Monaro – NSW 2011

ALP 6.3%

Incumbent MP
Steve Whan, since 2003.

Geography
Southeastern NSW. Monaro covers inland parts of southeastern NSW to the south and east of the ACT. The seat includes Queanbeyan, Cooma and the Snowy Mountains. It covers all of Queanbeyan, Bombala, Cooma-Monaro and Snowy River local government areas, most of Palerang and small parts of Bega Valley and Yass Valley council areas.

History
The seat of Monaro was first creating in 1858, and apart from three terms in the 1920s, Monaro has existed as an electoral district ever since.

The seat was abolished in 1920 when proportional representation was introduced, and Monaro was included in the three-member Goulburn district.

When Monaro was introduced in 1927 it was won by the Country Party’s William Hedges. Hedges held the seat until 1941, when he lost to the ALP’s John Seiffert by 181 votes.

Prior to the 1950 election, Seiffert was disendorsed by the ALP after he voted against the party’s candidate for a Legislative Council vacancy. He was re-elected in Monaro without an official Labor opponent, and was eventually readmitted to the party. He continued to serve in Monaro until his retirement in 1965.

In 1965, Seiffert retired, and his son ran as the Labor candidate, losing to the Liberal candidate Steve Mauger in a three-cornered contest, with Country Party preferences electing the Liberal by only 268 votes. Mauger held the seat until his retirement in 1976, serving as a junior minister for the final year of his term.

In 1976, another three-cornered contest saw Labor candidate John Akister win despite the combined Country Party and Liberal Party vote adding up to a majority. Akister held the seat until 1988, serving as a minister from 1984 to 1988. In 1988, he lost his seat in the anti-Labor landslide to the National Party’s Peter Cochran.

Cochran held the seat until 1999, when he retired. He was succeeded by fellow National Peter Webb. Webb held the seat for one term, and lost to the ALP’s Steve Whan in 2003. Whan has served as a minister in the state Labor government since 2009.

Candidates

Political situation
Monaro is a very marginal seat and is the top target for the Nationals. It will be hard for the ALP to hold on.

2007 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Steve Whan ALP 19,769 47.9 +1.6
David Madew NAT 16,244 39.3 -2.3
Catherine Moore GRN 4,123 10.0 +2.1
Frank Fragiacomo IND 1,155 2.8 +2.8

2007 two-candidate-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Steve Whan ALP 21,978 56.3 +1.9
David Madew NAT 17,060 43.7 -1.9

Booth breakdown
Booths in Monaro have been divided into five areas based on local government areas. Polling booths have been divided between the Queanbeyan, Palerang, Cooma-Monaro, Snowy River and Bombala local government areas. The sole booth in Bega Valley has been grouped with Bombala, and the sole booth in Yass Valley has been grouped with Palerang. A majority of ordinary votes were cast in Queanbeyan.

The ALP won a majority of over 60% in Queanbeyan. They won just over 50% in Palerang and Cooma-Monaro. The Nationals narrowly won in Bombala and won a large majority in Snowy River. The Greens polled almost 19% in Palerang, and less than 10% in all other parts of the seat.

 

Polling booths in Monaro at the 2007 state election. Queanbeyan in yellow, Palerang in green, Cooma-Monaro in red, Snowy River in orange, Bombala in blue.

 

Voter group GRN % ALP 2CP % Total votes % of votes
Queanbeyan 8.8 61.6 18,882 45.7
Palerang 18.9 51.0 5,196 12.6
Cooma-Monaro 7.9 52.8 4,659 11.3
Snowy River 8.1 39.8 2,652 6.4
Bombala 5.4 49.0 1,620 3.9
Other votes 9.7 56.0 8,282 20.1
Two-party-preferred votes in Monaro at the 2007 state election.
Greens primary votes in Monaro at the 2007 state election.
Two-party-preferred votes in Queanbeyan at the 2007 state election.
Greens primary votes in Queanbeyan at the 2007 state election.

40 COMMENTS

  1. Isolated from Labor’s Sydney woes and with Queanbeyan a Canberra suburb you might give Labor a chance of holding on in a normal bad year but the statewide swing will probably be too great.

  3. Note: The Nationals candidate though a Queanbeyan City councillor was elected in 2008 on the top of an Independent ticket that polled 10% of the vote. The Nationals have obviously tried to straddle the fence on this one – running somone who has a local profile in Queanbeyan but using the National label to pull in traditional rural voters in the hinterland.

  5. I would be very surprised if Whan doesn’t hang on here. This electorate is different to the rest of the State and Queanbeyan will stick with Labor. Jerra may swing a bit, but not enough for the Coalition to get over the line. Whan may even be a contender for the ALP leadership if he pulls it off.

  6. I expect the Nationals to win here, although with a below average swing compared to the rest of the state.

    RB has a valid point though, this could be like Ripon in last year’s Victorian election, where Labor held with only a tiny swing against them.

  8. Peter Corchran had a personal vote … I understand he even polled well in Queanbeyan
    Monaro & Eden – Monaro tend to be very loyal to their members. I wouldn’t be surprised If Steve
    Whan managed to retain this seat

  10. Peter Cochran not only managed to hold Monaro in 1991 and 1995, but he also managed to buck the trend and increase his swing. Peter was thought of more as an Independent than a real Nat (kinda like Tony Windsor or Rob Oakeshott).

    When he retired, this is a seat Labor almost pinched. Labor had the wrong candidate, and the Nationals got it more because of Cochran than anything else.

    I think Labor will hold it. I think if the Liberals ran instead it would have been a gonner. The key is Queanbeyan and I cant see the Nationals winning there.

  12. This one is going to go right down to the wire with every single vote counting. Politically cocooned to a certain degree from Labor’s ‘state wide sell by date’ you would have to favor Whan; but with the Nationals preselecting such a formidable and highly visible local candidate in John Barilaro, sportsbet could very well be on the money in predicting a win for Barilaro and the Nationals.

  13. Phone polling is slightly and consistently favouring the Nationals in the last two weeks. Very close though. I’ve predicted the ALP, however, I’ll be looking at this closely over the next 3 weeks.

  14. People making predictions in seats this marginal need to go into a room and write out Optional Preferential a thousand times – you’re just guessing.

    I’m here on the ground (live Nimmitabel, work Queanbeyan so straddle the electorate three times a week) and even I can’t call it. I got Eden Monaro right last year (small swing to Kelly), but this is simply too close. Barrilaro (the Nat) is not really exciting the truckies and cockies I work for that are the backbone of the Monaro Nats. Nor are the local Libs out in force like they were in 2007.

    Also, Gillard is not a negative factor in Queanbeyan in the way she is in western Sydney and the Central Coast. The Green will poll well, he comes across as not a complete fool and has some good form on Palerang council. Expect his vote to decline as you go further south. if people keep going and give a preference to Whan he will win, if they don’t, he won’t. Whover wins will have less than 50% even after preferences as a lot will exhaust. This will be a statewide trend, widespread exhaustion, it captures the mood of the electorate completely.

    Observation. The 5,00 odd votes in Cooma are the key. Last time Whan won Cooma, the first time since Edward Chalker set up his tent there in the 1820’s. Whan is all over Cooma like a teenage boy over his girlfriend at the drive in. In contrast Barrilaro’s leaflet loks like a poarty invite, It is all of 90 words (I counted them) and simply says we will do better (at what? how? when?).

    Everyone should live in a marginal seat once in their lives, I reckon I could get a candidate to grade my driveway if I asked nicely.

    Oh, and Mick Quinliven, that funny old coot Cochran (a genuine character with terrible politics) must have done well if he polled well in Eden, it hasn’t been in Monaro since before WW1.

  16. Jeranglism – despite your dreadful condesending trone, I agree with what you have said. Polling is very close in this seat. I have tipped this as an ALP retain, but with no confidence.

  20. Jeranglism – Gee, I’d hate to disappoint you, so I’ll just stop here. Enjoy the 26th. I know I will.

  21. Am now going wobbly on my earlier declaration that Whan could hold. I’m getting a sense that the Nats are doing better than my brave prediction at the end of Jan. Barilaro has a big following, particularly in Q’yan. Moving this one into the toss up column.

  22. This one always has been in the toss up column – the interesting thing is that on 6.3% margin to the ALP we are assigning it to the toss up column when the polls are suggesting swings of 14% state wide.

  23. I am still tipping a hold for the ALP here. The biggest swings are clearly in the seats 15-40km from the city of Sydney and particularly in the south-west, south and west of Sydney (in that order).

  24. For those who do not know, Whan got the top spot on the ballot paper. This does not have much of an effect normally, but given how close polling has been, it could aid him just that little bit over the line.

  25. The interesting thing you have about this seat (and the federal equivalent, Eden-Monaro) is that I think the seat is starting to trend towards the ALP, on the back of the influence of Quenbeyan. As rightly stated before, it is a Labor-heavy town. It carrys about 40% of the total vote. This town will continue to grow fairly solidly as more people continue to move to Canberra and it’s immediate surroundings, which will probably make it more favourable to the ALP. I wouldn’t be surprised if this seat does trend away from the Coalition over the next few elections.

  27. Certainly demographics will favour the ALP as Queanbeyan and the 5 acre developments to the east are growing faster than the rural areas.

  30. Doug – 200. Forgetting preferencing, Nats ahead with 47%, ALP 37% and Grn 10% from weekend. Still largely working on 53/47 to 52/48 on 2PP, but depends on whether Grn votes exhaust. Who knows?

  32. Doug – I’d say about 5. However there have been 5 of these and there is no too much difference and if anything now trending slightly more National.

    I still have this as an ALP hold however. I could change it to the Nats if this were to continue.

  34. I reckon the Nats will win this, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see the swing down in the single digits. The ALP really needs a primary vote in the forties to win this seat, and hope the anti-labor vote gets spread around instead of going to the nationals. If the Nats get over 45% of the primary vote they should have it in the bag.

  35. sorry my bad grammar…….. my intention in my post was to state that both the federal & state seats have a tradition of being very loyal to their mps…… this goes back to before I was born

  36. Not sure what the statisticans would say about adding together polls over time and then deriving a margin of error from that. My other worry about the poll would be the difficulties arising from the geography of the electorate – it isn’t homogenous – overepresentation of either section of the electorate could give you a skewed figure and if Queanbeyan has been overrepresented in those polls Whan is gone for all money.

  37. The Nationals shouldn’t have lost this seat to Labor in 2003, especially in light of bushfires that’d just ravaged part of the region, but Labor won it. I couldn’t believe it. Then in 2007, not only did Whan again win it for Labor but he actually increased his majority as the Labor vote around NSW went south.
    This previous history makes me tip this only as a likely Coalition gain. The likely uniform swing should be too much for Whan this time. The Nationals have at least chosen a candidate that voters will have heard of, at least in the Queanbeyan region.

  38. In 8 polls we haven’t got two slightly in favour of the ALP here and 6 to the co-alition. Suggest this is still very close and I’m still prepared to call it for Labor. Will wait for some further info next week on this seat. But the 22 seats I predicted is starting to look a bit shaky I think.

  39. “Oh, and Mick Quinliven, that funny old coot Cochran (a genuine character with terrible politics) must have done well if he polled well in Eden, it hasn’t been in Monaro since before WW1.”

    Jeranglism, likes to appear smug, but Eden was in the Monaro electorate even in the 2003 State Election!

Comments are closed.