal.
I’m genuinely still baffled about this result. It just seemed like the stereotypical seat in which Dutton & the Libs’ agenda would play well. And given it’s the only seat in the country with a nuclear reactor, you’d think Dutton’s nuclear plan wouldn’t sound as crazy to the voters of Hughes. The fact it’s also dubbed the “tradie seat” also makes me feel as if the Work From Home crisis wouldn’t have been as prevalent here. Anyway it’ll be interesting to see what happens next time around and in the state seats of Holsworthy & Miranda.
@ Votante
Fair point i agree a lot of the shire is typical Middle Australia just like Deakin and most of Aston
@Oliver i agree i did not have this seat in my rader as it is a very tradie seat something Antony Green also mentioned on election night
I recall Antony Green saying this is a tradies’ seat and Labor had aimed to win in back for some time. A lot of the areas in the east are middle-class and maybe more reflective of middle Australia. For example, Sutherland is becoming popular with white-collar professionals and renters. I’ve seen lots of new-ish apartments in and around here. Heathcote and Engadine have low-density housing and are where there are tradies and service economy workers.
I don’t think the nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights drove the Labor vote. The nuclear policy wasn’t popular in urban areas across the country. I recall Kos Samaras saying at the Press Club a month ago that Labor’s anti-nuclear campaign was effective at holding Labor’s working-class base. Maybe this explains the swing to Labor in Hughes as well as in Western Sydney and outer Brisbane.
There should be a podcast or article or essay one day on how Labor won back working-class voters this election.