LIB 15.9%
Incumbent MP
Justin Clancy, since 2019.
Geography
Southwestern NSW. Albury covers all of Albury, Federation and Greater Hume council areas, and the southern half of the Snowy Valleys council area (the former Tumbarumba council area). The main centres of the seat are the city of Albury itself and the towns of Corowa and Tumbarumba.
Redistribution
Albury lost the former Jerilderie council area to Murray. This slightly reduced the Liberal margin from 16.0% to 15.9%.
The electoral district of Albury has existed since 1880, with the exception of three terms in the 1920s. It has been dominated by the Liberal Party and its predecessors, but has occasionally been won by the Labor Party.
The ALP held the seat from 1930 to 1932, when it was won by United Australia Party candidate Alexander Mair. He joined the conservative state government as an assistant minister following the 1938 election. He quickly rose to the position of Treasurer, and in 1939 he became Premier after the sitting UAP Premier, Bertram Stevens, lost the confidence of the House.
Mair served as Premier for the next two years, leading a dysfunctional government that was defeated by Labor at the 1941 election.
Mair led the UAP in opposition, and when the UAP disintegrated in 1943, he became leader of the splinter Democratic Party. He resigned as leader in 1944, and helped form the new Liberal Party.
When the first leader of the NSW Liberal Party, Reginald Weaver, died in 1945, he became leader, serving for only four months. Later in 1946, he resigned from Albury in an unsuccessful attempt to move to the Senate.
The ALP’s John Hurley won Albury at the 1946 by-election. He had won through leakage of preferences between the Liberal and Country candidates. He lost his seat at the 1947 election, losing by only 27 votes to Doug Padman, a Liberal candidate also endorsed by the Country Party.
Padman, a former Mayor of Albury, held the seat from 1947 until his retirement in 1965.
Gordon Mackie held Albury for the Liberal Party from 1965 until 1978, when he lost his seat to the ALP’s Harold Mair. Mair held it for a decade, losing in 1988.
Ian Glachan won the seat of Albury in 1988. He held the seat until his retirement in 2003.
Greg Aplin won the seat of Albury in 2003, and held it until his retirement in 2019.
- Eli Davern (Greens)
- Asanki Fernando (Animal Justice)
- Marcus Rowland (Labor)
- Ross Hamilton (Sustainable Australia)
- Justin Clancy (Liberal)
- Peter Sinclair (Shooters, Fishers and Farmers)
- Geoffrey Robertson (Liberal Democrats)
Assessment
Albury is a safe Liberal seat.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Justin Clancy | Liberal | 27,039 | 56.8 | -1.1 | 56.6 |
| Lauriston Muirhead | Labor | 11,840 | 24.9 | -6.8 | 24.9 |
| Dean Moss | Greens | 4,411 | 9.3 | +3.6 | 9.4 |
| Ross Hamilton | Sustainable Australia | 3,335 | 7.0 | +7.0 | 7.0 |
| Reuben McNair | Keep Sydney Open | 1,007 | 2.1 | +2.1 | 2.1 |
| Informal | 2,393 | 4.8 |
2019 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Justin Clancy | Liberal | 28,258 | 66.0 | +2.8 | 65.9 |
| Lauriston Muirhead | Labor | 14,572 | 34.0 | -2.8 | 34.1 |
Booths in Albury have been split into four parts based on the four local government areas. Polling places in the City of Albury have been grouped as “Albury”, while the remainder have been split into central, east and west.
The Liberal Party won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in three out of four areas, ranging from 63.6% in Albury to 75.7% in the centre. Labor polled 61.5% in the east.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 4.1% in the west to 11.9% in Albury.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | LIB 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| Albury | 11.9 | 63.6 | 19,678 | 42.1 |
| West | 4.1 | 70.8 | 4,605 | 9.9 |
| Central | 5.6 | 75.7 | 4,299 | 9.2 |
| East | 7.7 | 38.5 | 1,530 | 3.3 |
| Pre-poll | 8.1 | 68.5 | 10,398 | 22.3 |
| Other votes | 10.3 | 64.2 | 6,209 | 13.3 |
Election results in Albury at the 2019 NSW state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, Labor and the Greens.
Unless Kevin Mack runs here this will be Liberal for awhile. Sure Mack couldn’t win Farrer in 2019, but he was up against Sussan Ley, and 2019 wasn’t the ”Independent” or anti-coalition year. He probably would have had a better shot if he had run in Farrer this year.
If Mack does run he will almost certainly back the coalition in a minority government. He is a self-described conservative.
I would assume if Kevin Mack ran here, he would be more successful as he would have much more name recognition here than in the far south-west (which is not a factor at the state level). However, he got some of his highest numbers in the SW, especially around Deniliquin & surrounding towns.
If not, Liberal hold by around 10%.
Easy Liberal retain.
Greens outpolled Labor in a few of the central Albury booths at the federal election and generally had a decent showing, though they’re still getting low single digits in the rural parts of the seat. Albury based Amanda Cohn is 2nd on the Greens Upper House ticket and they’d be hoping to win more votes than usual here.
So it’s not completely infeasible for Greens to outpoll Labor, especially if none of the other progressive sounding micro parties show up. Though if Greens do outpoll Labor I don’t anticipate Labor->Green preference flows being very high and it would take a Liberal vote in the 30s for them to lose (not going to happen). Still that would be quite a result for a non-hippie regional seat,
Why do the Liberals win here and Benambra? Same with the Federal seats of Farrer and formerly Indi (But the Liberals are still stronger than the Nats)
I don’t understand why these seats I mentioned are an exception to the regional appeal from the National party. Why do the voters in these seats feel that a party mostly dominated by city dwellers, represent their values? Why do they vote Liberal and not National?
Why particularly this region? (Southern NSW & Northeast Victoria)
Wouldn’t you think the McGuire controversy would hurt the Liberals in seats like this considering it neighbours Wagga Wagga?
because the seats are more urban and have good local members the nats have been reduced to 8% primary vote here in Indi. as a cialition voter i always go with the stronger candidate and the Liberals always seem to put up the better one.
Would it be that seats based on large service center cities are more likely to lean Liberal, and those with towns based on industry/agricultural processing are more National?
Because they are more urban now and moving away from industry/agriculture. Expect seats like ballina tweed and lismore to start going liberal over national too
a good day at the pre poll ith Justin 🙂