Miranda – NSW 2015

LIB 23.0%

Incumbent MP
Barry Collier (ALP), since 2013. Previously Member for Miranda 1999-2011.

Geography
Southern Sydney. Miranda covers suburbs in Sutherland Shire, including Como, Gymea, Kirrawee, Illawong, Miranda, Sylvania, Sylvania Waters and Taren Point.

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

Redistribution
Miranda was realigned from north-south to east-west, losing Gymea Bay and Grays Point to Cronulla and gaining Taren Point and Sylvania Waters from Cronulla and Illawong from Menai.

History
Miranda was first created for the 1971 election. It has been a key marginal seat, and has been won by the party that won government at all but three elections.

The seat was first won in 1971 by the Liberal Party’s Tim Walker. Walker was a former newsagent who had won the seat of Sutherland in 1968. Sutherland was abolished in 1968 and Walker moved to the new seat of Miranda.

Walker was defeated in 1978 by the ALP’s Bill Robb. The 1978 election was a landslide for Labor Premier Neville Wran, who had won power narrowly in 1976. Robb was re-elected in 1981, but in 1984 was defeated by the Liberal Party’s Ron Phillips.

The Liberal Party regained power in 1988, and Phillips served as a minister in the Liberal government from 1991 to 1995. He served as Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party after the party lost power in 1995 until he lost his seat in 1999.

The ALP’s Barry Collier defeated Phillips in 1999, and he won re-election in 2003 and 2007.

Collier retired at the 2011 election, and Miranda was won by Liberal candidate Graham Annesley with a 22% swing.

Annesley was appointed as Minister for Sport and Recreation in 2011. Annesley resigned from the ministry and Parliament in 2013 to take on the role of CEO of the Gold Coast Titans, a team in the NRL.

At the ensuing by-election, the seat was won by former MP Barry Collier, who returned to contest the seat. The 2011 swing was entirely reversed, with Labor gaining a 26% swing.

Candidates
Sitting Labor MP Barry Collier is not running for re-election.

Assessment
Miranda is a complex seat. After a massive swing from Labor to Liberal in 2011 made this seat reasonably safe for the Liberal Party, another massive swing in the opposite direction gave the seat to Labor at the 2013 by-election.

Labor in 2013 benefited from the personal vote of Barry Collier, which they have now lost. Anger at the Liberal Party for the unnecessary by-election triggered by Annesley’s resignation is also likely to have faded. All things considered, the Liberal Party would be a favourite to win, but with a much smaller margin compared to 2011.

2011 election result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Graham Annesley Liberal 26,662 60.7 +18.3 62.7
Therese Cook Labor 9,770 22.3 -20.5 20.9
Naomi Waizer Greens 3,853 8.8 +2.1 8.0
John Brett Independent 2,074 4.7 +3.1 3.1
Ern Hemmings Christian Democrats 1,549 3.5 -0.1 4.1
Others 1.3

2011 two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Graham Annesley Liberal 28,395 71.0 +21.8 73.0
Therese Cook Labor 11,598 29.0 -21.8 27.0

2013 by-election result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Barry Collier Labor 18,812 46.5 +24.2
Brett Thomas Liberal 15,883 39.2 -21.5
George Capsis Christian Democrats 2,840 7.0 +3.5
Murray Scott Greens 1,757 4.3 -4.4
Lisa Walters Independent 842 2.1 +2.1
John Brett Independent 342 0.8 -3.9

2013 by-election two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Barry Collier Labor 20,751 55.1 +26.1
Brett Thomas Liberal 16,916 44.9 -26.1
Polling places in Miranda at the 2011 NSW state election. Central in green, East in orange, West in blue. Click to enlarge.
Polling places in Miranda at the 2011 NSW state election. Central in green, East in orange, West in blue. Click to enlarge.

Booth breakdown
Booths in Miranda have been split into different areas for the 2011 election results (using redistributed boundaries) and the 2013 by-election results (using the old boundaries).

For the 2011 results, the electorate has been split into central (including Como, Kareela and Oyster Bay), east (including Miranda, Sylvania and Taren Point) and west (including Alfords Point and Illawong).

The Liberal Party’s two-party-preferred vote ranged from 69.4% in the centre to 78% in the west.

The Greens came third, with a vote ranging from 6.3% in the east to 9.9% in the centre.

Polling places at the 2013 Miranda by-election. Como in blue, Gymea in orange, Kirrawee in green, Sylvania in yellow. Click to enlarge.
Polling places at the 2013 Miranda by-election. Como in blue, Gymea in orange, Kirrawee in green, Sylvania in yellow. Click to enlarge.

For the 2013 by-election, the electorate has been split between four areas named after key suburbs: Como in the north-west, Gymea in the south-east, Kirrawee in the south-west and Sylvania in the north-east.

The Labor Party’s two-party-preferred vote at the by-election ranged from 52.2% in Sylvania to 59.3% in Kirrawee.

The Christian Democratic Party came third at the redistribution, with a vote ranging from 6.2% in Sylvania to 8.2% in Kirrawee.

2011 election breakdown

Voter group LIB 2PP % GRN % Total votes % of votes
East 73.3 6.3 14,571 30.3
Central 69.4 9.9 14,538 30.3
West 78.0 7.7 9,096 18.9
Other votes 73.0 8.1 9,828 20.5

2013 by-election breakdown

Voter group ALP 2PP % CDP % Total votes % of votes
Gymea 56.3 7.2 12,196 30.1
Sylvania 52.2 6.2 8,889 22.0
Como 58.8 7.6 5,740 14.2
Kirrawee 59.3 8.2 4,672 11.5
Other votes 51.8 6.6 8,979 22.2
Two-party-preferred votes in Miranda at the 2011 general election.
Two-party-preferred votes in Miranda at the 2011 general election.
Two-party-preferred votes at the 2013 Miranda by-election.
Two-party-preferred votes at the 2013 Miranda by-election.

13 COMMENTS

  1. Am going to go out on a limb here and say Labor gain with wafer thin margin, Eleni Petinos has no appeal as a candidate here at least most people are familiar with Greg Holland being a (failed) Federal candidate. Am quite surprised of their decision to choose Eleni Petinos over both Steve Simpson AND Carol Provan who at least have some local profile, plus also she lives all the way over in Bundeena.

  2. I think it will be a Liberal re-gain, though if Labor hangs on I think they’ll be getting very close to forming the next government!

  5. I’m saying quite a comfortable win for Eleni Petinos who is campaigning exceptionally hard and the Government is rolling out the heavy hitting Minister’s to regain this seat.

  6. I grew up around this area, and know it pretty well. Although possibly counter-intuitive, I am fairly confident the Liberals will win this seat. Some rather strange boundaries, though. I wonder if there was much fuss about that locally?

  7. This is really on a Labor seat in landslide elections, though that was expanded to just good elections on the back of Collier’s personal vote.

    The $1.40 on offer for the Libs is good value here.

  8. I heard the lib candidate is too young from outside the electorate and close to the far right of the liberal party……… these may equal a ALP retain.

  9. @Mick Quinlivan I live around this area and let me clarify why this will NOT be a Labor retain. 1. Young is a relative term, although I would agree that by most standards she is young, but no younger than Matt Brown and Cherie Burton were when they were elected. Besides I don’t think people really care about how young their MP is, I know this area well. 2. She still comes from the Shire, which is where most of Miranda is based, although technically “yes” she is outside the electorate. 3. Her views have been described as “hard right” but I think its more important that her views correlate with the views of the electorate.

  10. I would guess that Wreathy is correct, sadly. I too live in the Shire and there are large areas of hard core rightists who keep this electorate mostly blue. Lots of money is going into the Lib campaign and I can honestly say I haven’t heard Boo! from the Labor bloke. This area is Scott Morrison’s seat of Godliness, who increased his vote on the promise to keep “the great Unwashed” out.

    Collier got up in the by-election mainly because of the stink over corrupt Libs in Newcastle and Central Coast and because the referee MP ditched the Libs and went back to League.

  11. Yes that is what I was suggesting. It *is* the second-largest Bible-Belt in Sydney after all. But more than that it is also a relatively wealthy area, not analogous to the North Shore but certainly quite prosperous (especially around the southern waterside suburbs). Those factors tend to equal a Liberal-leaning propensity anyway. And of course with the addition of the north-eastern waterside suburbs of Sylvania Waters and Taren Point (some of the strongest Liberal areas) it will further increase the chance of a Liberal win, particularly considering these were areas that stuck with the Libs, even through the Carr landslides where Cronulla (which they were previously apart of) was essentially the only blue electorate below the city line.

  12. Not surprised by this result at all, as per my post on 15 March. This was always going to be a Liberal win, and turned out to be an easy one at that.

  13. Yes, looks to be the strongest margin that the Libs have ever had (barring the 2011 aberration).

Comments are closed.