LIB 10.2%
Incumbent MP
Angus Taylor, since 2013.
Geography
Southern NSW and outer south-western Sydney. Hume is a seat of two parts – the seat covers most of the Camden and Wollondilly areas on the fringe of south-western Sydney, including Camden, Picton, Douglas Park, Appin, Narellan, Mount Annan and Warragamba. Hume also covers Goulburn, Crookwell and Boorowa in rural southern NSW. Hume covers parts of the southern highlands of NSW, connecting the two main population centres in the seat, but most of the towns in the highlands have been excised into the neighbouring seat of Whitlam.
History
Hume is an original federation electorate, and originally covered the NSW border region, including the towns of Albury, Gundagai and Cootamundra.
The seat was first won by William Lyne in 1901. Lyne was a Protectionist and had previously been Premier of New South Wales, and a leading opponent of federation.
Lyne had been originally offered the role of Australia’s first Prime Minister by Governor-General Lord Hopetoun, but failed to form a ministry and instead became a minister in Edmund Barton’s first cabinet.
Lyne served in Edmund Barton and Alfred Deakin’s Protectionist cabinets from 1901 to 1904 and 1905 to 1908. Lyne refused to join with Alfred Deakin when the Protectionist and Free Trade parties merged to form the Commonwealth Liberal Party in 1909, and served as an independent until 1913.
Lyne was defeated in 1913 by Commonwealth Liberal Party candidate Robert Patten, who held the seat until his retirement in 1917, when the seat was won by Franc Falkiner (LIB), who had previously held the seat of Riverina from 1913 to 1914. Falkiner abandoned Hume in 1919 in an attempt to move to the Senate.
Parker Moloney (ALP) won Hume in 1919. Moloney had previously held the neighbouring seat of Indi in Victoria from 1910 to 1913 and 1914 to 1917.
Moloney held the seat until 1931, when he was defeated by Thomas Collins of the Country Party. This began a period of Hume being a marginal seat between the ALP and the Country Party until 1974.
Collins was defeated by Arthur Fuller (ALP) in 1943, after serving as a minister in Robert Menzies’ first government.
Fuller was defeated in 1949 by Charles Anderson of the Country Party. Fuller won back the seat in 1951, and Anderson won it back again in 1955. Fuller defeated Anderson for the last time in 1961.
Fuller was defeated by John Pettiitt of the Country Party in 1963. Pettitt held the seat until he was defeated by the ALP’s Frank Olley at the 1972 election. Olley was defeated by Stephen Lusher of the Country Party in 1974. This was the last time the seat was held by the ALP, and the margin for future National and Liberal candidates increased to a safer range.
At the 1984 election, a redistribution saw the Liberal member for Farrer and former Fraser government minister Wal Fife challenge Lusher. Lusher came third and his preferences elected Fife.
Fife held the seat until his retirement at the 1993 election, when a redistribution saw the National member for Gilmore, John Sharp, move to Hume. Sharp served as a minister in the first term of the Howard government before his career was claimed by the travel rorts affair, and he retired in 1998.
The 1998 election saw the seat go to Alby Schultz, previously the Liberal member for the state seat of Burrinjuck since 1988. Schultz came first on primary votes, with the National candidate reduced to fourth place behind One Nation.
The 2000 redistribution saw Hume move into the Southern Highlands, and saw Macarthur move into more marginal territory in south-western Sydney. Finance Minister John Fahey, former NSW premier and member for Macarthur, planned to run for preselection in Hume, into which his home base of the Southern Highlands had been redistributed. Fahey, however, decided to retire due to ill-health, freeing up Schultz to run for re-election.
Schultz held Hume for five terms, and retired in 2013. Hume was won in 2013 by Angus Taylor. Taylor was re-elected in 2016.
Candidates
Assessment
Hume is a reasonably safe Liberal seat.
2016 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Angus Taylor | Liberal | 51,103 | 53.8 | -2.5 |
| Aoife Champion-Fashoyin | Labor | 30,221 | 31.8 | +6.4 |
| Michaela Sherwood | Greens | 6,274 | 6.6 | +1.0 |
| Adrian Van Der Byl | Christian Democratic Party | 3,533 | 3.7 | +1.9 |
| Trevor Anthoney | Bullet Train For Australia | 2,267 | 2.4 | +2.4 |
| Lindsay D Cosgrove | Citizens Electoral Council | 1,530 | 1.6 | +0.7 |
| Informal | 5,311 | 5.3 |
2016 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Angus Taylor | Liberal | 57,127 | 60.2 | -3.4 |
| Aoife Champion-Fashoyin | Labor | 37,801 | 39.8 | +3.4 |
Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into six parts. Polling places in the town of Goulburn and in the Camden council area have been grouped together. Other polling places in the Goulburn Mulwaree council area and in the southern parts of the southern highlands have been grouped as “South”, while those to the west of Goulburn have been grouped as “West”.
Polling places in the Wollondilly and northern Wingecarribee council areas have been split into east and north-east.
The Liberal Party won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all six areas, ranging from 53.3% in Goulburn to 67.2% in the west.
| Voter group | LIB 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| Camden | 59.7 | 21,102 | 24.2 |
| East | 57.4 | 17,649 | 20.3 |
| Goulburn | 53.3 | 9,399 | 10.8 |
| North-East | 66.6 | 8,536 | 9.8 |
| West | 67.2 | 4,835 | 5.5 |
| South | 59.5 | 3,927 | 4.5 |
| Other votes | 60.1 | 10,743 | 12.3 |
| Pre-poll | 62.2 | 18,737 | 21.5 |
Two-party-preferred votes in Hume at the 2016 federal election
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Huge blow for Energy minister Angus Taylor, Hes on $1.22 to Labor’s $3.75, That is close betting for a seat like this
This has my nomination for worst boundaries among federal NSW divisions.
I have played around with some ideas for the 2023 redistribution. I’ve made the assumption that all SA1s will maintain the same growth rate (naïve, I know). Here’s what I have for the southeast:
– Cunningham gains the remainder of Berkeley from Whitlam, as well as all suburbs around Port Kembla south to the Windang Bridge.
– Whitlam gains Kiama from Gilmore, and expands north in the Southern Highlands to the border with Wingecarribee (to include Hilltop, Yerrinbool, Colo Vale, etc.).
– Gilmore expands to stretch the remainder of the coast, thus becoming precisely the union of Shoalhaven, Eurobodalla, and Bega Valley.
– Eden-Monaro expands to include the following LGAs in their entirety: Snowy Monaro, Queanbeyan-Palerang, Snowy Valleys, Yass Valley, Goulburn Mulwaree, and Upper Lachlan; as well the former LGAs of Gundagai, Young, and Boorowa; and all of the Southern Highlands not contained in Whitlam. Thus Eden-Monaro no longer contains Eden, and hopefully matters of nomenclature do not delegitimise such a proposal.
I haven’t explored ideas involving a trans-Sutherland-Illawarra electorate, mostly because I tend to think this is a greater evil than mixing the Illawarra and the Southern Highlands, crossing the Snowy Mountains, and so on. But I should probably give it a try.
Looking at my table of extrapolated deviations in electors, it does seem that there is an imbalance of at least one quota between Sydney and non-Sydney electorates. At least part of addressing that would be for Hume to confine itself to Wollondilly, Camden, and/or Campbelltown.
Angus Taylor is about to get a shock with the nomination of another female independent
Anne Coombes…former chair of GetUp is seriously considering standing in Hume
Another nightmare for Scott Morrison…..having to spend scarce funds sandbagging a safe seat
Tayolr recently announced that the govt would be prepared to underwrite the development of new coal fired power stations…when will they ever learn
suggested campaign slogans for Angus Taylor
GLOBAL WARMING>>>>>>WHO CARES
COAL IS COOL
I WAS LOYAL TO MALCOLM
DUTTON MADE ME DO IT
Investigations into a $80m water buyback involving unfathomable decisions of a Mr Joyce…… no water , the Caymans island holding company… and threatened legal action by a/n
Maybe this water situation may be one of the first matters reviewed by the COmmonwealth ICAC – should be interesting to watch the investigation.
Its strange isnt it that Taylor was once connected to the companies based in the Cayman Island which were given over the top cash*$79,000,000 for virtually non existent water….the bloke approving
the deal…..the now disgraced Barnaby Joyce
Taylor has obviously found politics a land of great opportunity……you only need one good deal
Nicholas – completely agree. South West Sydney will need to be carved up a bit differently in the next 5 to 10 years with the massive growth happening there. It would make sense to give Bowral/Mittagong to Hume and give some of Camden to a combination of Macarthur and probably a new seat in there somewhere. You’d then need to rethink the Illawarra/South Coast seats, as you mention.
Aside from the need to consider quotas of Sydney/non-Sydney seats, the Camden LGA is growing by 170% over the next 20 years, which is staggering, so there’s a strong case for an extra Sydney seat.
The very fast suburbanisation of this patch of outer Sydney delivered interesting swings to Labor at the NSW election, and I’d expect a bit of the same for Hume this time around. Taylor should still hold fairly comfortably, but with a trimmed margin.
Also some of the highest votes for One Nation in the NSW election were in the Hume area. Will be interesting to see how much of this was carried by Mark Latham (also a local) or how much is the general pro-Pauline protest vote.
L T Smash
It will be a lot more than a bit differently. I posted last year on this, & there ensued an extensive debate. The under quota suburban seats will suck electors north & west from Werriwa. This will then have a cascading effect from McArthur, & Hume. Then there will be the effect of a new seat.
There will need to be some major revisions, & some sacred cows will be slaughtered. Because there are some significant liberal voting areas in considerable number of labor seats the outcome will probably be the coalition making a nett gain of 1 , or 2 seats.
Fantastic. Great move. Well done Angus.
Camden and Goulburn are not a good fit…probably Camden with Wollondilly better idea. Can Mr Taylor lose…hope so. There are $80m reasons for that
Angus done well. Move great, fantastic.
If anyone wants a good laugh, go read the comments on any Angus Taylor post on social media. He’s just getting hounded by people writing ‘Fantastic, great move. well done angus’. Makes me laugh every time
Fantastic, great move, well done boatswain 1025