Murray-Darling – NSW 2011

NAT 10.1%

Incumbent MP
John Williams, since 2007.

Geography
Far Western NSW. The seat covers all of Balranald, Berrigan, Broken Hill, Central Darling, Conargo, Deniliquin, Hay, Jerilderie, Murray, Urana, Wakool and Wentworth local government areas. It also covers part of Carrathool council area and those parts of New South Wales not covered by a local council around Broken Hill and in the northwestern corner of the state. The main towns in the seat are Broken Hill and Deniliquin.

History
The seat of Murray-Darling has only existed since the 1999 election. Prior to that period, a series of seats had covered Broken Hill and surrounding areas, and all of those seats had been held exclusively by the ALP dating back for over a century.

In 1894, the seat of Broken Hill was created as a district only covering the urban area itself, with the surrounding seat of Sturt covering a relatively small area around Broken Hill. Both seats were held by the ALP from 1894, and indeed Sturt had first been won by the ALP in 1891.

In 1913, the seats were rearranged so that the city of Broken Hill was divided between the seats of Willyama and Sturt. In 1920, Willyama, Sturt and Cobar were merged together as the three-member district of Sturt. In 1920, this district elected one Labor MP, one Nationalist MP, and one member of the Industrial Socialist Labor Party. The one socialist MP was murdered in 1921 and replaced by a Labor MP. For the remainder of this period, Sturt elected two Labor MPs and one Nationalist. The sole Nationalist and sole Socialist to represent this seat were the only non-Labor MPs to represent a district covering Broken Hill between 1891 and 2007.

When single-member districts were restored in 1927, Broken Hill was split between the districts of Sturt and Cobar. Those districts also covered much of the far western region. While the boundaries of the two seats varied, they continued to both cover parts of Broken Hill until they were both abolished in 1968.

The northern parts of the current seat of Murray-Darling were part of the seat of Broken Hill from 1968 to 1999. The seat was first own by Lew Johnstone, who had held Cobar since 1965. He held Broken Hill until his retirement in 1981.

Broken Hill was won in 1981 by the ALP’s Bill Beckroge. He held the seat until 1999.

In 1999 Broken Hill was merged with Murray to form Murray-Darling. Murray had been dominated by the Country Party since 1932, when it had been won by Joe Lawson. He lost Country Party preselection 35 years later in 1967, and was re-elected as an independent in 1968. He held the seat as an independent until his death in 1973.

The following by-election was won by Lawson’s daughter Mary Meillon, who had run as a Liberal. She held the seat until her death in 1980.

The 1980 Murray by-election was won by National Country Party candidate Tim Fischer. He had held the safe Country Party seat of Sturt (a different seat with very different borders to the older Labor seat of the same name) since 1971. Sturt was set to be abolished at the 1981 election, and Fischer resigned his seat early to contest Murray.

Fischer resigned from Sturt in 1984 to contest the federal seat of Farrer. He won the seat and held it until his retirement in 2001. He became leader of the federal National Party in 1990, serving in that role until 1999. He was Deputy Prime Minister from 1996 to 1999.

Jim Small won Sturt at the 1984 by-election for the National Party. He held it until 1999.

When Murray and Broken Hill were merged, the new seat of Murray-Darling had a notional majority for the Nationals. Both sitting MPs retired, and the seat was won by the ALP’s Peter Black.

Black was re-elected in 2003, and developed a reputation as a controversial Labor MP. In 2007, a redistribution made the seat again a notional Nationals seat, and Black was defeated by Nationals candidate John Williams.

Candidates

Political situation
While Murray-Darling has a long history of being held by the ALP, the influence of the Labor town of Broken Hill has declined, and the Nationals should hold this seat with ease.

2007 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
John Williams NAT 22,918 56.5 +10.6
Peter Black ALP 15,015 37.0 -6.7
Tom Kennedy IND 1,069 2.6 +2.6
Judy Renner GRN 983 2.4 -0.5
Ron Page IND 983 2.4 -0.5

2007 two-candidate-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
John Williams NAT 23,595 60.1 +8.8
Peter Black ALP 15,664 39.9 -8.8

Booth breakdown
Booths in Murray-Darling have been divided into five areas. Those in the main urban centres of Broken Hill and Deniliquin have each been grouped together. Booths in Balranald, Carrathool, Central Darling, Hay and Wentworth council areas, and the single booth in the nonincorporated areas, have been grouped together as “North”. Booths in Conargo, Murray and Wakool have been grouped as “South-West”. Booths in Berrigan, Jerilderie and Urana have been grouped as “South-East”.

The Nationals won majorities of over 70% in the southeast, the southwest and Deniliquin. They won a 61% majority in the north, but the ALP won a 60% majority in Broken Hill.

Polling booths in Murray-Darling at the 2007 state election. North in orange, Broken Hill in green, South-West in red, South-East in yellow, Deniliquin in blue.
Voter group NAT 2CP % Total votes % of votes
Broken Hill 40.0 9,246 22.8
North 61.1 7,378 18.2
South-East 76.3 5,652 13.9
South-West 71.2 5,468 13.5
Deniliquin 70.4 4,285 10.6
Other votes 58.3 8,527 21.0
Two-party-preferred votes in Murray-Darling at the 2007 state election.
Two-party-preferred votes in Broken Hill at the 2007 state election.
Two-party-preferred votes in the area between Deniliquin and Berrigan at the 2007 state election.

13 COMMENTS

  2. Labor used to get high 80s 2PP in broken Hill but no longer. Peter Black was a personality but carried this too far and paid the poltical price. Labor argued without sucess that the declining numbers in Broken Hill should be made up pushing the seat to the east rather than the south but without sucess. If this had been done there would have been a marginal seat with ahigh indigenous population.

  4. From pollbludger’s 2007 NSW guide

    Black has since established himself as one of the parliament’s most colourful figures, accumulating a list of indiscretions of a type that only a regional MP can get away with. In March 2004, a tired and emotional Black noisily interrupted proceedings in parliament and “lunged” at Labor colleague Victoria Judge, the member for Strathfield.

    Liberal member Barry O’Farrell then accused Black of being “pissed”, and was thrown out of parliament for two days for offensive language. In 2000, then-Nationals leader George Souris said under parliamentary privilege that Black was prone to “rolling about the countryside resting his head on every bar in every pub in NSW, passing out at several of them”.

    One incident that was never fully explained involved Black’s admittance to hospital in September 1999 with a broken arm, wrist and ribs, ruptured kidneys and head injuries, said to have resulted either from a fight or a fall down a staircase. Black is also renowned for a combative political style that has been evident since his maiden speech, in which he characterised Liberals as “cocaine-sniffing North Shore yuppies”, and Nationals members as having “six fingers and only one set of grandparents between the lot of them”.

    Having apparently neglected to outrage the Greens, he later circulated a recipe for poached koala. In November 2000, he helpfully suggested that then-Liberal leader Kerry Chikarovski should “get a facelift”.

    Probably the sort that goes down a treat in Broken Hill.

  6. Broken Hill is declining in population and The Alp vote is Also falling there. If The Alp vote climbed to the 80% figure I suspect they would still fail to win this seat. In WA labor holds a marginal seat incorporating
    Collie courtesy of a personal vote & approx 70% vote in The Collie booths

  8. I wonder how comparable Broken Hill is to Collie. Collie has had the same issue with population decline that sees it get merged with conservative farming regions. (It’s also not as big as the major centres of Bunbury and Busselton near it, so tends to get jerked around a fair bit at redistributions – the seat’s been either Collie, Collie-Wellington or Collie-Preston in the last couple of decades.) It was rock solid Labor for ages, but got less so and eventually the Nats won it in 1989, and kept it through Richard Court’s Lib govt (1993-2001). Labor got it back in 2001, and hung onto it narrowly when they lost govt – it was one of a couple of country marginals that should’ve gone Liberal by redistribution + election-losing swing, but didn’t due to popular local members.

    Also, compare with the federal seat of Kalgoorlie. It was always Labor too, but Graeme Campbell was even worse than Peter Black, so the seat ended up with the Libs, and its successor of Durack is now nearly unwinnable for Labor after the last redistribution. Going by his example, I’d say Peter Black might’ve made this seat permanently safe for the Nats. Great sitting member effect, eh?

  9. BoP, really?

    I’d have thought the opposite myself, that Black held what was rapidly becoming a safe Nationals seat through his personal vote and maverick ways alone. Perhaps he got a bit carried away in the end there, but I remember Antony Green saying there’d been 2 or 3 redistributions that had made the seat notionally National, and Black kept winning it back for Labor due to his personal popularity

  10. I don’t think so. One redistribution made it marginally National in 1999, the previous local ALP and Nat MP’s retired, and Black won for Labor at their recent high-water mark. Then, the next redistribution in 2007 made it even more Nat-friendly, and Black got blown away. If he was so popular, he’d’ve got a couple of % swing on the new boundaries and hung on, not an 8.8% swing against him.

    Particularly compare with the WA seat of Albany in 2008 (regional centre on the south coast), where a redistribution put the seat a couple of % over on the Lib side, and Peter Watson (who’d won it off the Liberals for the first time in decades when Geoff Gallop became premier) got the biggest swing to Labor in the whole state while Labor lost govt. That’s how to do it. 😉

  11. Also, now that I think of it, that 8.8% swing would be interesting to see booth-by-booth. People previously in a safe National seat (Murrumbidgee) wouldn’t’ve done the half of that, as they don’t vote Labor anyway and never have (it wouldn’t’ve been safe Nat otherwise). Therefore Black would’ve got quite a nasty swing in Broken Hill, where he had more votes to lose. Same logic as why Ku-ring-gai will see one of the smallest swings to the Libs of this election.

  12. From memory Labor had particular problems in Broken Hill in 2007 something about the local health service I think. My view is that Black did have a personal vote but that he threw it away by his recent conduct there’s a difference between being a character and making a fool of yourself.
    Labor always argued that the boundaries of the broken Hill-based seat should have been pushed to the west rather than the south. if that had been done there would have been marginal seat with a large indigenous vote which would have been interesting.

  13. The state government sacked Broken Hill council a few weeks before the 2007 election. That might’ve been a factor.

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