Wentworth – Election 2010

LIB 3.9%

Incumbent MP
Malcolm Turnbull, since 2004.

Geography
Eastern suburbs of Sydney. Wentworth covers Woollahra and Waverley local government areas, as well as eastern parts of the City of Sydney and northern parts of Randwick LGA. Wentworth covers the southern shore of Sydney Harbour as far west as Woolloomooloo, and covers the east coast from South Head to Clovelly. Main suburbs include Bondi, Woollahra, Vaucluse, Double Bay, Darlinghurst, Kings Cross and parts of Randwick and Clovelly. Wentworth also covers Moore Park and Centennial Park.

Redistribution
No changes were made to Wentworth in the redistribution.

History
Wentworth is an original federation electorate and has always existed roughly in the eastern suburbs of Sydney. It has always been held by conservative parties, including the Liberal Party since its foundation in 1944.

The seat was first won by William McMillan of the Free Trade party in 1901. He was elected deputy leader of his party but retired at the 1903 election. He was succeeded by William Kelly, also a Free Trader. Kelly joined the Commonwealth Liberal Party and served in Joseph Cook’s ministry from 1913 to 1914.

Kelly retired in 1919 as a Nationalist and was succeeded by Walter Marks. Marks joined with other Nationalists, including Billy Hughes, to bring down the Bruce government in 1929, and was reelected as an independent. Marks joined the new United Australia Party in 1931, but was defeated in that year’s election by Eric Harrison, another UAP candidate.

Harrison held the seat for twenty-five years for the UAP and the Liberal Party. He usually held the seat safely, although he only held on by 335 votes in 1943, when feminist campaigner Jessie Street (ALP) challenged Harrison. William Wentworth also polled 20%. He later joined the Liberal Party and was elected in Mackellar in 1949.

Harrison had served a number of brief stints as a minister under Joseph Lyons and Robert Menzies in the 1930s and early 1940s, and served as the first deputy leader of the Liberal Party from its foundation until his retirement in 1956. Harrison was a minister in the Menzies government from 1949 until 1956, when he retired.

Les Bury (LIB) won the seat at the 1956 by-election. He served as a minister from 1961 until 1971, serving as Treasurer under John Gorton and briefly as Treasurer and then Foreign Minister under William McMahon. Bury retired in 1974.

Robert Ellicott (LIB) was elected in 1974. He served as Attorney-General in the first Fraser Ministry and as Minister for Home Affairs from 1977 to 1981, when he resigned to serve on the Federal Court. The ensuing by-election was won by Peter Coleman. Coleman had previously served as Leader of the Opposition in the NSW Parliament, and lost his seat at the 1978 state election.

Coleman retired in 1987 and was succeeded by John Hewson. Hewson was elected leader of the Liberal Party following their 1990 election defeat. Hewson led the party into the 1993 election, where the party went backwards. He was replaced in May 1994 as leader by Alexander Downer, and he retired from Parliament in 1995.

Andrew Thomson won the following by-election. Thomson served briefly as a Parliamentary Secretary and junior minister in the first term of the Howard government. Thomson was defeated for preselection by Peter King in 2001.

King himself was defeated for preselection in a heated preselection campaign in 2004 by Malcolm Turnbull. The preselection saw a massive explosion in membership numbers for the Liberal Party in Wentworth. King ran as an independent and polled 18%, and Turnbull’s margin was cut to 5.5%.

The redistribution after the 2004 election saw Wentworth extended deeper into the City of Sydney, and Turnbull’s margin was cut to 2.5%. Turnbull managed to win the seat in 2007 with a 1.3% swing towards him, in the face of a national swing against the Liberals.

Turnbull had served as a minister in the final term of the Howard government, and ran for the Liberal leadership following the 2007 election, losing to Brendan Nelson. After serving as Nelson’s Shadow Treasurer he was elected Leader of the Opposition in September 2008. After a rocky term as Leader of the Opposition, Turnbull was defeated by Tony Abbott by one vote in another leadership vote in December 2009.

Candidates

  • Matthew Robertson (Greens)
  • Pat Sheil (Independent)
  • Malcolm Duncan (Independent)
  • Stuart Neal (Carers Alliance)
  • John August (Secular Party)
  • Malcolm Turnbull (Liberal) – Member for Wentworth since 2004, Liberal leader 2008-2009.
  • Steven Lewis (Labor)

Political situation
The Liberal Party was facing a strong prospect of losing the seat when Malcolm Turnbull announced his retirement in April 2010, but since he announced that he would reverse his decision and stand, he should have no trouble retaining the seat.

2007 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Malcolm Turnbull LIB 44,463 50.37 +10.10
George Newhouse ALP 26,903 30.48 +1.55
Susan Jarnason GRN 13,205 14.96 +2.10
Dixie Coulton CCC 1,156 1.31 +1.31
Dani Ecuyer IND 774 0.88 +0.88
Pierce Field DEM 721 0.82 -0.28
Bradley Molony CDP 323 0.37 +0.37
Pat Sheil IND 265 0.30 +0.06
James Adams FF 255 0.29 -0.04
Jonatan Kelu LDP 129 0.15 +0.15
John Jamieson CEC 78 0.09 -0.01

2007 two-candidate-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Malcolm Turnbull LIB 47,538 53.85 +1.34
George Newhouse ALP 40,734 46.15 -1.34

Booth breakdown
Wentworth covers four local government areas: the entirety of Woollahra and Waverley and parts of the City of Sydney and Randwick. I have divided booths between these four LGAs. The Liberals won a large majority in Woollahra, with about 65% of the two-party preferred vote. The ALP won 50.6% in Waverley, and larger margins in Sydney and Randwick. In terms of primary vote, the Greens performed most strongly in the City of Sydney part of the seat, as well as areas around Bondi.

Polling booths in Wentworth. Woollahra in red, Waverley in blue, Randwick in green, City of Sydney in yellow.
Voter group GRN % LIB 2CP % Total votes % of votes
Woollahra 11.78 65.43 26,654 30.20
Waverley 17.20 49.39 20,075 22.74
City of Sydney 19.76 39.05 12,776 14.47
Randwick 15.55 43.85 6,340 7.18
Other votes 13.83 55.36 22,425 25.41
Polling booths in Wentworth, showing the two-party preferred results of the 2007 election.
Polling booths in Wentworth, showing Greens primary votes at the 2007 election.

16 COMMENTS

  1. “If Turnbull runs for re-election as a Liberal, he will have a strong chance of winning, particularly as he has been very effective at differentiating himself from the typical Liberal in his last month as Liberal leader”

    I’m not so sure. I’d submit it would have more to do with his high profile and deep pockets, combined with the fact that a significant portion of Wentworth would vote for a headless corpse if it was running for the Liberals. While there is a strong “doctor’s wives” tinge in some parts of the seat, there are also plenty of blue rinse types as well. We saw in 2004 that not everyone was happy with what Turnbull stood for.

  3. Don’t forget the circumstances of 2004 when considering the swing Turnbull gained in 2007. King’s preferences flowed 40% to the ALP, but it’s likely there were a lot of Liberal votes there where people may perhaps have preferenced Labor because of animosity towards Turnbull. By 2007, they were probably happy to just vote Liberal again.

  6. I love the way that Turnbull tries to make his background more ‘humble.’

    “Malcolm grew up in Vaucluse and Double Bay in the 1950s and 1960s. His father, Bruce, was a single parent for much of Malcolm’s childhood. They lived in a series of flats, mostly rented.

    Malcolm was educated at Vaucluse Public School and Sydney Grammar School. Malcolm’s high school education at Sydney Grammar was assisted by a scholarship.”

    https://www.nsw.liberal.org.au/candidates/federal_candidates/wentworth.html

  7. That’s right Malcolm Turnbull is a blue blood and a liberal in the real terms.
    He simply has no place in the Menzie’s liberal party of today.
    His drive for the now discredited (chicken Little) story of man made global warming was exposed and with that, finished Malcolm in the coalition.
    He may win this seat but across the country he’s a dead duck.

  8. Funny, while climate change may be discredited on talkback radio and the Murdoch press, it’s still overwhelmingly believed in by climate scientists and all national science institutions (CSIRO, UNESCO, EU Enviro Agency, US Enviro Agency). Yet I’m not sure who I should trust. Any suggestions people?

  10. Looks like Labor has written off Wentworth. All the sites and news say they’re after Hughes, Gilmore, McArthur but nary a mention of Wentworth. If you’ll excuse the metaphor, it has crossed my mind that Turnbull is worth more to Labor alive then he is dead.

  11. The Wenty ballot draw:

    1) Matthew Robertson, The Greens
    2) Pat Sheil, Independent
    3) Malcolm Duncan, Independent
    4) Robert Neal, Carer’s Alliance
    5) John August, Secular Party of Australia
    6) Malcolm Turnbull, Liberal Party
    7) Steven Lewis, Australian Labor Party

  12. I agree with the first comment here by MDMConnell. Turnbull has, by far, the highest profile – not to mention the most dentally-perfect smile. My Woolloomooloo mailbox has been bombarded by personally-addressed mail for weeks. In my suburb, I am certain that he is the only candidate people have heard of and I actually heard someone I know describe seeing him out campaigning, commenting: “He seemed to be surrounded by light” And this person is having a very hard time making ends meet, as are many in this area and Turnbull has no interest in the needs of these people. There has been an overriding silence from other candidates (apart from Pat Sheil, of course!) I doubt that people have much idea about what Steven Lewis (ALP) stands for, for example, and it might surprise many to know that he supports same-sex marriage.

  13. My prediction: 2-3% swing to Turnbull. Is there an outside possibility that with a much weaker Labor campaign, they could actually be beaten into second place by the Greens?

  14. In all seriousness, Hamish, you should check out two books by American metereologist, Roy Spencer. They are called ‘Climate Confusion’ and ‘The Great Global Warming Blunder’. His specialty is interpreting satellite data on how the climate system actually responds to known, real changes like El Nino, La Nina, and something called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation’. In them, he presents a well thought-out argument that MAN-MADE global warming/climate change IS crap. In other words, our increase of CO2 (a natural substance that plants need to live, not a poison) is so negligible as to have no meaningful net effect on the climate system, which will easily ameliorate any warming tendency there may be. Therefore, insane and costly attempts to reduce our ‘carbon footprint’ will just f%&@ the economy and cause hardship-especially to the most vulnerable and poor people in society. He seems like a reasonable guy, but he does like to take the (mild) piss out of Al Gore and well-meaning muppets like the Greens. Interesingly, he likens organisations such as the Greens to religious zealots whose God is Mother Earth, who, in true Biblical fashion, is going to wreak terrible vengeance on us for despoiling her. Don’t let that detract from the excellent science he draws upon to form his conclusions.

  15. Nick, not in 2010, but next time I think it can be done. I think this the strongest performace by the Greens in an LPA seat at a normal election. I guess the sharp contrast of blue ribbon Liberal and True believer Green territory with very little middle ground makes it fertile territory for them to run 2nd in the future when the Liberal vote is high nationally. Fairfax not a long way behind.

  16. This bloke is the ONLY one in parliament with any sort of presence. And it is a great shame for us all that he will never be PM.

Comments are closed.