NAT 19.6%
Incumbent MP
Barnaby Joyce, since 2013. Previously Senator for Queensland 2005-2013.
Geography
The New England region of northern NSW. The main towns include Tamworth, Armidale and Glen Innes. New England covers Armidale Dumaresq, Glen Innes Severn, Guyra, Inverell, Liverpool Plains, Tamworth, Tenterfield, Upper Hunter, Uralla and Walcha council areas, and southern parts of the Gwydir council area.
Redistribution
New England gained Upper Hunter council area from the seat of Hunter and southern parts of Gwydir council area, including the town of Bingara, from Parkes. In exchange, New England lost Gunnedah council area to Parkes. These changes cut the Nationals margin against Labor from 20.7% to 19.6%. It isn’t possible to calculation the change in margin against the independent.
History
New England is an original federation electorate, and has been mostly won by conservative parties. The seat was held by the Country Party and National Party from 1920 until 2001, when it was won by independent Tony Windsor.
The seat was first won in 1901 by Protectionist candidate William Sawers, who had previously been a state MP since 1885. In 1903 he was defeated by Free Trade candidate Edmund Lonsdale, who himself was defeated in 1906 by ALP candidate Francis Foster.
Foster is the only Labor candidate to ever win New England, and was reelected in 1910 before losing the seat in 1913 to Liberal candidate Percy Abbott. Abbott was a serving AIF officer at the time, and served as a Lieutenant Colonel at Gallipoli in 1915 while serving as a member of the House of Representatives. He retired from the House of Representatives in 1919. He later ran for the Senate for the Country Party in 1922 and held a Senate seat from 1925 to 1929.
The seat was won in 1919 by Alexander Hay. Like Abbott, Hay was supported by the Farmers and Settlers Association, and when they formed the Country Party in 1920 he became one of their first MPs. Hay’s time with the Country Party was unhappy and he was expelled in 1922 for voting against the party. He stood at the 1922 election as an independent, losing to official Country Party candidate Victor Thompson.
Thompson held New England for a long period, serving as a minister in conservative federal governments from 1937 to 1940, but lost his seat at the 1940 election, when he was challenged by two other Country Party candidates, and was defeated by Joe Abbott.
Joe Abbott served as a minister in Robert Menzies and Arthur Fadden’s wartime governments, and held the seat until his retirement in 1949. He was succeeded by David Drummond, who had been a state MP since 1920. He held the seat until his retirement in 1963.
The seat was won in 1963 by Ian Sinclair. Sinclair joined Robert Menzies’ ministry in 1965 and served as a minister right up until the election of the Whitlam government in 1972. He returned to the ministry in 1975 and served for the entirety of the Fraser government, barring a period in 1979 and 1980 when he stepped down due to allegations of forgery in relation to his father’s will.
Following the defeat of the Fraser government National Country Party leader Doug Anthony resigned in 1984, and Sinclair succeeded him. In 1989, he was replaced as leader by Charles Blunt, and he went to the backbench. He remained there until 1998, when he served briefly as Speaker in the final months of the first term of the Howard government, before retiring in 1998.
In 1998, New England was won by Nationals candidate Stuart St Clair, whose time in the seat was short-lived. He was defeated in 2001 by independent candidate Tony Windsor, who had held the state seat of Tamworth as an independent since 1991, when he had been deselected as a Nationals candidate.
Windsor held the seat with margins over 70% at the 2004, 2007 and 2010 elections.
After the 2010 election, Windsor found himself in the balance of power, and decided to support Julia Gillard’s minority Labor government, a decision that was controversial in country areas including New England, which usually lean towards the conservative side of politics.
In 2013, the Nationals preselected their Senate leader, Barnaby Joyce, to run in New England. Joyce was at the time a senator representing Queensland. Windsor announced his retirement shortly after, and Joyce was elected in New England with relative ease, ending twelve years of an independent hold on the seat.
Joyce was elected deputy leader of the Nationals shortly after moving to the House, and in early 2016 was elected leader of the Nationals, and thus Deputy Prime Minister.
Candidates
- Robert Walker (Online Direct Democracy)
- Stan Colefax (Christian Democratic Party)
- David Mailler (Country Minded)
- Peter Whelan (Liberal Democrats)
- David Ewings (Labor)
- Rob Taber (Independent)
- Tony Windsor (Independent)
- Barnaby Joyce (Nationals)
- Mercurius Goldstein (Greens)
- Philip Cox (Independent)
Assessment
Towards the end of Tony Windsor’s time in New England, he didn’t face strong opposition from the Nationals, and was re-elected easily. Likewise, in 2013 Joyce was elected with relative ease against a much weaker independent rival. For this reason, it’s hard to assess what the real margin is in a contest between Windsor and Joyce.
Windsor is a strong candidate who has represented the area for most of the last twenty-five years, but has been out of politics for three years and it’s unknown how much his vote was weakened by his support for Labor after the 2010 election.
Joyce is also a strong candidate, as Deputy Prime Minister, but has not been seriously tested as a candidate in New England.
Polls
- 43.1% to Nationals, 38% Windsor, 7.1% Labor, 3.4% Greens, 5.1% undecided – Reachtel commissioned by the Australia Institute, 10 March 2016
- 51% to Nationals after preferences, 48% Nationals, 36% Tony Windsor on primary votes – Newspoll, 13 June 2016
2013 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Barnaby Joyce | Nationals | 49,486 | 54.2 | +29.0 | 53.7 |
| Rob Taber | Independent | 12,574 | 13.8 | +13.8 | 12.3 |
| Stephen Hewitt | Labor | 10,825 | 11.9 | +3.7 | 14.1 |
| Jamie Mcintyre | Independent | 6,059 | 6.6 | +6.6 | 6.0 |
| Phillip John Girle | Palmer United Party | 4,746 | 5.2 | +5.2 | 5.3 |
| Pat Schultz | Greens | 4,184 | 4.6 | +1.0 | 4.7 |
| Brian Charles Dettmann | One Nation | 1,566 | 1.7 | +0.9 | 1.8 |
| Aaron Michael Evans | Christian Democratic Party | 1,496 | 1.6 | +1.6 | 1.7 |
| Richard Innes Witten | Citizens Electoral Council | 353 | 0.4 | +0.1 | 0.4 |
| Informal | 5,881 | 6.4 |
2013 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Barnaby Joyce | Nationals | 58,846 | 64.5 | +36.0 | 69.6 |
| Rob Taber | Independent | 32,443 | 35.5 | -36.0 | 30.4 |
Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into six areas. The two main urban areas of Armidale and Tamworth have been grouped together, separately from rural booths in the surrounding areas.
Regional areas have been split into four areas. Booths in Tamworth Regional Council outside of the Tamworth urban area have been grouped as ‘West’. Booths in Liverpool Plains and Upper Hunter LGAs have been grouped as ‘South’. Booths in Armidale-Dumaresq, Uralla and Walcha (apart from the Armidale urban area) have been grouped as ‘East’.
Booths from Guyra to the northern boundary have been grouped as ‘North’.
Windsor was strongest in 2010 in the south and Armidale, with over 77%, and was weakest in the north, which is the only area where he polled under 70% after preferences.
Joyce’s vote was over 70% in the north in 2013, and over 60% in four other regions, with the independent candidate only winning the vote in Armidale, with 52.2%. Armidale is the only area were the Nationals polled less than 60% in the two-party-preferred contest against Labor.
| Voter group | 2010 IND vs NAT | 2013 NAT vs IND | 2013 NAT vs ALP | Total votes | % of votes |
| Tamworth | 72.2 | 62.2 | 69.1 | 15,248 | 15.9 |
| North | 67.2 | 70.9 | 75.6 | 14,734 | 15.4 |
| South | 77.6 | 60.5 | 64.7 | 10,256 | 10.7 |
| Armidale | 77.8 | 47.8 | 56.2 | 8,364 | 8.7 |
| East | 74.3 | 65.9 | 73.7 | 4,260 | 4.4 |
| West | 70.4 | 67.4 | 74.0 | 7,262 | 7.6 |
| Other votes | 70.8 | 66.2 | 70.0 | 35,731 | 37.3 |
Gwydir and Upper Hunter local government areas are contained in the north and south areas respectively. As they were not part of the electorate prior to 2016, it’s not possible to include them in Nationals vs Independent counts, so these figures only reflect the count in the areas contained in New England in 2010-2013.
Wreathy don’t pinch my analogies ……..
The 2013 independent Rob Taber is also running again it seems
http://www.armidaleexpress.com.au/story/3913131/taber-campaign-opens-its-office/?cs=471
You’re missing a number of declared candidates for this electorate. Rob Taber announced his candidature last year.
Rob Taber is also running!
Taber must have announced his candidature very quietly – months ago I remember conversations with people in the electorate who were unsure if he would run.
I will update the candidate list shortly – candidates are constantly popping up and there are 150 seats to keep up to date.
Despite Taber claiming to have announced last year his name wasn’t included on the master list of candidates I’ve been referring to when I wrote this guide. He can wait in line.
A very interesting Q&A from Tamworth tonight. It seemed to me that Joyce was having difficulty arguing the Government’s positions in a way that would satisfy the concerns of the electorate, and at the end of the show he openly admitted this.
It’s hard to know to what degree the voters of New England are actually listening and engaging in the debate, but on the evidence of tonight it’s looking more likely that Windsor will regain the seat.
Newspoll has done a seat poll here showing 51/49 for Barnaby Joyce over Tony Windsor 2CP.
The primaries had Joyce on 48%, Windsor 36, but Labor and Greens combined on only 10%. Windsor’s vote is down, but seems to be splintering among other minor parties.
I assume that helps Joyce, since Windsor needs a very tight flow of preferences to pull ahead. If the vote is splintering all over the place, there’d surely be enough leakage to see Joyce home from 48% primary (?)
I think it is a pretty good result for Joyce. It means that since 2010, Windsor’s PV has dropped from 62% to 36%, that’s nearly half. Granted it has been a while since the Nats have seriously contested the seat, but still.
As MM points out, if those numbers stand, it is unlikely that Joyce will be defeated.
Tony Windsor left his run late. Rob Taber may not have run if Windsor had declared his intention earlier. Taber was committed months before Windsor and one could mount an argument that he acted in bad faith with the electorate. This argument that Windsor betrayed his electorate by supporting the Gillard minority government is a bit rich. Over the years he’s managed to strip away the 35% of the vote that Labor used to get. Aren’t they entitled to representation too? If the Newspoll is accurate, 8 candidates are fighting over 14% of the vote.
if the opinion polls are right…. it is very hard to lose from 48% primary…….. but most prefs
are overwhelmingly against him……. also the error margin is 4.5% for these newspolls
I suspect it will be even closer than this poll
Margin of error and primary votes notwithstanding, this looks close enough that Barnaby is going to have to devote more time to his local campaign than he would have liked.
My prediction: With Tony Windsor, kingmaker in making Julia Gillard Prime Minister in 2010, coming back to try and win his old seat, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce may have a challenge on his hands… National hold for now.
Given the “Windsor evil bully” article and “Windsor philanderer” ad I gather Joyce is in serious trouble.
yess Dubopov…..they must be worried. Also paul Murray and Ray Hadley have had a go too. When people do desperate and silly things they must be worried.
Joyce should win. While there is media class outrage, thead is very affective. I think Joyce had it before that anyway.
qld ob .. if joyce was going to win anyway, why stoop to such a low level?
@Dubopov the problem with your premise is that it requires politicians to act logically. Definitely not the case!
It is closer than Barnaby would be comfortable with, but that ad should help. I think he has the ability to splurge on a last week ad. Windsor knows it works, which is why he reacted so strongly with the laughable claim it suggested he was cheating on his wife.
Newspoll has NE at Nat 51%, Ind 49% two days ago
The swing against Barnaby was very small. All Windsor did was accumulate the existing anti Nationals vote.
Daniel – I wouldn’t exactly call a swing of more than 6% “small”. Joyce got 64.46% on two party preferred in 2013. In 2016, he has gotten 58.18% on two candidate preferred.
@Glen I assume what he meant by ‘small’ was much less than what most polls had predicted. Thank the Lord that Windsor flopped here, he would’ve been a nightmare to deal with.