ALP 3.7%
Incumbent MP
Andrew Charlton, since 2022.
Geography
Western Sydney. The seat of Parramatta covers the centre of Parramatta and surrounding suburbs, including Wentworthville, Westmead, Carlingford, Dundas, Ermington, Girraween, Pendle Hill and Rydalmere, and parts of Epping, Seven Hills and Toongabbie. The electorate covers most of the City of Parramatta along with a small part of the Cumberland and Blacktown council areas.
Redistribution
Parramatta shifted north, expanding to the north-east and north-west. Parramatta lost Granville and the remainder of Merrylands to Blaxland, bringing the southern border up to the M4. Parramatta gained Ermington and parts of Epping and Melrose Park from Bennelong and Berowra in the north-east, and Girraween and parts of Seven Hills from Greenway in the north-west. These changes cut the Labor margin from 4.6% to 3.7%.
History
Parramatta is an original Federation electorate. The seat has long been a marginal seat, focused on the Parramatta CBD. The seat has shrunk substantially from its original boundaries, when it covered most of what is now northwestern Sydney and stretched as far as Lithgow.
The seat was first won in 1901 by Joseph Cook, a former minister in George Reid’s Free Trade colonial government. Cook held the seat for the first twenty years of Federation, successively for the Free Trade Party, Anti-Socialist Party, Commonwealth Liberal Party and the Nationalists.
Cook served as Leader of the Anti-Socialist Party following George Reid’s retirement in 1908, and agreed to merge with Alfred Deakin’s Protectionists in 1909 to form the Commonwealth Liberal Party. He served as Defence Minister in Deakin’s final government and became Liberal leader after Deakin’s defeat at the 1910 election.
Cook won the 1913 election, becoming Prime Minister, but with a Labor majority in the Senate his government was stifled, and he called a Double Dissolution in 1914, which he lost.
In 1916, Labor Prime Minister Billy Hughes left the ALP over the issue of conscription, and Cook agreed to merge his Liberals with the Labor rebels to form the Nationalist Party, with Cook as Hughes’ deputy. He retired in 1921 to serve as High Commissioner in London.
The ensuing by-election was won by Herbert Pratten. Pratten moved to the new seat of Martin in 1922, and was replaced in Parramatta by fellow Nationalist Eric Bowden. Pratten held Martin until his death in 1928, while Bowden held Parramatta until 1929, when he lost the seat.
Labor candidate Albert Rowe won in 1929, but only held it for one term, losing it to United Australia Party candidate Frederick Stewart in 1931. Stewart went on to serve in a variety of ministerial roles in the Lyons and Menzies governments, and retired in 1946.
Parramatta was won in 1946 by Liberal candidate Howard Beale. Beale served as a minister in the Menzies government from its election in 1949 until his retirement in 1958, when he became Ambassador to the United States.
The seat was won in 1958 by prominent barrister Garfield Barwick, who held the seat for the Liberals until 1964, when he was appointed Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia.
The 1964 by-election was held by Liberal candidate Nigel Bowen. Bowen joined Harold Holt’s cabinet following the 1966 election and remained there until the election of the Whitlam government. He left Parliament in 1973 to serve on the NSW Supreme Court.
The 1973 by-election was a key contest during the Whitlam government. Bowen had held on by a slim margin in 1972, but Liberal candidate Philip Ruddock managed a 7% swing and won the seat.
Ruddock was re-elected in 1974 and 1975, but moved to the new seat of Dundas in 1977. He held Dundas until its abolition in 1993, when he moved to Berowra, which he held until 2016. He served as Minister for Immigration then Attorney-General in the Howard government. Following his retirement from parliament, he serves as Mayor of Hornsby from 2017 until 2024.
Parramatta was won in 1977 by the ALP’s John Brown. Brown served as a junior minister for the first two terms of the Hawke government, and was promoted to Cabinet in 1987, but was forced to resign as a minister in 1988 after misleading the House, and retired in 1990.
Brown was succeeded by former Mayor of Parramatta Paul Elliott, also an ALP member. Elliott served as a Parliamentary Secretary in the final term of the Labor government, and lost Parramatta to Liberal candidate Ross Cameron in 1996.
Cameron was appointed a Parliamentary Secretary after the 2001 election, and continued in similar roles until the 2004 election, where he was one of the few Liberal MPs to lose their seat, with Labor candidate Julie Owens winning the seat.
The 2007 redistribution pushed Parramatta north and made it notionally Liberal, but a big swing saw Owens retain the seat. Owens was re-elected four times, and retired in 2022.
Labor’s Andrew Charlton won Parramatta in 2022, seeing off Liberal candidate Maria Kovacic who was later appointed to a vacancy in the Senate.
Assessment
Parramatta is a very marginal seat, but Charlton will likely benefit from a new personal vote after three years in the seat.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Andrew Charlton | Labor | 34,258 | 40.7 | -4.4 | 40.2 |
| Maria Kovacic | Liberal | 29,492 | 35.0 | -6.3 | 36.8 |
| Phil Bradley | Greens | 7,546 | 9.0 | +1.7 | 9.5 |
| Julian Fayad | United Australia | 4,269 | 5.1 | +2.5 | 4.2 |
| Steve Christou | Independent | 2,982 | 3.5 | +3.5 | 2.3 |
| Heather Freeman | One Nation | 2,011 | 2.4 | +2.4 | 2.3 |
| Rohan Laxmanalal | Animal Justice | 2,397 | 2.8 | +2.8 | 2.0 |
| Liza Tazewell | Liberal Democrats | 1,310 | 1.6 | +1.6 | 1.7 |
| Others | 1.0 | ||||
| Informal | 8,259 | 8.9 | +0.6 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Andrew Charlton | Labor | 45,980 | 54.6 | +1.1 | 53.7 |
| Maria Kovacic | Liberal | 38,285 | 45.4 | -1.1 | 46.3 |
Booths in Parramatta have been divided into three areas: north-east, south-east and west.
The ALP won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 51.7% in the north-east to 55.6% in the west.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote of 8.2% in the west and almost 11% in the other two areas.
| Voter group | GRN prim | ALP 2PP | Total votes | % of votes |
| South-East | 10.8 | 53.9 | 19,497 | 21.0 |
| West | 8.2 | 55.6 | 16,831 | 18.2 |
| North-East | 10.7 | 51.7 | 12,876 | 13.9 |
| Pre-poll | 8.8 | 54.5 | 25,084 | 27.1 |
| Other votes | 9.7 | 52.2 | 18,358 | 19.8 |
Election results in Parraatta at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, the Liberal Party and the Greens.
It could tip the seat to the libs
Parramatta doesn’t have a large Muslim population. There large Muslim areas to the south of Parramatta like Granville, Merrylands, Guildford etc are all in Blaxland. This will have zero effect in the seat of Parramatta.
Should Labor retaining will because the aec put the heavy Labor voting areas of Cumberland and blacktown into a seat that could have been solely within the city of Parramatta.
Other than Wentworthville and Westmead, the Cumberland council is very demographically different to Parramatta and it makes sense that places like Granville and Merrylands are not in the seat of Parramatta or the local council area for that matter. Clearly the M4 is a pretty clear social divide in this part of Sydney.
I’m pretty sure Wentworthville and Westmead are specifically left out of Parramatta LGA because the Liberal government at the time of the council changes wanted a Liberal leaning council. From a community of interest perspective it makes zero sense to draw the boundaries to leave them out while stretching all the way northeast and southeast to Epping and Olympic Park.
Agreeing with @Adam’s comment: Parramatta has a relatively low Muslim population especially after the redistribution which took the heavily-Muslim Granville area out. I doubt the MVM HTV card will be too effective.
If there was an ‘Indian Votes Matter’ or ‘Chinese Votes Matter’ campaign in this seat (Parramatta has large Indian and Chinese communities in it) it could be quite effective.
Overall it would likely take a bit off of the PV for Andrew Charlton but I’m not seeing the mood for change especially with the turnaround in polling to favour Labor.
A few months back I gave this as a Liberal chance. Times have changed – Labor hold.
Unlike the outer Western Sydney seats, Parramatta is a much more affluent and educated electorate with more professional white collar people living and working in the area. They’re not going to be played and treated like mugs by this organisation, whose ambitions seem to achieve the effect of ‘cutting off their nose to spite their faces’ with this sort of rhetoric.
Besides, didn’t we see Steve Christou do something similar last election to preference Labor last because they parachuted Charlton in? That was far more controversial for Labor yet it barely shifted the dial last time round and Charlton even increased his 2PP. With MVM preferencing the Greens, their votes will flow straight back to Labor anyway as it’s a classic ALP vs LIB race.
Redistributed I was at the pre poll booth on Sat. Libs are not out of the race though I’d say charlton will get over the line. His position on the ballot will probably get him.over the line on donkey votes
@Tommo, Steve Christou is based around the Granville ward and is most active in the eastern part of Cumberland Council so that is probably why it explained the trend.
In this seats, Hindus are the largest religious minority not Muslims especially on the new boundaries. Last time there was a swing away from Labor (western parts of the seat) due to a South Asian candidate being overlooked for this seat a bit like what happened in Fowler. Andrew Chartlon since being elected has made effort with the South Asian community and secured funding for $7 million hall a the Hindu Temple in Westmead so he may get a swing around Wentworthville, Toongabbie, Pendle Hill etc
I think MVM is doing stuff everywhere though, not just highly muslim seats, although those are the only places they’ll have any real influence.
@Marh: I could not find an HTV recommending preferences to the Liberal Party over Labor on the Muslim Vote website anymore, however the article you cited has a copy of such HTV. https://themuslimvote.com.au/htv/
Parramatta has a relatively low Muslim population, and very few voters will even see such an HTV, let alone follow it. Zero impact on the result I think.
The Muslim Vote is recommendin liberals over labor however Muslim Votes Matter is recommending labor over liberal
MVM spruikers at Bonner prepoll said they were preferencing against the sitting members, conversation with them re Gaza was more about what the Coalition might do rather than how Labor has hid on the issue.
Was also queried on the value of AUKUS as opposed to spending the money on stuff unrelated to defence and also why Australia needs submarines.
Charlton has proved he is a grub with asking if those volunteers were Exclusive Brethren. Seems very sad to ask that and film it by a sitting Federal MP!
I will be interested in the margin and the swing compared to other Sydney seats here.