Upper Hunter – NSW 2011

NAT 14.7%

Incumbent MP
George Souris, since 1988.

Geography
Northern NSW. Upper Hunter covers rural areas to the northwest of Newcastle. It covers all of Dungog, Muswellbrook, Gloucester and Upper Hunter local government areas, most of Liverpool Plains and Singleton areas, and parts of Cessnock, Great Lakes and Mid-Western areas. The seat’s major centres are Singleton, Muswellbrook, Scone and Dungog.

History
Upper Hunter has existed since 1859, with the exception of a decade around the turn of the century and three terms in the 1920s. It elected a single MP from 1859 to 1880, two MPs from 1880 to 1894, and single-member since 1904. The seat has been held by the Country/National Party continuously since the early 1930s. The last time it was held by the ALP was for six months in 1910.

Sitting Nationalist MP William Cameron died in 1931. Under the coalition agreement between the Nationalist Party and the Country Party, Upper Hunter was allocated as a Nationalist seat. Local Country Party branches supported Malcolm Brown as an independent, without the official support of the party. While the Nationalist candidate won the most primary votes, but Brown won the seat on preferences. After his election he joined the Country Party officially. Brown held the seat until his death in 1939.

The 1939 by-election was won in D’Arcy Rose, also of the Country Party. He held the seat until his retirement in 1959.

Upper Hunter was won in 1959 by Leon Punch. In 1962, he shifted to the seat of Gloucester. A contested preselection saw himself and another Country Party candidate both stand for Gloucester, but Punch won easily. Punch was elected Deputy Leader of the NSW Country Party and became a minister in 1973. In 1975 he was elected leader of the National Country Party, a role he held until his retirement in 1985. He also served as Deputy Premier from 1975 to 1976.

Upper Hunter was won in 1962 by Frank O’Keefe, who had held Liverpool Plains since 1961. His old seat was abolished in the redistribution. O’Keefe held Upper Hunter until 1969, when he resigned and won the federal seat of Paterson. He held Paterson until its abolition in 1984.

Col Fisher won the 1970 by-election. He served as a minister from 1975 to 1976, and retired in 1988.

George Souris has held Upper Hunter for the National Party since 1988. He served as a minister from 1992 to 1995. He was elected deputy leader of the NSW National Party in 1993, and served as National Party leader from 1999 to 2003.

Candidates

Political situation
Upper Hunter is a safe National Party seat.

2007 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
George Souris NAT 26,342 60.2 +16.9
Jennifer Lecky ALP 13,685 31.3 -4.4
Bev Smiles GRN 3,731 8.5 +2.9

2007 two-candidate-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
George Souris NAT 27,189 64.7 +7.4
Jennifer Lecky ALP 14,807 35.3 -7.4

Booth breakdown
Booths in Upper Hunter have been divided into six areas based on local government areas. Booths in Gloucester and Great Lakes have been grouped together as “Gloucester-Stroud”, and booths in Mid-Western Regional Council have been combined with those in Muswellbrook. All other booths have been grouped by their local government area.

The majority for the National Party varied from 74% in Liverpool Plains to 58.8% in Singleton.

Polling booths in Upper Hunter at the 2007 state election. Dungog in orange, Gloucester-Stroud in blue, Liverpool Plains in yellow, Muswellbrook in red, Singleton in purple, Upper Hunter in green.
Voter group GRN % NAT 2CP % Total votes % of votes
Singleton 7.2 58.8 9,122 20.8
Upper Hunter 6.3 70.6 6,895 15.8
Muswellbrook 7.3 60.3 6,610 15.1
Dungog 13.7 63.0 4,565 10.4
Gloucester-Stroud 9.7 72.0 2,998 6.9
Liverpool Plains 7.3 74.6 2,988 6.8
Other votes 9.7 64.9 10,580 24.2
Two-party-preferred votes in Upper Hunter at the 2007 state election.
Two-party-preferred votes in Singleton at the 2007 state election.
Two-party-preferred votes in Muswellbrook at the 2007 state election.

11 COMMENTS

  2. the anti-labor vote is better here then it should be……. I think federal figures show it as very marginal 1%?

  4. Cessnock Councillor Chris Parker is running for the Greens in the Upper Hunter against incumbent National George Souris and Independent Tim Duddy. No-one from Labor has stuck their head up for a losing candidacy yet, though a Cessnock-based candidate is rumoured.

  7. Souris is invisible on the ground and everything is Tim Duddy. The NBN news is featuring him well.

    He probably won’t win, but he is giving it a good shake. If the Greens and ALP run dead, as is happening, Souris will get5 a fright. Duddy is endorsed by all local Mayors and has bridged the town and country divide as a result. Souris is responsible for privatising third party rego insurance and what will happen to the train to Scone under a Liberal government?

    Strange days indeed.

  8. maybe come the future this is another seat the nats could lose… not in 2011 but later.
    a good ALP candidate or strong independent……. a byelection? the federal figures aren’t fully the result of
    this area being i mainly in a safe labor seat

  10. I can’t imagine Duddy would come close here, however, Souris has never faced a serious challenge, so maybe his support is weak.

    There was also a massive differential between the Coalition primary vote in both houses here in 2007. They only got 40% of the vote in the upper house. Most of the difference appears to have gone to the right-wing minor parties, with the Shooters Party getting 9%. Along with the other seats stretching further into north west NSW, this is one of the Shooters Party’s best areas.

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