LIB 3.8%
Incumbent MP
Ann Sudmalis, since 2013.
Geography
Gilmore covers parts of the south coast and the southern Illawarra. This includes the entirety of the City of Shoalhaven and Kiama LGA, and northern parts of the Eurobodalla council area. The southernmost significant settlement is Moruya.
Redistribution
Gilmore expanded south, taking in Batemans Bay and Moruya from Eden-Monaro, and lost Shell Cove, Shellharbour and Barrack Heights to Whitlam. These changes increased the Liberal margin from 2.7% to 3.8%.
History
Gilmore was created in 1984 when the House of Representatives was expanded in 1984. The seat was first held by the National Party’s John Sharp until 1993, when he moved to the nearby seat of Hume. Sharp served in the first Howard cabinet until he resigned over the travel rorts affair in 1997.
The seat was won by the ALP’s Peter Knott in 1993, and he was defeated by Joanna Gash of the Liberal Party in 1996. The seat was considered marginal after the 1996 and 1998 elections, but a large swing in 2001 saw Gash hold the seat by a much larger margin. This was cut back to a margin of about 4% in 2007.
Gilmore’s boundaries were redrawn before the 2010 election, making the seat a notional Labor seat. Gash gained a 5.7% swing.
Gash announced her impending retirement in 2012, and was elected as the directly-elected Mayor of Shoalhaven.
In 2013, Gash was succeeded by Liberal candidate Ann Sudmalis, who won despite a 2.7% swing to Labor.
Candidates
- Steve Ryan (Christian Democratic Party)
- Ann Sudmalis (Liberal)
- Carmel McCallum (Greens)
- Fiona Phillips (Labor)
Assessment
Gilmore is a marginal seat, and certainly could be one to fall at this election, but there are reasons to doubt that Gilmore will swing as strongly as other marginal seats. The current margin is the result of the swing to Labor in 2013, while most of the country was swinging away from Labor. With the retirement of Joanna Gash in 2013, the Liberal Party was weakened – they should now benefit from Sudmalis’ personal vote. And despite this seat often being marginal (and sometimes being drawn as a notional Labor seat), the Liberal Party has managed to hold on consistently since 1996.
Polls
- 53% to Liberal – Reachtel commissioned by NSW Teachers Federation, 19 April 2016
- 51% to Liberal – Galaxy commissioned by Daily Telegraph, 11 May 2016
- 53% to Labor – Reachtel commissioned by NSW Teachers Federation, 20 June 2016
2013 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Ann Sudmalis | Liberal | 41,726 | 46.0 | -4.9 | 46.9 |
| Neil Ernest Reilly | Labor | 31,789 | 35.1 | -0.1 | 34.6 |
| Terry Barratt | Greens | 8,438 | 9.3 | -0.3 | 9.1 |
| Lyndal Gai Harris | Palmer United Party | 5,726 | 6.3 | +6.3 | 6.1 |
| Steve Ryan | Christian Democratic Party | 3,030 | 3.3 | +0.7 | 2.9 |
| Others | 0.4 | ||||
| Informal | 4,946 | 5.5 |
2013 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Ann Sudmalis | Liberal | 47,758 | 52.7 | -2.7 | 53.8 |
| Neil Ernest Reilly | Labor | 42,951 | 47.4 | +2.7 | 46.2 |
Booth breakdown
Booths in Gilmore have been divided into five areas. Polling places in Eurobodalla and Kiama council areas have been grouped along council boundaries. Those polling places in Shoalhaven have been divided in three. From north to south these are: Nowra, Jervis Bay and Ulladulla.
The Liberal Party won a majority in four out of five areas, ranging from 51% in Kiama and Jervis Bay to 55% in Nowra. The ALP won a slim 50.5% majority in Batemans Bay (which covers those booths redistributed from Eden-Monaro).
The Greens came third, with a vote ranging from 7.4% in Batemans Bay to 14% in Kiama.
| Voter group | GRN % | LIB 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| Nowra | 8.9 | 54.7 | 17,920 | 19.0 |
| Batemans Bay | 7.4 | 49.5 | 10,150 | 10.7 |
| Jervis Bay | 8.0 | 51.0 | 10,293 | 10.9 |
| Kiama | 13.7 | 50.9 | 8,408 | 8.9 |
| Ulladulla | 10.8 | 52.1 | 7,643 | 8.1 |
| Other votes | 8.7 | 55.0 | 40,045 | 42.4 |
Wow 40,000 “other ” votes. Methinks state land tax, CGT, etc has lots of new residents in their holiday homes.
Still think Libs will hold here – sophomore surge should really help.
Ann Sudmalis has no personal vote…….. if any thing she is a poor candidate for the libs
MQ
I suspect you are right. Dead right. We will certainly know very shortly.
You both could be right. I am basing my assessment off the talk I hear from locals – I have a holiday house down at Mollymook. Although the thing with an electorate like this is the multitude of isolated inlets and communities which have different voting patterns so I could be entirely wrong. We shall see.
W of S
Good to know that you are a sort of local. Do you vote there ??. I do think the re- distribution will help Sudamalis much more than the figures would suggest.
@Winediamond Nah mate, just have a holiday house I use often to get away from the commotion of Sydney. And I totally agree with your comments on the redistribution.
W of S
Why aren’t you concerned about Land Tax, & CGT. Of course that is a very personal question, so i’ll totally understand if you choose to ignore it.
cheers WD
As a voter in this electorate, thank you for this information. However, it is wrong to suggest that the incumbent member will benefit from a personal or “sophomore” vote. A previous comment stated is right, she does not have a personal vote support in Gilmore.
There is evidence to suggest a flow over from the affects of the NSW Baird Government’s decision to forcibly amalgamate Kiama and Shoalhaven councils. These two communities, in particular Kiama, have been very vocal in regards to this issue and Kiama in particular is likely to vote swing against the LNP, varyingly depending upon whether the decision goes through or not.
A sitting member doesn’t have to be wildly popular to benefit from a personal vote – there are benefits to incumbency, and “sophomore surge” refers to when that benefit changes. In 2013 the Liberal Party didn’t benefit from an incumbent MP with the profile that comes with that. So this time Sudmalis has those benefits, so you’d expect her to get a slight boost compared to what swing you would otherwise expect. If she is re-elected in 2016, then in 2019 you would expect no personal vote effect because the incumbency is already built into the margin. There is quite a lot of evidence of this phenomenon. Unless you think Ann Sudmalis has absolutely no profile from three years in Parliament it’s worth considering.
It won’t be as strong as in other seats because the Liberal incumbent is replacing a lack of any incumbent. The effect is stronger when the new incumbent replaced a former incumbent of the other party who had contested the last election.
Also regarding personal vote of Ann Sudmalis – she has none. There has even been a threat of disendorsement by local Lib branches.
Another point is that the ALP candidates for Gilmore in the past have traditionally been from Kiama – which has made it hard for that candidate to get personal support in the rest of the electorate in key places such as Nowra. However, the ALP have endorsed a strong candidate who has a strong personal following in the Shoalhaven area and further south. Fiona Phillips was previously the ALP NSW state candidate for the South Coast electorate and received a 10.5% towards her. I think unfortunately the Sydney/Canberra theories on what’s going to happen in the Gilmore electorate are not an actual reflection on what is being said and felt on the ground in Gilmore.
Katherine
The fact that there are 10s of thousands more of “other” voters in Gilmore , proves that these are resident in name only. Therefore a personal vote is probably totally irrelevant to these people, because they do not live in Gilmore.
As for the council amalgamation issue.
Local councils employ almost 1.5 MILLION public servants. FOUR TIMES state & federal govt combined.
How can this possibly make sense ????.
How can the Brisbane City Council, operate efficiently with over 1 MILLION ratepayers ???.
What, & where is your argument ????.
I think you are confused in regards to “other” votes. It is based on geographical location, there is many communities in the Gilmore electorate, the ones that are listed above are the main ones with significant populations but there is also communities isolated and spread throughout the electorate, e.g Wandandian, Sussex Inlet, Kangaroo Valley, etc.
I’m alittle confused on why you would bring up the employment of local councils? The NSW Baird Government’s proposal to forcibly amalgamate Kiama and Shoalhaven councils has caused political turmoil in the region. Kiama in particular has been very strongly against the amalgamation proposal. The community submission process into the council amalgamation has had the second highest response to the proposal (first being one of the bigger councils in Sydney). For a small council, it has been extremely vocal against the amalgamation (92% against) and the Shoalhaven has for a most part been against the proposal. (72% against). This proposal has become an issue in the race for Gilmore, as both candidates have been drawn into this issue. This is not to mention the fact that the LNP state government is forcing this proposal, which in turn the community is actively seeking retribution against anything LNP.
Katherine
i think votes ”other” refers to votes not made at the ballot box. Maybe Ben can enlighten us.
WRT local councils
My point is that there are efficiencies to be gained. I understand that a lot of people might have a problem with the process, or result.
Personally as a ratepayer, i can’t see a downside to Willoughby LGA being amalgamated with N Sydney LGA. Perhaps we might see an increase of people on the disability pension.
Katherine: As described in the article, Ben has allocated every geographical polling booth to one of those 5 broad areas. The “Other votes” must be things like postals, pre-polls, absent votes and perhaps special hospital booths.
As I have said all along, I agree with Ben’s sentiment. You do not need to be high-profile to have an incumbency advantage and personal vote, quite the opposite.
@Katherine that is a good point about the council amalgamations, I had forgotten the uproar that it has caused. It will likely play into the result.
Thanks for that clarification. Is that “other votes” normal? Hoping Ben for clarification on this.
“Other votes” refers to absentee votes, postal votes, pre-poll, provisional, and some other unusual categories other than ordinary polling booth votes. I’m actually reconsidering how I treat pre-poll votes now that most of them can be pinpointed to a specific pre-poll location – something I’ll think about for the next campaign.
I gave Gilmore 33,000 “other votes” from the old Gilmore and 7000 from the old Eden-Monaro.
There were 38,000 “other votes” in the old Gilmore – that included 4000 pre-polls in Kiama, 11000 pre-polls in Nowra, 6372 in Ulladulla and 3000 in Warilla – that’s over 25,000 votes in local pre-poll votes, which does seem quite high.
No evidence that’s a sign those people don’t actually live locally – they all votes within the electorate, just not on election day.
Ben
You may well be right. However the preponderance of weekenders that are now in the land tax net, is a compelling case for families to have a family member in residence. It is a simple matter for a couple to avoid CGT when buying a 2nd residence. Each claims one residence as their primary residence.
I’d contend this has a large influence in seats such as Lyne, Gilmore, Corangamite,& Flinders. Additionally there appears to be a far higher number of ” other” votes in these seats particularly.
i’d expect this trend to intensify greatly in the future, because of phenomena such as
See changing
early transition to retirement
downsizing the family home
working from home electronically, etc
Ben
Sorry i missed your last sentence. Seems i have engaged in pure speculation !!!!. How does the AEC know they all voted within the electorate , or not ??
@winediamond
For the pre-poll votes which are cast at booths within the actual electorate (as opposed to pre-poll booths cast in other electorates) they are counted as if they are an ordinary election day booth – so we know how many local Gilmore votes were cast at Nowra, Kiama, Ulladulla and Milton separately (and the AEC office, which had a much smaller number). They add up to about 25,000 out of 38,000 “other votes”. We know exactly where those votes were cast, as we do with ordinary election-day votes. We don’t know where the other “other votes” were cast.
The votes just labelled ‘pre-poll’ and included as a separate vote type are effectively pre-poll absentee votes.
Gilmore probably has a lot of the factors that would favour a high pre-poll vote. I woudn’t be surprised if analysis would find that in-division pre-poll voting has become particularly common in areas with high populations of people aged over 65. This makes sense since these people are less likely to be working on weekdays and presumably find it more convenient to vote whilst they’re out and about rather than making a special trip to a booth on election day. IIRC Gilmore has one of the highest percentages of over 65s in the nation. For comparison, Tweed Heads, which also has a very high over 65 population, has a huge pre-poll vote as well. Add to that having an area with lots of smaller communities which may not have their own election day booths.
council amalgamations are unpopular at both ends of the electorate
One of the interesting things about this electorate is that the bulk of it is within Sydney’s orbit, but the newly added southern areas are in Canberra’s.
Sudamalis has put herself in the news. Apparently she has a habit of signing things without reading them !!!!. She may have fatally injured herself. Hopefully the Libs can euthanise the poor thing before she loses them the seat. It would be an undeserved victory for labor
She’s been doing it a lot lately. This isn’t the first time she has been threatened with disendorsement by the local Libs (there is a lot going on here which I couldn’t repeat on this forum because of the rules)
Council amalgamations are having a huge political effect here.
Also saying there’d be a undeserved labor victory is abit premature – Fiona Phillips has been out campaigning very hard and from what I understand the ALP have planned to invest a lot in the South-East Coast seats.
For those not closely following the local politics of the NSW South Coast, winediamond is referring to Sudmalis signing a petition against proposed council amalgamations, which stated that those signing would be voting against the (Liberal) State Government.
http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/3859036/shes-signed-her-own-death-warrant-sudmalis-under-fire/
Katherine
Yes it would be undeserved. Look at the ineptitude , & incredible blandness, of the un-imaginative, neighbouring Stephen Jones.
Besides which we have a deficit, there is no money to spend. It has already been spent. Labor want to raise an additional $100 annually & spend that too.
Then there is all the existing UN-funded spending, a lot of which is not “on the ‘national’ balance sheet as it were. I can detail at length if you like.
To put it quite bluntly, do you actually have any economic, or business literacy ??.
As for the forum rules. Don’t let that hold you back. Knock yourself out, & have a red hot go.
The worst that will happen is you may be deleted. Happens to me.
Ben seems to forgive me my occasional excesses. For which i commend him
OOPS
Meant $100 million Annually
Your political and personal opinions are your own. I have my own. Please do not come to this forum discussion bringing political debate and ideology. It is a discussion on the electorate of Gilmore.
Unlike you, I am an elector in Gilmore and as an observation, the Labor candidate, Fiona Phillips, has already been campaigning very hard.
As for the rules, the nature of this electorate is different to what it is in Sydney. I do not wish to breach the rules of this forum.
Katherine
Nice try. I’m happy to take your word ford for it regarding Fiona Phillips. Yes this is a discussion on Gilmore. However it is also about the election, & therefore the contenders, their credentials, & positions.
MY points were that if labor is so interested “investing” in the SE coast, then what has Stephen Jones been doing for the last 6 years ??
If it’s money or political promises, well how is that going to happen ??. Why would labor be so suddenly be so interested in “investing” in the SE coast, & in what form???
As for my “ideology” i have none, as i’m not an idealist. i work hard at being a realist.
Sorry but what does Stephen Jones have to do with anything. Yes he’s not the best, but Stephen Jones represents the Illawarra and to be perfectly honest I don’t think anyone in Gilmore could care less about what the member in a neighbouring seat does. Stephen Jones represents one electorate not an entire region.
Maybe its investing in South Coast because like all investment in marginal seats by any party they have seen its winnable. Thats not news that regularly happens, particularly come budget night. And I can see why its marginal because the local liberal has been a shocker and labor has actually worked hard campaigning in the electorate
Dan
My point was simply that Whitlam is also SE coast, as is E-M.
There have been around 40000 voters moved around . That sort of looks connected to me.
As for pork barrelling , no nothing new. However as JWH famously said “you can’t fatten a pig on market day”.
More interesting commentary coming out of Gilmore today. It is 100% without a doubt a seat to watch for Aus election 2016.
https://thebugleonline.com/2016/04/21/backlash-in-gilmore/
ReachTel polling here has the Libs up 53 – 47. Whilst I am still skeptical of individual seat polls, this does suggest that incumbency has been a big help here.
Could you please link details of that poll? Thanks
Cant’ seem to find an original source on the poll but it has been replicated in The Australian. Of course, one should take individual seat polling with a grain of salt, nevertheless they are at least an indicator of what *may* be happening.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/federal-election-2016-coalition-mps-worried-they-could-be-gone/news-story/0d9deee3f33d7b37fc8b67f2bc805c81
Rumour going around that Ann Sudmalis could be a pre-selection target in the future, possibly by Andrew Constance or Shelley Hancock.
Probable Liberal Hold but Jervis Bay is looking very weak for the Liberal Party.
The Australian predicts an above average swing of 4.6% in Gilmore, pushing it over to a .8% Labor margin.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/federal-election-2016-lib-sudmalis-vows-absolute-confidence/news-story/ece0cc66f00e904de359e503570661fe
Ben (or anyone else) – might be a stupid question, but just curious. How much of a swing in the Kiama LGA polls would be needed to tip Gilmore over the line?
You’d need a pretty large swing if there wasn’t a swing in the rest of the seat.
roughly if you add the state seats of Kiama and South Coast together you have Gilmore
so to win with a Kiama swing only need I think 8 to 10%
I know it’s probably a bit of a stupid question anyway. I understand that about 17% of the Kiama LGA make up the electors of Gilmore.
It’s more the fact that the nature of electorates like this one, is that issues in certain towns and villages within an electorate may contribute to higher or lower swings then the uniform average swing across the electorate.
In regards to Gilmore, the forced council amalgamations are an influencing issue in Gilmore, specially in regards to Kiama electors. There appears to be a strong organised campaign against the amalgamation in Kiama and that campaign also involved targeting political influences including attempting to generate a swing against Libs in Gilmore.
Katherine
Has any candidate said they can or will stop the council amalgamation ??
What is the big problem in the first place ??.
Does one council have more money , or debt for instance ??
I s there a corruption, or competence issue ??
Council Amalgamation in NSW is a state wide process that has caused angst in particular areas certainly in the Palerang and Queanbeyan LGAs
Doug
I’ve read the news too. My questions were about the real issues.
Both the Labor and Liberal candidates in Gilmore have said that they are against the forced council amalgamation between Kiama and The Shoalhaven LGAs. However, the forced council amalgamation has generated political turmoil in the region and the highly organised campaign against the forced council amalgamation clearly has a strategy of organising people to vote against LNP until the stop the forced amalgamation from occurring.
I’ve linked a number of different sources regarding information as to why these local communities are against the council amalgamations and the evidence that suggests a flow on effect.
http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-13/horde-of-kiama-residents-protest-proposed-merger-with-shoalhave/7085230
http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/3651038/this-isnt-a-merger-this-is-a-takeover/
http://www.kiamaindependent.com.au/story/3649522/kiama-has-special-character/
https://thebugleonline.com/2016/04/21/backlash-in-gilmore/
https://thebugleonline.com/2016/04/21/what-future-for-kiama-in-a-merged-council/
http://www.southcoastregister.com.au/story/3666145/barratt-questions-what-will-happen-to-shoalhaven-water-in-merger/
Doug
See my post in Eden – Monaro re Palerang council
Katherine
OK Iv’e read everything in the links.
The fundamental issue, & question remains un-addressed, let alone un-answered.
There are nearly 1.5 MILLION employees in local government. This is FOUR times the number of state , & federal combined !!!.
How can anyone suggest that there are no efficiencies to be gained ??.
What solutions do you have??
Just having a problem with existing proposals is insufficient.
How can all these tiny councils justify their existence when compared to Brisbane city Council with over 1 Million ratepayers. ??.
Joanna Gash has represented this area for 20 odd years. What does she think about it all ??