East Hills – NSW 2015

LIB 0.2%

Incumbent MP
Glenn Brookes, since 2011.

Geography
Southwestern Sydney. East Hills covers southern parts of the City of Bankstown, areas on the north and east shore of the Georges River. The seat covers the suburbs of Panania, Revesby, Padstow, Milperra and Condell Park.

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

Redistribution
East Hills’ boundaries mostly remained the same, with some small changes to the northern boundary with Bankstown, gaining parts of Georges Hall and losing a small area in southern Bankstown. These changes cut the Liberal margin from 0.6% to 0.2%.

History
The electoral district of East Hills was first created at the 1953 election. The seat was held by Labor continuously from 1953 to 2011, with only four people holding the seat during this period.

The seat was first won in 1953 by Arthur Williams. He had been a member of the Legislative Assembly since 1940, first holding the marginal seat of Ryde until 1941, then holding the seat of Georges River from 1941 to 1953. He held East Hills until his retirement in 1956.

Joe Kelly won East Hills for the ALP in 1956. He held the seat until 1973. He was succeeded by Pat Rogan, who held the seat until 1999.

Alan Ashton won East Hills in 1999, and was re-elected in 2003 and 2007.

In 2011, Ashton was narrowly defeated by Liberal candidate Glenn Brookes.

Candidates

Assessment
East Hills is the most marginal Liberal seat in New South Wales. Before 2011, the seat was a reasonably safe Labor seat, and it seems likely that Labor will regain East Hills in 2015.

2011 election result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Glenn Brookes Liberal 17,929 41.8 +14.3 41.5
Alan Ashton Labor 17,528 40.8 -12.8 40.8
Susan Roberts Greens 2,105 4.9 -1.2 4.9
Tony Batch Independent 1,879 4.4 +4.4 4.1
Mark Falanga Christian Democrats 1,771 4.1 -2.5 4.2
Stan Hurley Family First 991 2.3 +2.3 2.2
Boutros Zalloua Democratic Labour 715 1.7 +1.7 1.5
Others 0.8

2011 two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Glenn Brookes Liberal 19,704 50.6 +14.7 50.2
Alan Ashton Labor 19,210 49.4 -14.7 49.8
Polling places in East Hills at the 2011 NSW state election. North in green, South-East in orange, South-West in blue. Click to enlarge.
Polling places in East Hills at the 2011 NSW state election. North in green, South-East in orange, South-West in blue. Click to enlarge.

Booth breakdown
Booths in East Hills have been split into three parts: north, south-east and south-west.

The ALP won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in two out of three areas: South-East (50.7%) and North (55.6%). The Liberal Party won 53.7% of the two-party vote in the south-west, and also won 53% of the special vote.

Voter group LIB 2PP % ALP 2PP % Total votes % of votes
South-East 49.3 50.7 16,910 38.0
South-West 53.7 46.3 11,091 24.9
North 44.4 55.6 6,905 15.5
Other votes 53.1 46.9 9,606 21.6
Two-party-preferred votes in East Hills at the 2011 NSW state election.
Two-party-preferred votes in East Hills at the 2011 NSW state election.

42 COMMENTS

  2. Brookes hasn’t been seen or heard since he was elected (until now). He obviously runs a printing company… His posters are everywhere.
    Not impressed with Murphy either. Parachuted in by ALP HQ.
    Wish there was a decent independent or minor party candidate.

  3. Glenn Brookes has been the biggest disappointment of the new batch of MP’s. Having said that, I agree with Alex Day with Murphy being parachuted in.

  5. Astrid O’Neill ran for the State Seat of Smithfield in 2011, and also may have run for Prospect or McMahon at some point.

    Brookes has been disappointing as an MP, although is running an aggressive campaign.

    I am concerned that Cameron Murphy is too left-wing for East Hills. I expect him to win, but would rather Alan Ashton had been the candidate on this occasion. I have heard he does not live in the electorate.

  6. Cameron Murphy’s locality is conspicuously absent from the Electoral Commission’s candidate list. Murphy sought Labor preselection for Lord Mayor of Sydney, so presumably he lives in the city.

    Glenn Brookes showed his constituents far more contempt by absenting himself from the candidates’ forum. (A Labor v Greens forum is a rather ridiculous spectacle out this way.)

    Hopefully when Murphy wins – which he surely will – he moves into the electorate. I say that as someone who will also soon be moving into this district!

  7. Astrid O’Neill’s been around for yonks – this is her eighth election. In addition to Smithfield, she ran federally for Greenway in 2004, Parramatta in 2007, and McMahon in 2010 and 2013, and way back in the 1970s she was an Australia Party candidate for Reid in 1974 and Parramatta in 1975.

  8. Murphy did win local ALP members ballot. His rival was Nicole Campbell who was pushed aside for McKew in Bennelong & endured Ryde by-election nightmare. So both candidates not born & bred locals. Curious that two children of Whitlam ministers running with Wheeldon in North Shore & there was one in Qld as well

  9. Joe Riordan’s son, Michael, was the Lab candidate in Gaven. He had also been the candidate in 2012; and also stood previously in Currumbin.

    Murphy too far left for East Hills ?? ROFLAO; the Left has held control of branches in Banks/East Hills since the mid 80’s. Ashton was no prize but then again, Melham was never going to have anyone of talent eyeing off his federal seat.

    Whilst the George’s River frontage is certainly firming strongly for the Libs; it’s relative weighting in the seat is less than that in Oatley and the overall demographic is still more blue-collar than Oatley which is why I feel this is a considerably tougher hold for the Libs than Oatley.

  10. Most suburban voters couldn’t care less where the candidate was born. We do need to remind ourselves over and over again that swinging voters are by definition those who know and care the least about politics. For most of them candidates are just names on a ballot paper. All the micro stuff that seems terribly important to us just washes past them.

  11. I know that East Hills has been controlled by the left of the ALP for a very long time, but compared to Ashton and Daryl Melham, my concern is that Cameron Murphy is further to the left of them. East Hills traditionally is a working class Labor area, and is an area that had a strong One Nation vote back in the day. Murphy is not someone like Ashton or Melham, that’s easily identifiable with the area. Quality candidate, sure, and much better than Brookes, but still.

  12. To repeat, hardly anyone whose vote is in play will know or care whether Murphy is left, right or centre. I note in today’s Galaxy poll that only 65% of NSW voters can name the Premier of their state. That’s how much attention the punters are paying. It’s the 35% who can’t name the Premier, in fact the least interested 10% in that 35%, who will decide the election. Write that in texta on your hand and look at it every time you feel like making a comment like the ones above.

  13. So you’re saying if I lived in East Hills (which I don’t), my vote wouldn’t matter, because I have an interest in the quality and background of the candidates? I understand the point, but the logic here is extraordinarily unusual.

  14. I’m saying that almost everybody who takes a close interest in politics has a firm party loyalty. The two things go together. The typical “swinging voter” is not an independent-minded person who decides how to vote at each election on the merits of the candidates. The average swinging voter is a person who neither knows nor cares much about politics. This is true everywhere, but it’s made even more true by compulsory voting. Australian elections are usually decided by people who wouldn’t vote at all in the US or Britain. That’s why most election advertising seems unbearably dumb to most of us, and why politicians utter the same slogans over and over no matter what questions they’re asked.

  15. Ironically enough, I am a swinging voter with no party loyalty whatsoever. So I suppose I qualify as the exception. Thank you for making that clearer for me.

  16. I think genuine “independent voters” are heavily over-represented on forums like this. The swinging voters are watching TV and the committed party loyalists are out letter-boxing.

  17. Where does that leave you, then? Letterboxing on the internet for the great prize of people like Joe Bullock getting into parliament? I’ve never put the Libs above Labor in my life, and I hope I never have to, but sometimes I can understand why so many people do.

  18. I left Pollbludger so that I would no longer waste my time having that kind of argument, and I don’t intend to start doing the same thing here. Peace and love etc. AC

  19. My intel tells me that while Murphy wins this it is still tight, and that he is not the candidate that the ALP is used to in this seat. ALP wins 53/47 on 2PP.

  22. I like Cameron. he’s been down at prepoll in revesby everyday to talk to anyone. See him on the way to work and he’s still there on the way home. Spoken to him a few times. Doesn’t have a bus tho lol

  26. I have seen some weird stuff distributed in election campaigns, but that is without doubt one of the most disgraceful campaigns yet. Reminds me of a perennial candidate over here in SA who decided to advertise his pro life views by having pictures of an aborted foetus on his posters

  27. Does the story mean it was the Liberals (or other right-wing candidate), or a rival faction/personal enemy within the ALP? The references to Jodi McKay threw me a bit…..

  28. Live in this seat and read the above smh article
    I am disgusted by this – this is why people like Mr Murphy who have an outstanding record of community service would second guess their intentions to enter politics to serve their communities further.
    It would be disappointing if this would be the decisive factor on the victor in this contest
    I would suggest if victorious, that the supporters of the guilty party responsible for this crawl back to the gutters where they belong!

  29. they need to look at jim daniel, Brooke’s campaign manager. for starters at what his wife jessica with his encouragement was posting on the Facebook group panania social network – since deleted but members got screenshots and it’s a big group 4k+ so would have had an impact

  30. They letterboxed this stuff? Unbelievable. How many people must been involved? Is there any way they can’t have left fingerprints somewhere?

  31. Rumours I have heard on the ground is that it was a rival Labor faction. There was a local outcry in the area because Cameron Murphy was parachuted into the seat, against the will of the rank-and-file members (this seat is a Ferguson Left seat). I would not be surprised if the ALP Right were up to their dirty tricks again.

  32. A very convenient slander for the Libs to be circulating. Unless they’re dumb enough to get caught red-handed like they did in Lindsay, these people never get brought to book, so we’ll probably never know who did it.

  34. Said this before but didn’t Murphy win a local preslection ballot? They do actually happen in ALP sometimes.

  35. I had thought Murphy won the local ballot. No reason ALP Right would do this. They have no number in East Hills and wanted Labor to win the election as much as anyone else in the party. Murphy is also recognised as a strong talent across factional lines.

    Often the most obvious answer is the correct one. As Mick said, who gains from this defamation? Whether directly associated or a bunch of unaligned right-wing nutjobs, there’s only one answer who the people who did this were backing.

    I wonder if there is any legal recourse to this kind of thing.

  36. Did some numbers (similar to what I did for Gosford) and I have Brooks winning this seat 550 votes, indicating a 2PP Swing to him of 0.4%

    This will be decided on the Postal Votes and the Preferences from i-Vote

  38. All the paedophile / child rapist material was being letterboxed all over the electorate in the week before the election. Then the guy had ‘Paedophile Lover’ and ‘a vote for this guy is a vote for child rapists’ plastered all over the posters of his face.the guy has a kid. It was a low act and if proven to come from who we all think it came from there should be talk ofa byelection with a result this close

  40. There can only be a by-election if the Court of Disputed Returns annuls the result, and the Court will only do that if it finds some irregularity in the conduct of the election or of the count. The Court will not annul an election on the grounds that a candidate was slandered, even if she or he was slandered in unauthorised material. If the Court did that, every close result would be challenged in court, because every candidate thinks they’ve been slandered, and there is usually an unauthorised shit-sheet circulating somewhere. It *might* be possible to argue a case for annulment if it could be shown that the successful candidate was directly responsible for the slanderous material, but even then I doubt it. And of course that’s not going to be shown in this case, because no sitting member would be dumb enough to be directly responsible for something like this. Also, the Court will not annul an election merely on the grounds that the result is very close. It has to be proved that there was an irregularity in the conduct of the election or of the count which materially affected the result. That was what the WA Senate case turned on.

  41. this reminds for of Sergeant Schultz in Hogans Heros….” I know nothing ‘
    when in fact he knew exactly what was going on…..
    food for thought

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