Warringah – Australia 2019

LIB 11.6% vs GRN

Incumbent MP
Tony Abbott, since 1994.

Geography
Northern Sydney. Warringah covers parts of the Northern Beaches and Lower North Shore of Sydney, including Manly, Mosman and parts of Neutral Bay, Allambie Heights, Brookvale and Curl Curl. The seat covers the entirety of Manly and Mosman council areas, as well as parts of North Sydney and Warringah. The largest proportion of the population lives in Warringah.

History
Warringah was first created at the 1922 election, and has never elected a Labor candidate, electing a conservative candidate at every election, the one exception being 1937 when an independent was elected, who proceeded to join the United Australia Party shortly after his election and went on to serve as a minister in a number of conservative governments.

The seat was first won by Granville Ryrie in 1922. Ryrie had been Member for North Sydney since a 1911 by-election and was elected to Warringah unopposed. The ALP challenged him in 1925 but he managed over 80% of the vote.

Ryrie was appointed High Commissioner to London in 1927 and the by-election was won by Archdale Parkhill, in a race where the two Labor candidates polled barely 18% between them.

Parkhill had been the Lynton Crosby of early 20th Century Australian politics, coordinating many campaigns for the early Liberal Party and Nationalists over two decades. Parkhill served as a minister in the Lyons government from 1932 until 1937, serving as Minister for Defence during Lyons’ second term.

Parkhill was defeated at the 1937 election by conservative independent Percy Spender, who won the seat in a close race on preferences after falling 15% behind on primary votes. Spender went on to join the UAP shortly after his victory. Spender served in the wartime governments of Robert Menzies and Arthur Fadden and served as Minister for External Affairs until 1951, when he retired at the election before being appointed Ambassador to the United States. Spender went on to serve as Australia’s first representative on the International Court of Justice at The Hague.

Spender was succeeded in 1951 by Francis Bland, who held the seat for ten years with massive majorities, polling over 70% on two occasions and being elected unopposed on a third. He retired without ever taking a ministerial role.

Bland was succeeded in 1961 by John Cockle, who held the seat until his death shortly before the 1966 election.

Cockle was succeeded by prominent Edward St John in 1966. St John caused controversy in 1969 attacking Prime Minister John Gorton, which led him to resign from the Liberal Party, and he was defeated at the 1969 election by Liberal candidate Michael MacKellar.

MacKellar served as a minister in the Fraser government until 1982, when a scandal involving the importation of a colour television saw him resign from the ministry.

MacKellar resigned from Parliament in 1994, and the ensuing by-election was won by Tony Abbott. Abbott went on to serve as a minister for the entirety of the Howard government from 1996 to 2007, becoming a senior member of Cabinet in the last two terms of the government.

Abbott had always held Warringah by large margins over the ALP, and the only serious threat to his hold on the seat came in 2001, when Peter Macdonald, former independent member for the state seat of Manly, challenged Abbott. Macdonald polled 27% of the primary vote and came within 6% of defeating Abbott.

Abbott served as Shadow Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs following the Howard government’s defeat in November 2007, serving in the role under leaders Brendan Nelson and Malcolm Turnbull.

Abbott resigned from the frontbench in November 2009 in protest at Malcolm Turnbull’s support for the Emissions Trading Scheme, which triggered the collapse of Turnbull’s leadership. Abbott won a slim majority in a party room ballot against Turnbull in December 2009 and was elected Leader of the Liberal Party.

Abbott led the Coalition into the 2010 election. The Labor government lost its majority, but managed to piece together a majority with the support of crossbench MPs. Abbott led the Coalition through the next term, before winning the 2013 election. Tony Abbott served as Prime Minister until he was defeated for the Liberal leadership in September 2015.

Candidates

Assessment
Warringah is a reasonably safe Liberal seat, in the absence of a strong independent challenge.

2016 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Tony Abbott Liberal 44,759 51.6 -9.2
Andrew Woodward Labor 12,820 14.8 -4.5
Clara Williams Roldan Greens 10,565 12.2 -3.3
James Mathison Independent 9,887 11.4 +11.4
Marie Rowland Nick Xenophon Team 5,506 6.4 +6.4
June Scifo Christian Democratic Party 1,039 1.2 +0.5
Marc Giordano Science Party 800 0.9 +0.9
Shea Caplice Arts Party 669 0.8 +0.8
Tony Backhouse Independent 368 0.4 +0.4
David Barrow Independent 253 0.3 +0.3
Informal 5,611 6.1

2016 two-candidate-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes %
Tony Abbott Liberal 53,346 61.6
Clara Williams Roldan Greens 33,320 38.4

2016 two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Tony Abbott Liberal 52,948 61.1 -4.2
Andrew Woodward Labor 33,718 38.9 +4.2

Booth breakdown

Warringah has been split into three areas: Manly, Mosman and Warringah. Polling places in the Mosman and North Sydney council areas have been grouped as “Mosman” while those booths in the Northern Beaches council area have been split between the two former council areas of Manly and Warringah.

The Liberal Party won a majority of the two-candidate-preferred vote (against the Greens) in all three areas, with just under 60% in Warringah and Manly and over 64% in Mosman.

Labor came second on primary votes, but fell into third behind the Greens on preferences, with a primary vote ranging from 13.6% in Manly to 16.3% in Warringah.

The primary vote for independent candidate James Mathison ranged from 9.1% in Mosman to 14% in Warringah.

Voter group ALP prim % IND prim % LIB 2CP % Total votes % of votes
Warringah 16.3 14.0 59.5 23,582 27.2
Manly 13.6 12.3 59.7 16,543 19.1
Mosman 14.4 9.1 64.3 16,062 18.5
Other votes 15.0 10.2 62.7 12,655 14.6
Pre-poll 14.1 10.1 62.6 17,824 20.6

Election results in Warringah at the 2016 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes, Labor primary votes and primary votes for independent James Mathison.


Become a Patron!

188 COMMENTS

  1. Legend in the booth breakdown seems to be wrong (Mosman and Warringah reversed), while the text in that section seems to come from one of the WA seat guides.

  3. Despite a the sentiment against Abbott across the country, it doesn’t show here. I don’t even think he is that popular as a candidate, but he has no real contest except maybe a popular independent or Greens candidate.

  5. The Greens have boasted a lot about finishing 2nd here, but given the 2CP is actually tighter vs Labor, and the primary votes are so low I don’t think this is much to boast about. I doubt the Greens are ever going to win seats like this any more than Labor is. Independents are the real potential challengers, and given that it’s a seat which consistently ranks highly on socially progressive issues, including the 75% Yes vote in the marriage equality plebiscite, I don’t think it’s implausible that an independent or some other future party could mount a successful challenge here, but it’s not easy. Mathison was a theoretically potentially good candidate but clearly lacked the political or campaigning experience and know-how to make an effective challenge.

    It would be fascinating to see how effective a properly organised and targeted campaign that could exploit the socially progressive tilt of the electorate might be at breaking through what is still a largely class-based identification that drives Liberal votes in these kinds of seats, but it doesn’t seem like something that can come from Labor or the Greens.

  6. Nick C, In the Manly byelection they calculated a Liberal vs Green 2PP on the night before it turned out to be a Liberal vs Independent 2PP; they were both very similar in the end.

    There was apparently a poll that had Abbott losing the election a few weeks out from the 2016 election, and Turnbull sent out a letter to the whole electorate telling people to vote for Tony Abbott. The vote might not be rusted on as people think and he’s been consistently sniping for years, and I highly doubt he’s particularly active in the electorate.

    A well known Liberal like Mike Baird, Bruce Baird or even John Hewson running as an independent could really threaten Abbott here, but I wouldn’t rule out Greens or Labor taking it on preferences either.

  7. I feel like this seat has the possibility of moving against the Libs, especially while Abbott is playing games.
    That being said the only threat would be conceivably be a small l independent, if not I just see this remaining a Lib seat where the Greens come second.

  8. This seat clearly has a centrist and/or libertarian streak (depending on how economically dry the non-left voters are here), but if you ask me, Abbott will hold barring freak circumstances.

  9. Dean Harris has been pre-selected for the ALP here. Running a similar campaign to what James Mathieson ran. Interesting to note that they have pre-selected someone from the Mosman section, which is arguably the strongest area for Abbott.

  11. Trent – I read the Fairfax stories too. Abbott was the only candidate to nominate but about 30% of the 90 federal electorate council delegates voted against endorsing him. Also the election of the FEC leadership saw the an ally of Abbott defeated as chairman and replaced with a moderate. The outgoing chair then tried to get a vice chair position but was defeated by a young liberal moderate too. Abbott has been in parliament since 1994 and its time to retire. If we are lucky the constituents my retire Abbott.

    While Abbott and I are Constitutional Monarchists that is as far as the similarity goes. Abbott and Alan Jones are more an embarrassment to the ACM as is former MP Sophie Marbella after she entered parliament and later was defeated by an independent in Indi.

  12. i think there will be big shocks at the next election, and Warringah could be one of them.

    It only takes an independent with some profile and a seat like this could fall.

    It would be interesting to see the number of seats that fall with a 7.5 – 12% margin during a landslide or those seats that will never fall.

    Warringah could be one of them.

  13. the lib candidate needs to be endorsed by the local members……vote rumoured to be 46Abbott 38 against with 9 abstentions….. Tony disliked. is Dick Smith standing as an independent ?

  14. In the euphoria of the Liberals’s defeat in Wentworth tonight Jane Caro is saying she will run in Warringah as an independent.

    If she were capable of running a serious campaign and making it to the final runoff (even off as little as 20% primary) she probably stands a better chance of winning on preferences than the Greens or Labor. However the inevitable “left wing extremist pretending to be independent” scare campaign from the Liberals might stick better on Caro than it did on Kerryn Pehlps, Caro shared the stage with Richard Di Natale and Mehreen Faruqi at a Greens campaign function only a few weeks ago!

  15. Indi, Wagga Wagga, Mayo and now Wentworth show that the biggest threat to the Coalition in the lower house is not One Nation or the Conservatives or any other rag-tag far right party, but rather, popular local grassroots independents who run on platforms that the frustrated voters of these electorates are passionate about – climate change, asylum seekers, public schools, hospitals etc. – but can’t bring themselves to vote for a Labor or Green candidate. Given Caro’s media notoriety, and association with the left of politics, I don’t know if she could pull a similar upset in Warringah but it certainly seems possible.

  16. What really pissed me off about the ALP campaign to whip up hysteria against Tony Abbott; they kept saying that his Catholicism meant that he would try to ban abortions, which was (1) a con of an argument because it ignored the fact that it was a state issue, (2) was blatant anti-Catholic bigotry and (3) not something Abbott had ever said he would do. Abbott turned out to be fairly useless and a bit of a twat in office (and threw himself whole-heartedly into being a twat after leaving the premiership), but we don’t need to go down the American path of circulating lies and drumming up hysteria against political opponents.

  17. Tony Abbott is an embarrassment to me as a Warringah resident. I admit to voting for him in the past but not again. We need to clear out these right wing nut jobs from parliament and get back to the sensible centre.

  18. He will lose if a strong candidate runs here, In 2016 a leaked poll showed him losing, UNTIL, UNTIL Turnbull put loads of resources here,

  19. The NSW Division of the Liberal Party has decided not to have pre-selections and let current MP stand in the train wreck election in May 2019. When many MP’s crash and burn this will clean out the old guard and dead wood and allow the Liberals to select new small L candidates for the future election in about 2022.

  20. Paul – “Religion is the Opium of the Masses” was a famous Marxist quote. One of the very few intelligent comment from the far left I have heard. Australian and state governments should not assist religion an anyway. In my suburb in Melbourne all the Christian churches have closed and other religions have never been present. Middle Park is a nice no religion/atheist location but affluent and progressive too. Who needs religion when we have the beach, Albert Park Reserve (F1-GP) and lake, 15 min by tram to the action in the CBD, 15 min walk to St Kilda and great cafes in the local area. No time for church, even if we had one, when there is coffee and brunch on offer.

  21. Dont be religious intolerant, Limit discussion here unless you want to start an argument, (Im a christian myself) But i dont share or talk about religion here, keep this election talk please

  22. Daniel – Most religions are intolerant. A medieval cult 21st century society is best without. Paul started the religion debate not me and my comment was directed to him not you and dont try and tell me what to say and think. Christians belief God mated with Mary to create Jesus even though Mary was married to Joseph. What a sick perverted story that is to teach to the kiddies at Sunday school.

  23. Thats your belief, Thats your choice, But it is not acceptable to start arguments here about the topic or i will ask ben to come here, Lets keep this on discussion on the seat of Warringah,

    This seat will likely stay in Liberal hands because they will put lots of money into this like they did last time, They know if they lose seats like this to anyone, They are heading for an oblivion, While the liberal party says it will win the next election, They lied, They know they wont win, They will just have to save as many seats as possible like Labor did in 2013. If Abbott falls expect a true disaster for the party

  25. Abbott is a larger than life figure……….. what impact will the stop Abbott movements have.? last time was roughly 60/40 split his way……….. Is it true that opinion polls showed him losing in 2016 but money and a concerted lib campaign changed this? assume a 4 to 5% swing to labor in nsw then he has 5 to 6% margin……. are there liberal voters who will vote against him because he has been destructive to the liberal party government?

  26. What would the Abbott versus Mathison margin have been in 2016? Less than 5%? The Greens finished second with 12% of the primary vote, only very slightly ahead of Mathison. Mathison came a lot closer to winning this seat than what the numbers might initially suggest.

  27. The Greens were second after preferences but third on primaries. Labor was second on primaries but third after preferences. Mathison was fourth on both. When he was eliminated numbers were:

    Abbott 54.10
    Labor 16.92
    Greens 14.83
    Mathison 14.15

    A 90% preference flow (about the maximum possible) from both Labor and Greens would have got Mathison to 42.7 vs 57.3, but I don’t know if it would have been that strong. The flow from all 1 Labor voters to Greens ahead of Abbott was 82.4%.

    As for the “polls” showing him losing in 2016, there was an internal poll with a sample size of 400 claimed here:

    https://www.afr.com/news/politics/secret-polling-how-malcolm-turnbull-helped-save-tony-abbott-20170419-gvnfh9

    It should be treated with great suspicion because of the circumstances of its release and because it was a seat poll with such a small sample size. Also the language used (“aided vote”) suggests it was by Sexton. They did one for Wentworth for Peter King for which the unaided vote was wildly inaccurate (even compared to the other Wentworth polls) and the aided vote results made no sense.

  28. Jeez Daniel, I wish you showed that level-headed behaviour on other posts…

    There was a 17.7% swing to minor candidates, headed up by James Mathieson and Marie Rowland. I live in the next seat along (Mackellar) and got to see a lot of the campaigning first hand and the first thing I came to realise is that Mathieson had no clue what he was doing. He really did show how far out of his depth he was and that it would take him a good 2-3 cycles before he even gets close to getting up to speed.

    The talk about Independent Candidates doing well here (as with Manly) only goes so far. The Independent strength all comes around Manly itself and has only been achieved by popular independent councillors and I point to the examples of Dr Peter MacDonald and David Barr in the State Seat of Manly (along with Dr MacDonald’s performance when he ran in Warringah). Their strength was from the middle of Manly, where the socially progressive to Classical Liberal Vote is strongest. But the closer you get to Spit Bridge, the better the vote gets for the Liberal Party. If you then look at the vote for Warringah once you cross the Spit Bridge, you get into Blue Ribbon Liberal Territory that could rival Vaucluse.

    For an independent to win this seat, they would need to have such a strong local vote in Manly that they can run the board along the coast line and attempt to counter off any gains that would then result for the Liberal Party from Balgowlah along to Mosman.

    I’m with Kevin Bonham on that poll. That sounds like a very sus poll raised by Turnbull’s Party to demonstrate to the base that he had saved their ‘Talisman’ in Abbott. If Abbott was able to retain his seat against Dr MacDonald, then I don’t see him losing the seat as that vote in Balgowlah, Seaforth and Mosman is way too strong to overcome.

  29. seems closest to Manly lib vote in 50s Mosman in the 60’s so combined is 60/40 ……….. is it possible that ABA can work………. Anyone but Abbott……….. Abbott only got 51% of primary votes

  30. assume green and Labor are almost proxies for each other.
    cd preferences 80/20 Abbotts way.. all others roughly 70/30 against him
    assume a state wide Alp swing of 3% still a long way to go to defeat him

  31. Which independent is more likely to win? Jane Caro or Zali Steggal, And on sportsbet what does it mean by Non-Jane Caro? I didnt know Non was a real first name

  32. I’m guessing Zali Steggal has a good chance. All the grassroots organisations are supporting her. Warringah could turn into a Indi 2.0.

  34. We all know of Zali Steggal as an Australian snow skiing champion but I thought she was born overseas but her parents are Australian and she was born here but they lived in France for about 10 years so Zali is a fluent French speaker and this explains her Euro accent too.

  35. Zali Steggal is the third independent to enter the race for Warringah; but the first with the sort of profile required of a successful campaign. She’s also smartly adopting the Phelps tactic of asserting her Liberal bonafides. One wonders if the candidacies of Susan Moylan-Coombs and Alice Thompson helps or hinders. (Jane Caro is clearly not running now.) Probably neither. I wouldn’t be surprised if one or both drops out; particularly Thompson who has also cast herself as an independent Liberal.

    I think Abbott still wins. Unlike Wentworth, this contest will be fought in a general election, an environment not nearly as favourable to an independent as a by-election. But he can’t take it for granted, and it will force the Liberal party to devote energy and resources to a hitherto safe seat.

    And that’s what should really excite Labor.

  36. Time’s up for Abbott
    the Liberals (this time without the Turnbull gift of $1.75 million) will need to spend buckets of cash to save Abbott

    Zali Steggall is a real chance though to knock him off his perch
    it will require a massive doorknocking campaign……but as Phelps,McGowan and Sharkie have shown,a good independent can win in a blue ribbon Liberal seat

  37. In any other scenario, Abbott would be fine. This year, however, has the perfect storm of conditions for someone to seriously challenge the seat. This’ll be a real seat to watch during the campaign.

  38. Tony Abbott is a misfit for this electorate. Standing as a has been conservative, coupled with an election where the Liberals are likely to do poorly, he will have to struggle to hold this seat. I think Steggall will run very close here and probably win Warringah with a half decent campaign.

  39. Abbott is in trouble unless he polls an absolute majority or very close to it say 47% but 1943 I think was the last time the endorsed liberal candidate failed to win here. As David pointed out…… Warringah should be an assured liberal seat…… but how many resources will need to be put into this seat?

    Also assume that Abbott wins……. then this will be his last term

  40. Apparently Abbott has knocked on his first ever door……

    there is an electoral tsunami heading towards Abbott….and in part its as a result of his denial of global warming……isn’t it ironic?

  41. A recent Ucomms poll has shown Abbott’s primary vote to be 39%…..a very very worrying figure for a bloke who is up against a quality candidate, with thousands of energised volunteers.

    Abbott’s big election promise is to build some huge underground road…something’s he’s floated previously but never delivered……the promise to improve Brookvale Oval has been ditched…..he promised that in 2013 and never delivered

    Getup is predicting that they will be knocking on 64,000 doors in the electorate….
    I doubt if Abbott has even knocked on 64 doors
    Doorknocking is one of the best ways of engaging with voters….particularly if you have a simple message …PUT TONY LAST
    In the 2016 election Turnbull went out of his way to help Abbott…somehow I doubt if any assistance will be forthcoming come May

  42. Today Abbott is frantically trying explain how he didn’t mean to attend an event staged by a group,with very close links to the Chinese Communist Party

    dear oh dear…attention to detail was never ever Abbott’s strongest suit

    Meanwhile Zali and her huge band of volunteers are knocking on those doors and spreading the good word

  43. There’s no evidence that Turnbull did anything out of the ordinary to help Abbott get re-elected in 2016 beyond what he would do for any other seat. Self-serving leaks tend to have a poor correlation with the truth.

    I don’t see the issue with the Chinese New Year event he attended – he gave a speech criticising Xi Jinping and later found out that some in the audience were Xi/CCP supporters. So what? It shows he spoke his mind rather than trying to pander to the audience.

  44. Yesterday Abbott held a media event with a dozen or so less than enthusiastic supporters……most of whom were male members of the Young Liberals …Margie and the girls couldn’t make it for some reason

    TEAM TONY T-shirts were the order of the day
    Abbott spent most of the time explaining why he didn”t mean to go to an event….saying…”I am not a patsy of the Communist party”
    Suggestions for the 2019 campaign slogan were tossed around…

    PROMISES MADE……..NEVER DELIVERED…(recall the promise to redevelop Brookvale Oval…a pipe dream)
    ABBOTT FOR PM
    GLOBAL WARMING…..WHAT ME WORRY?
    LET’s GO BACK TO THE 50’s
    LET”S HAVE MORE MEN IN PARLIAMENT
    MORE ROADS…LIKE THE NORTHERN BEACHES TUNNEL

  46. Apparently Tony Abbott is having great difficulty building a team of volunteers for the upcoming campaign…
    all the good volunteers have switched to Zali Steggall

    well at least he can call upon people like Alan Jones,Ray Hadley,Rowan Dean ,Ross Cameron,Peta Credlin,John Howard,Margie and the girls……to lend a hand…….maybe not….could you imagine the aggressive Ray Hadley assisting with doorknocking?……….or Alan Jones handing out how to vote cards?

  47. Did you know that Tony Abbott arrived in Australia by boat?

    yep as a 4 year old,Abbott was a boat person.

    If only the turnback policy had applied 57 years ago

  48. There is enormous inertia in Warringah for Abbott, but change is possible this time. Zali Steggall must pick up a big primary vote to at least run 2nd so she can harvest as many preferences as possible through each round of counting. Last election, running 2nd meant getting 15% of the vote. James mathison got c.12% and he was useless. Zali will do much better. Zali has a huge team and grassroots local support behind her. But all this will turn on whether Abbotts primary vote is low enough ( target 40-45%) so that Zali can survive multiple preference rounds and win the day that way.

  49. Abbott must be worried,on Thursday he subjected himself to a ferocious grilling by Andrew Bolt on The Bolt Report…it was nauseating…..the mutual admiration society was on full display as they agreed with each other on every point…….scintillating journalism

    …and Abbott revealed that he was still wounded by the coup which sent him to the back bench….oh dear
    somehow I dont think the voters of Warringah are going to provide him with any sympathy

    Its time Abbott was sent packing…..and Zali Steggall is just the person to send him on his way

  50. GetUp have just conducted a poll in Warringah and its more bad news for Abbott…

    Zali Steggall leads the incumbent 54/46……

    Nothing like momentum…it energises Zali’s volunteers…..and deflates Abbott’s hapless crew

Newer Comments »

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here