Campbelltown – NSW 2015

LIB 6.8% 

Incumbent MP
Bryan Doyle, since 2011.

Geography
South-western Sydney. Campbelltown includes a number of suburbs in the City of Campbelltown, including Airds, Ambarvale, Blairmount, Blair Athol, Bradbury, Claymore, Glen Alpine, Leumeah, Menangle Park, Rosemeadow, Ruse, Woodbine, and Campbelltown itself.

Map of Campbelltown's 2011 and 2015 boundaries. 2011 boundaries marked as red lines, 2015 boundaries marked as white area. Click to enlarge.
Map of Campbelltown’s 2011 and 2015 boundaries. 2011 boundaries marked as red lines, 2015 boundaries marked as white area. Click to enlarge.

Redistribution
Campbelltown shifted south, losing Minto, Ingleburn and St Andrews to Macquarie Fields, and gaining Ambarvale, Glen Alpine, Menangle Park and Rosemeadow from Wollondilly, while also gaining Claymore and Blairmount from Camden. These changes doubled the Liberal margin from 3.4% to 6.8%.

History
The electoral district of Campbelltown has existed since 1968. It was first won by the Liberal Party in 1968, and was won again by the Liberal Party in 2011, but was held by Labor continuously for fourty years from 1971 to 2011.

The seat was won by Liverpool councillor and Liberal candidate Max Dunbier in 1968. In 1971, he lost to the ALP’s Cliff Mallam. He had previously held the seat of Dulwich Hill from 1954 until its abolition in 1968. After a failed attempt at entering federal politics in 1969, he won Campbelltown in 1971 and held it until his retirement in 1981.

Campbelltown was won in 1981 by the ALP’s Michael Knight. He was appointed Minister for the Olympics when Labor won power in 1995. After a successful Olympics, Knight retired in 2001.

The 2001 by-election was won by the ALP’s Graham West, a former Knight advisor who was elected with only token opposition. He was appointed as a minister after the 2007 election. He remained a minister until June 2010, when he announced his impending retirement at the 2011 election.

At the 2011 election, Liberal candidate Bryan Doyle won Campbelltown with a 21.8% swing.

Candidates

Assessment
Campbelltown was traditionally considered to be a safe Labor seat, before the Liberal landslide of 2011. Despite a favourable redistribution, Campbelltown should return to Labor in 2015.

2011 election result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Bryan Doyle Liberal 18,152 44.9 +20.5 45.5
Nick Bleasdale Labor 15,618 38.6 -17.0 34.0
Victoria Waldron Hahn Greens 2,677 6.6 0.0 6.4
Chimezie Kingsley Independent 2,015 5.0 +5.0 2.4
David Wright Christian Democrats 1,957 4.8 -1.3 4.9
Others 6.8

2011 two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Bryan Doyle Liberal 19,510 53.4 +21.8 56.8
Nick Bleasdale Labor 17,048 46.6 -21.8 43.2
Polling places in Campbelltown at the 2011 NSW state election. Central in green, North in blue, South in yellow. Click to enlarge.
Polling places in Campbelltown at the 2011 NSW state election. Central in green, North in blue, South in yellow. Click to enlarge.

Booth breakdown
Booths in Campbelltown have been split into three parts: central, north and south.

The Liberal Party’s two-party-preferred vote ranged from 51.9% in the north to 62.5% in the south.

Voter group LIB 2PP % GRN % CDP % Total votes % of votes
South 62.5 5.8 4.3 12,806 30.1
Central 53.4 6.6 5.7 12,646 29.7
North 51.9 5.7 4.8 7,465 17.5
Other votes 58.1 7.4 4.8 9,679 22.7
Two-party-preferred votes in Campbelltown at the 2011 NSW state election.
Two-party-preferred votes in Campbelltown at the 2011 NSW state election.

9 COMMENTS

  3. Campbelltown seems like a seat that should revert to Labor in the inevitable post-2011 correction. However, both sides are heavily targeting the seat so it must be genuinely in play.

  4. Despite the margin, I think a safe Labor gain.

    Last election the old MP (Graham West, maybe?) retired a few months before the election, leaving the seat unrepresented for months, which the good people of Campbelltown quite fairly took umbrage at.

    It took a lot of factors to make this a Liberal seat. I don’t think enough of them are there this time around.

  6. Are you sure? I thought he had left early, or at the least took another job before the election – there was some kind of kerfuffle about that.

    I don’t know a thing about Greg Warren, other than that he won the community preselection.

    Still, if he’s half-decent, I think this is a solid Labor gain.

  8. My bookie is offering $1.50 on Labor here, longer odds than many of the other reasonably likely Labor gains.

  9. I think this seat is a coin-flip. The question will be what will have the greater influence: The natural swing back to the ALP or the Sophomore swing to Brian Doyle?

    What role will the completion of the South-West Rail Link play as well?

Comments are closed.