ALP 15.2%
Incumbent MP
Tony Burke, since 2004. Previously member of the NSW Legislative Council, 2003-2004.
Geography
Inner west and south-western Sydney. Watson mostly covers northern parts of the City of Canterbury-Bankstown, along with the southern end of the Strathfield council area. Watson covers the suburbs of Bankstown, Belmore, Canterbury, Campsie, Chullora, Condell Park, Georges Hall, Greenacre, Lakemba, Strathfield South, Wiley Park, Yagoona and parts of Punchbowl.
Redistribution
Watson shifted west, losing Ashbury, Burwood Heights, Croydon Park and the remainder of Ashfield, losing Rookwood Cemetery and the remainder of Lidcombe to Blaxland, and also losing Roselands, parts of Punchbowl and the remainder of Kingsgrove to Banks and Barton. Watson then gained most of the southern half of Blaxland, including Bankstown, Condell Park, Georges Hall and Yagoona. This big change only had a small impact on Labor’s margin, which fell from 15.2% to 15.1%.
The Division of Watson is a recent creation, having been created in 1993 to replace the Division of St George. In its short history it has always been a safe Labor seat.
The seat was first won in 1993 by the ALP’s Leo McLeay. McLeay had previously held the neighbouring seat of Grayndler since 1979, and had served as Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1989 until shortly before the 1993 election, when he was forced to resign over allegations of a false compensation claim.
McLeay was reelected at the 1996, 1998 and 2001 elections before retiring at the 2004 election.
The seat was won in 2004 by the ALP’s Tony Burke, who had held a seat in the NSW Legislative Council since March 2003. He moved immediately to the Labor shadow ministry in 2004 and served on the frontbench ever since, including as a senior minister from 2007 to 2013 and again since 2022.
Assessment
Watson is a typical safe Labor seat, but Tony Burke is being challenged by a prominent local doctor with links to the local Muslim community. Watson has one of the largest Muslim populations of any Australian federal electorate. The seat has been identified as a key target for a campaign to move Muslim voters away from the ALP, in part over the war in Gaza. This seat will be a test of that campaign’s effectiveness. It would be foolish to predict what will happen, but this area doesn’t have a strong history of voting for independents.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Tony Burke | Labor | 44,464 | 51.9 | +0.2 | 54.1 |
| Sazeda Akter | Liberal | 22,759 | 26.5 | -2.9 | 26.4 |
| Bradley Schott | Greens | 8,200 | 9.6 | +2.5 | 7.1 |
| John Koukoulis | United Australia | 6,126 | 7.1 | +2.9 | 7.1 |
| Alan Jorgensen | One Nation | 4,178 | 4.9 | +4.9 | 5.3 |
| Informal | 9,245 | 9.7 | -2.9 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Tony Burke | Labor | 55,810 | 65.1 | +1.6 | 65.2 |
| Sazeda Akter | Liberal | 29,917 | 34.9 | -1.6 | 34.8 |
Polling places in Watson have been divided into three areas: central, east and west.
Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 61.4% in the west to 69.8% in the east.
| Voter group | ALP 2PP | Total votes | % of votes |
| Central | 66.8 | 15,223 | 17.8 |
| East | 69.8 | 13,862 | 16.2 |
| West | 61.4 | 13,675 | 16.0 |
| Pre-poll | 65.1 | 29,834 | 34.9 |
| Other votes | 62.3 | 12,903 | 15.1 |
Election results in Watson at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor and the Liberal Party.
I was in Bankstown the other day. Dr Ziad (IND) was canvassing and walked around to give out fliers, including to myself. To be more precise, we were in the Vietnamese commercial area just south of the train station.
He won’t win he has been caught posting controversial posts regarding Gaza. Libs will preference Labor here
Yeah, it is unlikely he will get Lib preferences.
There’s news that independent candidate Ziad Basyouny is negotiating with the Liberals and Greens to put Labor last in preferencing. I’ve seen his posters and corflutes around recently. He has posters in other languages too.
A Liberal party stooge negotiating with the Liberal Party to put Labor last.
I find that quite amusing.
cant see him winning even with liberal preferences here maybe. liberals would be wise not to. we dont want someone with those views on israel/gaza making it into parliament. as much as i hate tony burke. hes worse.
If the Liberals really are as harsh on potential antisemitism as they say they are, they need to preference Ziad last
agreed
Peter Dutton has already stated he has no place in parliament and if he did hed be a hypocrite. Labor and Libs will probably preference him last
The Liberal Party candidate was using a teal colour scheme. In the last few days he has reverted to the standard Liberal Party colours.
Still no liberal candidate? Did they just fail to lodge the form?
Zakir Alam is the Liberal here.
Something random.
Was in Melbourne the other day walking along Swanston Street and I walked past none other than Tony Burke himself (though he was on the phone to someone so didn’t interrupt to say hi). Looked like he was quite busy organising things (which turned out to be an announcement for funding the African cultural festival in Melbourne which was posted by Julian Hill later on). Seems like Labor is feeling confident he’ll be able to hold on against Basyouny in Watson that he’s not even back in his electorate campaigning like mad, which is what I would’ve done if I was in his shoes but I digress.
Wonder how Jason Clare’s campaigning over in Blaxland? He’s been all over national media recently and very little I can find about his campaigning locally against Ouf.
Dr Ziad Basyouny has an interesting HTV card.
2. Greens
3. Libertarians
4. Trumpet of Patriots
3 and 4 are surprising because his economic and housing policies are quite left-wing. Labor is before Liberal on his HTV.
@Votante seems like he’s in it for Labor. Just reeks of sour grapes and bad will rather than any genuine passion to represent his constituents. He’s out for vengeance rather than his community so much so that he’s willing to preference the far right nutbags over Labor and Liberals.
@ Votante
What about Ahmed Ouf in Blaxland.
Ziad HTV will probbaly increase the Labor notional margin against the Libs in Watson. interestingly he put Family First and ONP last. These parties are Pro-Israel. He supports Climate action.
@Nimalan Ouf has Greens 2, Labor 3 (surprisingly) and Liberals 6 I think. Certainly a much more sensible and reasonable HTVC than Basyouny. But that also kills his chances of beating Clare as he won’t get Liberal preferences.
@Tommo9 the Liberals already ruled out preferencing Ouf if they did it would cause internal outrage among the base and Andrew Bolt and Rita Panahi will go mental. I expect in Watson and Blaxland seats with low education and English profeciency people will follow the HTV so Labor can increase their notional TPP.
Also did Ahmed Ouf preference Family First and ONP last?
@Nimalan One Nation is last but Libertarian and Family First came in at 4 and 5 respectively, ahead of the Liberals. Guess social conservatism is on the menu in Watson and Blaxland with these HTVC.
@ Tommo9
By preferencing the Greens ahead second i am not sure if social consevatism is in play here. Clive Palmer does not really have the same reputation for Anti-Islam or even foreign policy i dont think Labor cares as much as long as they are higher than Libs because they are probably interested in the notional majority. Interested to see what MOSLIH, Samim in Calwell does.
@Nimalan I’ve just had a look at Moslih’s HTVC and it has the Citizens’ Party (aka anti-Climate Change) as 2nd, Greens 3rd, Labor is on 6th, Carly Moore on 8th, Liberals 10, FF 11, Clive 12, One Nation dead last.
Doesn’t seem to make sense but I guess apart from the Greens these Muslim independents really don’t care where their preferences go elsewhere (except Labor vs Liberal where Labor’s always higher).
@ Tommo9
Citizens Party is anti-climate change but is also Pro-China and Anti US so this maybe popular among Muslims. I dont think think Carly Moore who is an independent in Calwell is running on a Pro-Palestine platform she has preferenced minors before Majors. The Citizens party is running a Muslim candidate what is their HTVC.
Burke and Clare will be fine thanks to liberal preferences
@Tommo9, why would Moslih put Labor ahead of IND Carly Moore? Doesn’t make much sense to me.
I think the YouGov seat by seat polling has underestimated the primary vote of independents in seats like Watson, Blaxland and Calwell. I think all three of those seats will see a fairly big swing against Labor on primaries, and independents making the 2pp in the former two. I think Labor will still manage to win all three.
If the Labor primary goes below 35% in Calwell I think they’ll lose it to Moslih (Independent) otherwise Liberal and Greens preferences would hand it to Labor.
AA, I agree. YouGov doesn’t account for micro level or idiosyncratic factors. I think independents in Watson and Blaxland can crack double digits on primaries but won’t win.
@Vandon I don’t think Moslih will win, even if Labor’s primary dips below 35%. The Liberals have put him last on their HTVs. I think that Labor’s primary drop to be around 35%, with the Liberals around 20%, Moslih around 15% and Carly Moore placing fourth around 10%. Even though the number of high-profile independents might split votes all over the place, I think preferences should flow back to labor and elect Basem Abdo. Similar to the Werribee by-election.
Interestingly the Labor managed to hold on to the Majority on first preference in Lakemba Voting booths. I think it might be that Bangladeshi Community did not swing Basyouny unlike the Lebanese Community. Another fact is that the Liberal Vote actually crashed more than Labor in both Watson and Blaxland.
If the muslim votes people were just ind candidates and not controversial then they likely would have gotten lib preferences and won both watso and blaxland
would they have gotten the same primary vote if they weren’t muslim votes people?
@Darth Vader, maybe Blaxland but not Watson as the Labor Primary Vote there is still close to 50%. As of today, Watson looks like it got reverted back to a Lab vs Lib TPP which got swung hard in Labor’s favor probably from Muslim Voters who had voted or preferenced Libs last election and probably some tactical voting from some non-Muslim Voters to prevent Basyouny to win.
I think both Muslim independent candidates in Watson and Blaxland got a raised profile from Muslim Votes Matter.
West of Roberts Road and King Georges Road, there are more Lebanese migrants and descendents and Basyouny polled best. Lakemba and Wiley Park have larger South Asian Muslim communities. Basyouny’s worst areas were Campsie and Belmore where there are fewer Muslim residents.
@Darth Vader, I disagree. Even if the Liberals had preferenced him over Burke, Burke still would’ve won because he got over 48% on primaries at last count.
Whilst true that can be attributed to the nationak swing and the controversy around the muslim candidate. Still this one seat of the very few where i am glad labor won.
Also @ Darth Vader if Liberals preferenced a MVM/Pro Palestine candidate it would have cause a massive internal revolt within the Liberal party. Shari Markson, Rita Panahi, Rowan Dean, Andrew Bolt would have been raging mad. Many Liberal volunteers in seats like Banks would have refused to turn up. It would be like if ALP preferenced ONP over the Coalition it would have got many ethnic voters furious.
Yes and i agree even i was against that. Im simply stating that an ind who wasnt a mvm candidate
Yes @ Darth Vader if it was a Dai Le style candidate they would have preferenced over Labor. Blaxland has a Vietnamese community so if there was a Vietnamese Man who ran then off course they would have preferenced over Labor.
current 3CP from AEC still has Burke with over 50% of the vote
The informal voting rate was 17% – perhaps the highest in the country.
Tony Burke’s 2CP actually increased. Whilst the Labor primary vote fell, the Liberal primary vote crashed by a lot more. Same goes for Jason Clare in Blaxland.
How much of that 17% is from voters failing to number every box? (Perhaps I should resist the temptation to relitigate my case for OPV.)
Failing to number every box is literally the only reason to cause an informal. Aside from putting the same number twice. That I know of anyway. Other then Dick picks and blank ballot but I doubt that was 17% wo rth
Totally illegible handwriting is another common reason for informal votes.
There are a lot of reasons to have an informal vote!
-Blank ballot paper
-A single ‘1’ only
-Attempting to fill out the whole ballot but having a numbering error
Amongst others.
We need the AEC to do a fresh informal vote survey.
17% is remarkably high, even for a multicultural electorate. Again it shows we need to educate immigrants on how to actually vote. Very few other countries use preferential voting.
Oh Christ. Here we go again. “It’s those funny coloured fellows with their awful Biryanis!”
For every one of ‘teh immigrants’ that need educating on the electoral process I’ll show you five fifth generation Bogans who need the same! Having scrutineered a lot my experience is blank ballots make up the largest cohort of informals. Second is people drawing a penis. We need a [] NONE OF THE ABOVE box.
Back in the day my dad – scrutineering at a booth in Londonderry in a state election – argued that an X was a Macedonian one. He got away with it.
There was an AEC analysis on the breakdown of informal voting ages ago.
Some polling booths had well over 20% informal. Disappointing thinking that people waited in line and didn’t vote correctly when they wanted to vote.
There are some who are protest voters (writing political messages) or who tried to be funny (drawing pics).
I wrote on this site that at the Voice referendum, some people in SW Sydney wrote “Free Palestine” on their ballot papers.
When scrutineering this time I actually found alot of the informal vote this time was numbering 1-6 and leaving other boxes blank. Obviously this doesn’t matter when you have only six or even 7 candidates (they assume the blank os the 7), but in seats with 8 or more candidates it is an issue.
While I can’t provide it, myself and another scrutineer speculated people are confusing the senate instructions of 1-6 on the HoR ballot. It makes sense logically and I wasn’t seeing any ballots just numbering 4 or 5.
Yes there has been a noticeable trend in recent elections of the informal rate jumping higher specifically when you get to 8 candidates. I’m confident that’s the issue.