Blue Mountains – NSW 2015

LIB 5.4%

Incumbent MP
Roza Sage, since 2011.

Geography
Western fringe of Sydney. The seat of Blue Mountains almost exactly matches the boundaries of the Blue Mountains local government area, with the exception of a small part of the lower mountains included in the neighbouring district of Penrith.

Map of Blue Mountains' 2011 and 2015 boundaries. 2011 boundaries marked as red lines, 2015 boundaries marked as white area. Click to enlarge.
Map of Blue Mountains’ 2011 and 2015 boundaries. 2011 boundaries marked as red lines, 2015 boundaries marked as white area. Click to enlarge.

Redistribution
Blue Mountains gained the remainder of Blaxland from Penrith. This change increased the Liberal margin from 4.7% to 5.4%.

History
The seat of Blue Mountains was first created in 1968. After being held by an independent for eight years, the seat has been held by the party of government continuously since 1976.

The seat was first won in 1968 by conservative independent Harold Coates. A Lithgow councillor for almost forty years, Coates had previously run as a Liberal candidate unsuccessfully, and had first run as an independent for the seat of Hartley in 1962, losing to the sitting Labor MP by 234 votes. Hartley covered Lithgow and the upper Blue Mountains. Coates won Hartley in 1965, and moved to Blue Mountains in 1965 when a redistribution saw the former seat of Hartley shift deeper into the mountains and change name.

Coates was re-elected in 1971 and 1973, before losing to the ALP’s Mick Clough in 1976 by a bare 236 votes. In Coates’ career, the Liberal Party never ran against him, and he was considered a supporter of the Liberal-Country coalition.

The 1980 redistribution shifted the boundaries of Blue Mountains, moving the town of Lithgow into the neighbouring seat of Bathurst. At the 1981 election, Clough defeated the sitting Country Party Member for Bathurst by 31 votes. Clough held Bathurst until 1988, and again from 1991 until his retirement in 1999.

Clough was succeeded in Blue Mountains in 1981 by Bob Debus. Debus joined the ministry in 1986, serving in that role until the 1988 election, when he lost his seat to the Liberal Party’s Barry Morris.

Morris was re-elected in 1991, but his second term in Parliament took a bizarre turn. Morris had a bad relationship with Blue Mountains City Council. In 1992, a bomb ripped through the council building, not killing anyone but doing significant damage to the building. A year later a phone call to the local newspaper threatened the life of a councillor who had regularly clashed with Morris. The tape of the phone call was passed on to the Labor opposition, which led to a campaign in the Parliament against Morris.

In 1994, Morris was charged with making threatening phone calls on a number of occasions. He resigned from Parliament and from the Liberal Party in late 1994.

In 1995, Bob Debus won back Blue Mountains. Morris ran as an independent, winning 16%. Debus served as a minister in the state Labor government until his retirement in 2007. Debus  was elected as federal member for Macquarie in 2007, serving as Minister for Home Affairs from 2007 to 2009. He retired from federal politics after one term in 2010.

Blue Mountains was won by Phil Koperberg, former commissioner of the Rural Fire Service and ALP candidate. Koperberg joined the Iemma government’s ministry in 2007. He was stood down in late 2007 due to allegations of domestic violence against his former wife. The charges were dismissed, but he stepped down from the ministry in early 2008.

Phil Koperberg retired at the 2011 election, and Liberal candidate Roza Sage won Blue Mountains.

Candidates

Assessment
Blue Mountains is a very marginal seat and could definitely fall to Labor if there is a swing. The Liberal Party is much stronger in the lower mountains, while Labor and the Greens dominate in the middle and upper mountains.

2011 election result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Roza Sage Liberal 17,681 39.1 +10.6 39.6
Trish Doyle Labor 10,253 22.7 -18.1 22.4
Janet Mays Independent 7,804 17.3 +17.3 16.6
Kerrin O’Grady Greens 7,647 16.9 +0.7 17.0
Merv Cox Christian Democrats 1,841 4.1 +4.1 4.2
Others 0.2

2011 two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Roza Sage Liberal 20,736 54.7 +15.8 55.4
Trish Doyle Labor 17,144 45.3 -15.8 44.6
Polling places in Blue Mountains at the 2011 NSW state election. Katoomba in green, Lower Mountains in red, Mid Mountains in yellow, Springwood in blue, Upper Mountains in orange. Click to enlarge.
Polling places in Blue Mountains at the 2011 NSW state election. Katoomba in green, Lower Mountains in red, Mid Mountains in yellow, Springwood in blue, Upper Mountains in orange. Click to enlarge.

Booth breakdown
Booths in Blue Mountains were split into five areas. The two largest towns of Springwood (including Winmalee) and Katoomba (including Leura) were grouped together. Booths between those two towns were grouped as “Mid Mountains” with the remainder split into “Lower Mountains” and “Upper Mountains”.

The Liberal Party won solid majorities of the two-party-preferred vote in Springwood (61.3%) and the lower mountains (63%).

Labor won areas further west, but by smaller margins, winning 51.9% in the upper mountains, 52.4% in the mid mountains and 57.3% in Katoomba.

Independent candidate Janet Mays came third, with a vote ranging from 9.6% in the lower mountains to 23.7% in Katoomba. The Greens vote ranged from 13.9% in Springwood to 21.5% in Katoomba.

Voter group LIB 2PP % IND % GRN % Total votes % of votes
Springwood 61.3 15.0 13.9 11,023 23.4
Lower Mountains 63.0 9.6 15.2 7,151 15.2
Mid Mountains 47.6 18.1 18.8 7,142 15.2
Katoomba 42.7 23.7 21.5 5,605 11.9
Upper Mountains 48.1 20.8 19.2 3,007 6.4
Other votes 57.2 16.9 17.3 13,131 27.9
Two-party-preferred votes in Blue Mountains at the 2011 NSW state election.
Two-party-preferred votes in Blue Mountains at the 2011 NSW state election.
Greens primary votes in Blue Mountains at the 2011 NSW state election.
Greens primary votes in Blue Mountains at the 2011 NSW state election.

17 COMMENTS

  2. The seat with the highest amount of teachers in the state.

    Easy Labor gain.

    Roza Sage managed to win with only 39.1% of the primary vote last time so it won’t take much of a swing against her to be finished.

  3. I concur with the above comments. Given its traditional bellwether status, it’s surprising the Libs didn’t run up a bigger margin here. Particularly with Koperburg retiring amidst scandal. Federal figures also suggest this is Labor turf, despite falling within the safe Liberal seat of Macquarie.

    Another straightforward Labor gain.

  4. I’m not so sold. There’s a big gap between the Labor and Lib primary vote there – Trish Doyle must have got some good preference flows to get so close on the 2PP margin.

    I’ll call it a likely Labor gain.

  6. Yes I was going to point out that Janet Mays got a large vote as a left-leaning independent. Mays + Labor + Greens was almost 57% of the vote – Liberals only won thanks to exhaustion and leakage. With a slightly less divided left vote without Mays running, and a higher Labor vote, Labor should win this with ease.

  7. High-polling progressive independents have run here in the last few elections. Their absence will definitely help the Labor and Greens primary votes. Although TBH I’m not sure who Mark Harrison is so I don’t know if he picks up any of that vote.

    The upper house votes here in 2011 were LNP 36.84, ALP 20.68, Greens 23.42. That was a 5% increase in the Greens upper house vote from 2007, 2nd biggest increase in the state after Marrickville and before Ballina.

  9. It’s a shame here because Rosa Sage has been a very good local MP. But you are correct that the combined Left-Vote is quite big. Any work on where Mark Harrison leans?

  11. Blue Mountains has a history of usually going with the government of the day so I think Ms. Sage is a fighting chance on holding on!

  12. anyone with any information on mark harrison? more policy, more ideas etc? creating employment up here? ideas about infrastructure, etc etc.?

  14. Roza Sage smells like flat beer in the noon day sun. Sage abandoned local issues such as Disability Access to Railway Stations and the citizens have repaid her in kind.

  15. I don’t think anyone commenting here has the faintest idea what it is to be the local sitting member. All the stupid people who come into your office wanting things just for them, example the person who was caught smoking on Springwood Station and wanted Roza to quash the fine he had to pay. The silly meetings of self centered interest groups (who live in their own little world) that the sitting member must attend. A ritual disemboweling would have more all round enjoyment.

    Disability access when most people aren’t disabled and those who have disabled parking permits aren’t disabled they’re just aged and nearly all can walk, or their relatives who drive them park in disabled parking spots when they’re not in the car. My late dad to the end of his life refused the doctors insistence on getting a disabled permit. He walked with two walking sticks and whilst he could walk he stated loud and clear I’M NOT DISABLED.

    Trish Doyle will find out it’s not all it cracked up to be. Yes many people are good people in the mountains but many more are just self centered assholes with connections to the media allowing them to make as much noise as possible whenever they don’t get their own way, at someone elses cost of course.

  17. Roy’s comments probably indicate fairly accurately what Roza thought of anyone who questioned her government’s policies. She seemed to want to have a conversation with locals only when they agreed with her – otherwise, she couldn’t get away fast enough. If she and Roy thought that everyone who either asked for her assistance or who challenged her government’s decisions was “stupid” and “self-centred”, then she certainly isn’t the kind of politician the Mountains needs. We need someone who respects us, fights for us, and doesn’t just pose for pretty publicity pictures.

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