Gosford – NSW 2015

LIB 11.9%

Incumbent MP
Chris Holstein, since 2011.

Geography
Central Coast. The seat of Gosford covers western parts of the City of Gosford, including the Gosford and Woy Woy areas.

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

Redistribution
Gosford gained part of Narara from The Entrance and lost Springfield to Terrigal. These changes made no impact on the seat’s margin.

History
A district with the name ‘Gosford’ has existed since the 1950 election. Prior to that period the southern parts of the Central Coast were combined with a seat covering the Hawkesbury.

The seat was held by the Liberal Party from its creation in 1950 to 1971, when it was won by the ALP.

In 1973, the seat of Gosford was broken into the seats of Gosford and Peats. The seat of Peats is the most immediate predecessor of the current seat of Gosford.

Keith O’Connell, who had won Gosford in 1971, moved to the safer Labor seat of Peats in 1973. O’Connell held the seat until his retirement in 1984.

O’Connell was succeeded in Peats by Paul Landa. Landa had been a Labor member of the Legislative Council since 1973 and had served as a minister in the Labor government since 1976. Landa held the seat for only nine months before his death in December 1984.

The ALP’s Tony Doyle won the 1985 by-election. He was re-elected safely in 1988 and 1991, and held the seat until his death in 1994. No by-election was held due to the impending 1995 election.

In 1995, the ALP’s Marie Andrews won the seat of Peats. She won re-election in 1999 and 2003.

In the lead-up to the 2007 election, the redistribution shifted the boundaries of seats on the Central Coast, moving the centre of Gosford from the original seat of Gosford into Peats. In response the seat of Gosford was renamed ‘Terrigal’ and Peats was renamed ‘Gosford’. Andrews was elected to the newly-renamed Gosford.

In 2011, Marie Andrews retired, and Liberal candidate Chris Holstein won Gosford with a 16.7% swing.

Candidates

Assessment
Labor held Gosford prior to the last election, and would need to win seats like Gosford to form government, but current polling suggests Labor would fall just short. The Liberal Party has been deeply damaged in the Central Coast and Hunter region, with numerous MPs being called up by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC). Holstein has avoided issues around ICAC, but it’s not known whether he will be damaged by the behaviour of neighbouring MPs.

2011 election result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Chris Holstein Liberal 22,672 50.2 +15.4 50.2
Katie Smith Labor 12,472 27.6 -15.1 27.8
Peter Freewater Greens 5,391 11.9 +5.0 11.9
Jake Cassar Independent 2,227 4.9 +4.9 4.7
Ann-Marie Kitchener Christian Democrats 1,478 3.3 +0.4 3.3
Patrick Aiken Independent 935 2.1 +2.1 1.9
Others 0.3

2011 two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Chris Holstein Liberal 24,425 61.9 +16.7 61.9
Katie Smith Labor 15,052 38.1 -16.7 38.1
Polling places in Gosford at the 2011 NSW state election. North-East in green, South-East in blue, West in orange. Click to enlarge.
Polling places in Gosford at the 2011 NSW state election. North-East in green, South-East in blue, West in orange. Click to enlarge.

Booth breakdown
Booths in Gosford have been split into three parts: north-east, south-east and west. Most of the seat’s population lies in the two urban areas in the east, while ‘west’ covers a large rural areas.

The Liberal Party’s two-party-preferred vote ranged from 56.4% in the south-east to 73.3% in the west.

The Greens came third, with a vote ranging from 11.9% in the north-east to 13% in the west.

Voter group LIB 2PP % GRN % Total votes % of votes
South-East 56.4 12.3 16,269 35.8
North-East 66.2 11.9 12,611 27.7
West 73.3 13.0 1,890 4.2
Other votes 62.7 11.2 14,734 32.4
Two-party-preferred votes in Gosford at the 2011 NSW state election.
Two-party-preferred votes in Gosford at the 2011 NSW state election.
Greens primary votes in Gosford at the 2011 NSW state election.
Greens primary votes in Gosford at the 2011 NSW state election.

19 COMMENTS

  2. Holstein was an Independent. Who became a full on Liberal team player so he could make the jump from Local to State politics. I remind my readers where Holstein came from, Gosford City Council, often the most complained about council with a body count of five, at Piles Creek Somersby. Because of so called human error. Holstein was often Mayor of a council which habitually dumped complaints into an electronic bin ignoring the law requiring all corraspondence be recorded into data works. Voters can do better.

  4. It will be interesting to see if central coast voters are repelled by Liberal Party corruption generally, or only in the seats affected.

    Gosford has almost the exact same margin as The Entrance.

  5. Tough one. I’d expect the Lib to lose some support from the broader tarnishing of the Liberal Party by other Central Coast MPs, which along with the expected swing brings it close to line-ball. The Labor candidate has a good profile from working for an NGO.

    The Tele reports that four of the 25 seats where the Greens are preferencing Labor are on the Central Coast, which presumably includes Gosford. That’s probably worth another point or two as well.

    Sportsbet has this seat at $1.83 for both Labor and Lib.

    I’ll take a punt and say Labor by 1%.

  8. He also looked into it and found that the Greens are actually preferencing Labor in 83 seats, not 23 (just that those 23 were part of the deal with Labor).

  10. He may lose votes due to the broad tarnishing of the Liberal brand, however don’t let’s forget that being the only Central Coast MP not to be affected by ICAC, it may solidify support for him here.

  11. Whilst Holstein has not been caught up in the mire that’s brought down the other Central Coast Libs; the seat he is holding is largely the former seat of Peats which was Lab held for it’s entire history. Whilst the vote in the north east is likely to hold up better (although still likely to shave his margins); the largest bloc of voters will be in the south east around Woy Woy which traditionally favours Labour and is likely to return to “normal service” at this election. Should be close either way.

  12. I doubt it. It didn’t save the good Labor MPs four years ago. (I know there are differences, but the point stands.)

  13. As you said yourself, I don’t think there is an equivalency here, Labor was seriously on the nose last time.

  14. this swung at approx the state wide swing…….16% now a 11% margin…… icac will damage the libs on the whole central coast…….also I expect a uniform 10 to 11 % swing back to labor through out nsw. There are 2 Gosford seats this is the more labor of the 2.

  15. For those so inclined, Sportsbet is offering $2.25 for the ALP to win Gosford, and $2.30 for the Coalition to win Gosford and supply the Premier. So if you think Mike Baird is a lock, you can effectively get $1.125 – $1.15 here (better than the $1.01 being offered head to head).

  17. Holstein has had his chance to address the long outstanding corruption allegations which were exposed again in recent weeks in local papers. If he hold the seat after letting a lot of people down with the new rehab being restricted to people over sixty five. It will.be a sad day for the seat of Gosford. Edward James on the long paddockn

  18. Despite Labor being ahead at the close of the night, I still think this will be a Liberal retain. The margin is very close, and history suggests declaration votes will pull the sitting Liberal MP ahead and just over the line.

  19. Just ran some numbers based on the current Primary Vote for declaration, absentee, postal and pre-poll. Assuming the current preference rate stays true (10% exhaustion Rate, 72% preference flow of what is left-over to Smith), I have Holstein winning this seat by less than 100 votes, off the back of his strong 1st preference vote in the Gosford Pre-Poll and the Postal Votes!

    I think this seat could be heading for a re-count.

Comments are closed.