Warringah – Election 2010

LIB 8.8%

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, 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.

Redistribution
The entire City of North Sydney was contained within the electorate of the same name at the 2007 election, and the 2009 redistribution transferred part of the LGA into Warringah, particularly areas around Neutral Bay.

The seat of Warringah also lost territory in its northwestern corner to its three neighbouring electorates. Warringah previously covered parts of Middle Cove and Castle Cove in Willoughby LGA and parts of East Lindfield and East Killara in Ku-ring-gai, and these areas were transferred to North Sydney and Bradfield respectively. Warringah also lost parts of Forestville north of Warringah Road to the seat of Mackellar.

The inclusion of parts of North Sydney and exclusion of more conservative areas deeper in the north of Sydney saw Abbott’s margin cut from 9.5% to 8.8%.

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 frontbench ballot against Turnbull in December 2009 and was elected Leader of the Liberal Party.

Candidates

  • Alexander Gutman (Sex Party) – known better as comedian Austen Tayshus.
  • Matthew Drake-Brockman (Greens)
  • Hugh Zochling (Labor)
  • Tony Abbott (Liberal) – Member for Warringah since 1994, Leader of the Opposition since December 2009.
  • Kenneth Cook (Secular Party)

Political situation
There is little Labor presence in Warringah, and despite the single-figure margin there is little prospect of the ALP defeating Abbott any time in the future. Even in the most progressive areas in Manly, the main opposition to the Liberal Party comes from an independent coalition that held the state seat of Manly from 1991 to 2007 and held the mayoralty of Manly from 2004 to 2008. That coalition lost the seat of Manly in 2007 and the Manly mayoralty in 2008, suggesting the Liberals have a strong hold on the area for the near future.

2007 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Tony Abbott LIB 46,398 54.53 -0.97
Hugh Zochling ALP 23,317 27.40 +2.29
Conny Harris GRN 10,660 12.53 +0.71
Patricia Petersen IND 1,529 1.80 -0.50
Georgina Johanson DEM 1,095 1.29 +1.04
Bill McCudden CDP 1,020 1.20 +1.20
Goronwy Price CCE 616 0.72 +0.72
Brett Middleton IND 456 0.54 -0.83

2007 two-candidate-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Tony Abbott LIB 50,627 59.50 -1.79
Hugh Zochling ALP 34,464 40.50 +1.79

These results do not take into consideration the effects of the redistribution.

Booth breakdown
Warringah covers all of Manly and Mosman LGAs and parts of North Sydney and Warringah. I have kept booths separated between the four LGAs, although in the case of Warringah and Manly suburb names cross council boundaries, meaning booths such as North Manly and Manly Vale are included in Warringah. While Middle Harbr booth lies in Mosman, I have included those votes cast in the seat of North Sydney in 2007 in the North Sydney LGA figures, as the 2007 boundary followed the local government boundary.

The ALP’s strongest booth was the central booth in Manly, but their strongest area was North Sydney, presumably related to the fact that they had run a serious campaign in that seat in 2007, with celebrity candidate Mike Bailey. The Liberal Party polled over 60% in Mosman and around 57-58% in the other three areas. The Greens also performed much stronger in the areas that were contained in the seat in 2007, despite traditionally doing quite well in the City of North Sydney. Their best area was Manly council area, where they polled almost 15%.

Polling booths in Warringah. Warringah in red, Manly in blue, Mosman and North Sydney in yellow (North Sydney booths are west of green line).
Voter group GRN % LIB 2CP % Total votes % of ordinary votes
Warringah 12.00 57.77 31,257 45.33
Manly 14.96 58.61 16,468 23.88
Mosman 11.43 62.72 12,356 17.92
North Sydney 9.20 57.24 8,870 12.86
Other votes 12.78 60.02 18,143
Polling booths in Warringah, showing results of the 2007 election.

17 COMMENTS

  1. It would be so so depressing if Tony Abbott became Prime Minister. It would probably be even more painful than the Howard years.

  2. There used to be areas of Labor support in Manly and suburbs to the north (state Labor held both the seats in this area 1978-84) but this is long gone. Mosman LGA showed the biggest increase in per capita incomes in Australia 1981-2001 very contented voters.

  3. Abbott: “I have always been against the death penalty.”

    “I sometimes find myself thinking, though, that there are some crimes so horrific that maybe that’s the only way to adequately convey the horror of what’s been done.”

    Ugh.

  4. If it weren’t for Bailey those North Sydney booths may well have been the strongest area for the Greens, judging by the Senate votes, which were much higher, though it was over 20% in a few booths around Manly as well.

    Full preferential voting arguably makes it easier for independents to win here federally than at state and local level since more Labor and Green prefs flow instead of exhausting, so it would be great to see a strong independent challenging Abbott – though it would be very difficult to defeat him.

  5. Hey… we (Independents) put Peter McDonald up against Tony Abbot a couple of elections ago… and we came within a whisker. Abbot’s margin above 50% was slight.

    As a group in Manly we’ve kept it going for 20 years… took Council, State… but never quite got to Federal. There are still a few in Council. Would someone like to energise and do this here more and again?

    Be careful about term ‘Independent’. There are a lot of pseudo Independents around.

    I would encourage any new blood in Manly who is looking at this site to get going and participate.

    Jo (Ex Councillor

  6. The Liberals have certainly had to put a lot of resources into defeating the independents. The funding declarations for the state seat of Manly in 2007 are quite extraordinary.

    Mike Baird (LIB) – total declared expenditure $263,434, which works out at $5.78 for each enrolled voter, or $14.41 for each primary vote received.

    David Barr (IND) – total declared expenditure $58,693, which works out at $1.29 for each enrolled voter, or $4.64 for each vote received.

  8. Isn’t it time that those in Warringah who never vote Liberal got up and made a big effort? It is July 2010 and a cup half full is way better and more exciting…

  9. According to Labor’s new website, Hugh Zockling will be challenging Tony Abbott as their Labor candidate for the second consecutive election.

  10. Looks like they’ve spelt his name wrong though, last election, and when he ran for Warringah council in 2008, his surname was spelt with an ‘h’, not a ‘k’.

  11. Vote for a party or independant that supports the rights of those fleeing the bloodshed of Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.

  14. is the history section right? Like the first sentence in the History section because in another one, it says it started at 1906.
    – The first sentence was ‘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’
    and there, it says, first created at the 192 election but in the other one it said
    ‘Council’s official birth date is Tuesday March 7, 1906, when ‘Warringah Shire Council’ was formed’ and on this one it says= Tue, Mar, 7th, 1906.
    WAITING FOR AND ANSWER………………………………………………… (or put it on the web or sth)

  16. I for one will vote for Tony Abbott. The last 3 years have been an utter disgrace, and I’m not talking about the assassination of K Rudd. the policies that labor forced upon us were nothing short of pathetic left wing socialism, yet when 4 people died NO ONE in the Rudd government had the decency to apologise, for that reason alone should labor receive a thrashing..
    The lies that were told by labor this election were nothing short of breathtaking. and finally we had a little bit of Hugh Zochling, well the choice between Tony and Hugh is not a very difficult one.

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