ALP 8.9%
Incumbent MP
Tony Burke, since 2004, previously member of the NSW Legislative Council 2003-2004.
Geography
Inner west and south-western Sydney. Watson covers the inner west suburbs of Canterbury, Campsie, Lakemba, Wiley Park, Punchbowl, Greenacre, Ashbury and parts of Ashfield, Hurlstone Park and Lidcombe.
Redistribution
Watson gained Ashbury and parts of Hurlstone Park and Ashfield from Grayndler, and gained part of Lidcombe (along with Rookwood cemetery) from Reid, and gained some areas on its southern border from Barton and Banks, so that the southern boundary runs along the M5. In exchange, Watson lost parts of Strathfield and Burwood north of the railway line to Reid, and lost Clemton Park to Barton. These changes increased the Labor margin from 6.8% to 8.9%.
History
The Division of Watson is a recent creation, having been created in 1993 to replace the Division of St George. In its short history it has always been a safe Labor seat.
The seat was first won in 1993 by the ALP’s Leo McLeay. McLeay had previously held the neighbouring seat of Grayndler since 1979, and had served as Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1989 until shortly before the 1993 election, when he was forced to resign over allegations of a false compensation claim.
McLeay was reelected at the 1996, 1998 and 2001 elections before retiring at the 2004 election.
The seat was won in 2004 by the ALP’s Tony Burke, who had held a seat in the NSW Legislative Council since March 2003. He moved immediately to the Labor shadow ministry in 2004, served as a senior minister in the Labor government from 2007 to 2013, and now serves as Shadow Minister for Finance.
Candidates
- Violet Abdulla (Christian Democratic Party)
- Tom Gordon (Science Party)
- Tony Burke (Labor)
- Paul Geran (Online Direct Democracy)
- Barbara Bloch (Greens)
- Mohammad Zaman (Liberal)
Assessment
Watson is a safe Labor seat.
2013 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Tony Burke | Labor | 39,126 | 49.5 | -0.9 | 50.4 |
| Ron Delezio | Liberal | 30,617 | 38.7 | +1.6 | 36.8 |
| Barbara Bloch | Greens | 4,171 | 5.3 | -4.3 | 6.2 |
| Zaher Nasser | Palmer United Party | 1,970 | 2.5 | +2.5 | 2.5 |
| David Fraser | Christian Democratic Party | 1,873 | 2.4 | +2.4 | 2.4 |
| Stephen Rawson | Democratic Labour Party | 897 | 1.1 | +1.1 | 1.0 |
| Paul Kamlade | Rise Up Australia | 376 | 0.5 | +0.5 | 0.4 |
| Others | 0.3 | ||||
| Informal | 12,814 | 14.0 |
2013 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Tony Burke | Labor | 44,895 | 56.8 | -2.3 | 58.9 |
| Ron Delezio | Liberal | 34,135 | 43.2 | +2.3 | 41.1 |
Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into four parts. Polling places north of the Cooks River, including all of those in the Burwood, Strathfield and (former) Ashfield council areas, have been grouped as “north-east”. Polling places in the former Bankstown council area along with the sole Lidcombe booth have been grouped as “north-west”. The booths in the former Canterbury council area (except for those north of the Cooks River) have been split into south-east and south-west.
The Labor two-party-preferred vote ranged from 55% in the north-east to 65% in the south-west.
| Voter group | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| South-West | 65.1 | 15,232 | 19.4 |
| North-West | 58.7 | 13,782 | 17.6 |
| South-East | 60.0 | 12,540 | 16.0 |
| North-East | 55.4 | 11,763 | 15.0 |
| Other votes | 55.6 | 25,044 | 32.0 |
Every time I drive past this area, I am always surprised when remembering that the Libs came within ~ 5% or so of winning this seat. Forgive me, but the area seems Labor through and through.
Helps that Labor have done so poorly in Sydney in the last two elections, I guess. Would think the margin here blows out again significantly.
The Canterbury/Lakemba corridor is rock solid Labor, but areas around Burwood and especially Strathfield are middle class and Liberal-leaning. On the old boundaries, the seat also contained several 65-70% Liberal booths in Strathfield (now moved back into Reid), so that helped soften the massive Labor dominance along Canterbury Road.
The new boundaries have removed most of the better Liberal areas, hence the boost in the Labor margin. While there were complaints about other decisions the AEC made at the redistribution, they did do a good job of making Watson, Reid, and Blaxland more logical seats.
For the most part Watson is very safe Labor turf. But there are parts of Strathfield where the houses are positively palatial. A lot of that area has now been redistributed into Reid. If you have a look at the Reid map, you’ll see these booths are even stronger than the riverside ones.
MM & DW
It will be interesting to see whether Watson gets drawn further east into Ashfield. Or Barton gets drawn north. It is difficult to see how both could happen simultaneously , in the future.
Reverting to the Hume Hwy as the northern boundary did help clean up these boundaries for sure
Watson has two thirds of people speaking a language other than English at home and by extension a large number of residents born overseas.
It’s surprising that the margin is this close.
I just noticed that the informal vote rate at 16.2% is extremely high, I’m guessing a lot of new immigrants there may be struggling with literacy and/or the voting procedure.
This probably accounts for the closer than expected margins.
Well Liberal HQ has said a Mohamed Zaman will be their candidate, so hope they had the paperwork in by lunchtime today, could be very interesting if not.
Nominations don’t close until Thursday. But I hadn’t heard that name until now.
Bulk Party nominations needed to be in today according to the AEC website, but, maybe that’s an administrative request rather than a statutory obligation?
“Bulk nominations (consisting of all House of Representatives candidates endorsed by a registered political party for a particular state or territory) must be lodged at the office of the Australian Electoral Officer for that state or territory not less than 48 hours before the close of nominations (by 12 noon on Tuesday 7 June).”
“Must”…has legal implications usually?
Ah, I had forgotten about that. I assume the major parties will thus have all their candidates in for that deadline.
Well, if for no other reason than maybe 30000 x $262.784 cents per eligible vote !!!
Surely a case of decimal point displacement? $78k and not $7.8m…no wonder Pauline is running again!
“The amount of election funding payable is calculated by multiplying the number of formal first preference votes received by the rate of payment applicable at the time. This rate is indexed every six months in line with increases in the Consumer Price Index.
The election funding rate from 1 July 2016 to 31 December 2016 is 262.784 cents per eligible vote. This is the election funding rate that will apply to the 2 July 2016 federal election.”
cents…oh dear! So $2.62784
Silly me!
I just realised I tonight that there’s an error in the informal rate – it was calculated on the formal vote, not the total vote. The rate is actually 14%, not 16.2%.
well on the draw it seems putting in your forms last probably meant the Libs were destined for the bottom of the ticket!
CDP result, senza FF candidate, will be interesting?
Liberals are running a Muslim candidate with the name Mohammad.
Wouldnt be surprised if a chunk of the Christian Liberal vote moves to FF/CDP.
The CDP won 12.8% of the vote in Lakemba at the 2015 State Election (Lakemba is right in the heart of Watson). The Libs ran a Muslim candidate in that election too.