ALP 4.5%
Incumbent MP
Pat Conroy, since 2016. Previously member for Charlton 2013-2016.
Geography
Lake Macquarie and Central Coast regions of New South Wales. Shortland covers the suburbs of Lake Macquarie council on the eastern shore of Lake Macquarie, as well as northeastern suburbs of Wyong LGA. Key suburbs include Belmont, Charlestown, Cardiff, Warners Bay, Gateshead, Swansea, Budgewoi and Lake Munmorah.
History
Shortland was created in 1949, and has usually been a safe Labor seat, with the ALP polling over 60% at most elections.
The seat was first won in 1949 by the ALP’s Charles Griffiths, an official for the Australian Railways Union. Griffiths held the seat for the entirety of the 1950s and 1960s, and retired in 1972. He was replaced in 1972 by Peter Morris. Morris served as a junior minister from the election of the Hawke government in 1983 until he was promoted to Cabinet in 1988. He was dropped from Cabinet in 1990 due to lack of factional support and retired in 1998.
The seat was won in 1998 by Jill Hall, who had been elected to the state seat of Swansea in 1995. Hall held the seat for six terms.
The redistribution leading up to the 2016 election abolished the neighbouring seat of Charlton. Pat Conroy, who had held the seat of Charlton since 2013, replaced Jill Hall in Shortland. Conroy was re-elected in 2019.
Assessment
Shortland fell into the marginal category at the 2019 election for the first time since 1987. This election will show us whether this was a brief aberration or the beginning of a trend which will see this seat come more into play. Labor won’t be comfortable with this margin but will be the favourites nonetheless.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Pat Conroy | Labor | 41,126 | 41.1 | -10.0 |
| Nell McGill | Liberal | 37,363 | 37.4 | +2.2 |
| Wylie Campbell | Greens | 8,256 | 8.3 | -1.2 |
| Dani Rifai | United Australia Party | 4,532 | 4.5 | +4.5 |
| Bryan McGrath | Animal Justice | 3,596 | 3.6 | +3.6 |
| Susan Newbury | Sustainable Australia | 3,097 | 3.1 | +3.1 |
| Xing Yu | Christian Democratic Party | 2,010 | 2.0 | -2.2 |
| Informal | 6,847 | 6.4 | +1.7 |
2019 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Pat Conroy | Labor | 54,437 | 54.4 | -5.5 |
| Nell McGill | Liberal | 45,543 | 45.6 | +5.5 |
Booths have been divided into five areas: Cardiff-Warners Bay in the north-west, Charlestown in the north-east, and then from north to south Belmont, Swansea and Wyong. The “Wyong” area covers those polling places in Wyong Shire, with the remaining polling places in the City of Lake Macquarie.
Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all five areas, ranging from 52.7% in Belmont to 61.2% in Charlestown.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| Charlestown | 11.6 | 61.2 | 15,752 | 15.8 |
| Cardiff-Warners Bay | 8.9 | 54.2 | 14,255 | 14.3 |
| Wyong | 6.4 | 54.0 | 12,630 | 12.6 |
| Belmont | 8.9 | 52.7 | 11,547 | 11.5 |
| Swansea | 7.3 | 56.4 | 7,361 | 7.4 |
| Pre-poll | 6.7 | 50.6 | 27,299 | 27.3 |
| Other votes | 8.8 | 55.8 | 11,136 | 11.1 |
Election results in Shortland at the 2019 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor and the Liberal Party.
Thanks Nether Portal
NSW Labor got 54.26% at a state level but 51.42 federally so 2.84% needs to be adjusted. The adjusted difference is now 9.8%. This seat voted to the Left of the state by 14.14% at a state level but at a federal level it is only 4.4% to the left of state. According to Antony Green prior to 2019 Shortland voted about 5-10 points to the left of state often averaging around 8% stronger than the state as a whole.
State level TPP here in 2019:
* Labor: 61.6%
* Liberal: 38.4%
So there was a +6.8% swing to Labor here in 2023. Nevertheless, while this is a much better result for the Liberals than 2023, Labor still did 7.1% better here on the state level in 2019 than on the federal level in 2019.
@Nimalan: Shouldn’t gentrification benefit Labor rather than the Liberals?