Camden – NSW 2023

LIB 7.4%

Incumbent MP
Peter Sidgreaves, since 2019.

Geography
Southwestern Sydney. The seat of Camden covers southern parts of the Camden local government area, including the suburbs of Camden, Narellan, Bickley Vale, Cobbitty, Currans Hill, Elderslie, Gledswood Hills, Gregory Hills, Harrington Park and Mount Annan, as well as Camden Park in Wollondilly Shire.

Redistribution
Camden contracted into the southern part of the Camden local government area, losing Austral, Catherine Field, Leppington and Rossmore to the new seat of Leppington, and losing Badgerys Creek, Bringelly, Greendale and Oran Park to the renamed seat of Badgerys Creek. These changes slightly reduced the Liberal margin from 7.6% to 7.4%.

History
The electoral district of Camden has existed for two different periods: from 1859 to 1920, and again since 1981.

The original district elected two MLAs from 1859 to 1889, and then three MLAs from 1889 to 1894. It continued as a single-member district from 1894 until its abolition in 1920.

Throughout that period Camden never elected a Labor MP, and was won by a variety of Protectionist and Free Trade MPs, becoming a safe Liberal/Nationalist seat by the time of its abolition.

Camden was restored at the 1981 state election, by which time Camden had become part of the fringes of the rapidly-expanding Sydney metropolitan region. Many of the most populous suburbs in the seat today developed throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

The latter seat of Camden has an unusual history of changing parties against the trend of state politics, on two occasions it was gained by a party while losing a state election, and on two other occasions a governing party gained the seat while losing ground statewide.

Camden was won in 1981 by Ralph Brading of the ALP, gaining power in a Labor landslide. In 1984 he was defeated by the Liberal Party’s John Fahey.

The original seat of Camden covered an area from Warragamba to Mittagong, and the redistribution before the 1988 election reduced the seat to a smaller area around Camden itself. The new redistribution was much improved for the ALP.

Following the redistribution, Fahey moved to the neighbouring seat of Southern Highlands. Fahey became a minister in the Greiner government in 1988. He went on to serve as Liberal premier from 1992 to 1995, and then resigning to contest the federal seat of Macarthur. He held Macarthur from 1996 to 2001, serving as Minister for Finance in the first two terms of the Howard government.

In 1988, while the Labor Party was suffering a massive defeat statewide, Peter Primrose managed to gain the seat of Camden, defeating Liberal candidate John Ryan by only 31 votes. Ryan went on to serve as a Liberal member of the Legislative Council from 1991 to 2007.

Primrose only held Camden for one term, losing in 1991 to the Liberal Party’s Liz Kernohan. Another redistribution had expanded Camden to cover most of Wollondilly Shire, a shape it maintained until the 2003 election. Primrose was elected to the Legislative Council in 1996 and now serves as a minister in the Labor government.

Kernohan was a former Mayor of Camden, and she held Camden for three terms, retiring in 2003. She then returned to Camden Council in 2004, but died only seven months later.

Camden was won in 2003 by the Mayor of Camden, Geoff Corrigan, who was running for the ALP. Corrigan was re-elected in 2007. His margin in 2003 had been 5.4%, which expanded to 8.7% in the redistribution, with parts of the seat in Wollondilly Shire removed from Camden. He held on with a reduced 3.9% margin.

In 2011, Corrigan lost his seat with a 22.8% swing, and the Liberal Party’s Chris Patterson was elected. Patterson was re-elected in 2015, and retired in 2019.

Liberal candidate Peter Sidgreaves won Camden in 2019.

Candidates

Assessment
The Liberal Party holds Camden by a sizeable margin, but it could still be in play if Labor did well. This electorate has changed shape significantly, losing most of the new urban growth areas, but that did not do much to the margin.

2019 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Peter Sidgreaves Liberal 26,999 43.0 -18.3 42.1
Sally Quinnell Labor 18,886 30.1 +2.9 29.3
Ben Casey One Nation 8,330 13.3 +13.3 13.4
Andrew Simpson Independent 4,048 6.4 +6.5 7.5
Karen Stewart Greens 2,359 3.8 -1.5 4.1
Daniel Aragona Keep Sydney Open 1,432 2.3 +2.3 2.4
Danica Sajn Sustainable Australia 718 1.1 +1.1 1.2
Informal 2,520 3.9

2019 two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Peter Sidgreaves Liberal 29,556 57.6 -10.7 57.4
Sally Quinnell Labor 21,796 42.4 +10.7 42.6

Booth breakdown

Booths in Camden have been split into three parts:

  • North – Cobbitty, Gregory Hills and Harrington Park
  • South-East – Currans Hill, Elderslie, Mount Annan and Narellan
  • South-West – Camden, Camden South and Spring Farm

The Liberal Party won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 53.7% in the south-east to 62.4% in the north.

One Nation came third, with a primary vote ranging from 11.3% in the north to 14.2% in the south-east.

Voter group ON prim % LIB 2PP % Total votes % of votes
South-East 14.2 53.7 12,716 27.4
South-West 12.9 61.1 8,838 19.0
North 11.3 62.4 8,298 17.9
Pre-poll 14.8 57.1 8,515 18.3
Other votes 13.1 53.8 8,071 17.4

Election results in Camden at the 2019 NSW state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, Labor and One Nation.

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26 COMMENTS

  2. Split approx 56 right 44 left and a opv bonus of about 1%
    Primary vote gap about 13%.. with polls showing about 54/46 ie a 6 per cent swing this is line ball… also a growth area which can swing

  4. Whilst Camden was historically a bellwether/marginal seat, it now has a 5-10% margin and new MP Peter Sidgreaves seems decent so he should be able to achieve a sophomore surge factor in his favour.

    Even Angus Taylor in Hume was able to achieve 55-60% 2PP results in many polling places covered by Camden state district.

  5. @ Yoh an, agree with you comments. i would say this is due to the fact that much of Camden Council has become more settled/affluent especially Harrington Park/Mount Annan/Narellan Vale. We can see that the growth areas such as Gregory Hills/Oran Park (in Leppington seat) is better for Labor as it is a growth area.

  6. What makes some growth areas more Liberal leaning or Labor leaning than others? They all seem to be pretty demographically similar yet there are some strongly Liberal leaning ones, some 50/50 ones and some strongly Labor leaning ones.

  7. @ Dan M, interesting question while i cannot say a conclusive answer there are a few theories i have. One theory is that growth areas become an extension of the adjacent established suburbs and the other is natural geography ( i will come to this point later). You are correct growth areas tend to demographically similar they all tend to have above average incomes, SEIFA, affordable new housing for first home buyers and increasingly popular with South Asian migrants. However, the caveat is that these areas tend to have very few retirees, unemployed, single parent families, renters and adult children still living at home so the results are somewhat skewed. Over time, some growth areas will be more affluent as they are become settled or degentrify and resemble established working class suburbs. If we look at areas that were growth areas in the 1990s in Melbourne which are settled we can see both trends. I will use 3 suburbs (Delahey, Roxburgh Park and Rowville). The First two have de-gentrified and are now considered low SES working class suburbs and strongly Labor whilst Rowville has become more affluent and it became settled. Back to natural geography, areas that are hilly, coastal, leafy will become more affluent over time. For example i predict Point Cook will become more affluent as it becomes settled as it is a lot of wetlands, coastal etc while this is not the case with Tarneit which sits on a flat plain. In Sydney, i predict areas like Kellyville Ridge etc will be much more affluent than the Marsden Park area as it is close to the Hills District. While Roxburgh Park is now working class neighbouring Greenvale is still affluent as it has favourable natural geography same with Keilor, Taylors Lakes compared to Delahey etc

  8. I do point out areas like Rowville tends to be from the upper middle class Anglo-Saxons familes who had been appealed of big homes yet still quite affordable so I think it was going to be friendlier to the Libs anyway. I think Camden does share the similar characteristics

  9. Liberal retain.

    Areas in the west of the electorate e.g. Camden, Grasmere are semi-rural and have a relatively older population. Areas in the east like Spring Farm and Mount Annan have been subsumed by urban sprawl, are full of new-ish housing estates and a young-ish population. These areas would be classic mortgage belt territory.

    Throughout the electorate, it’s mainly Anglo-Saxon and/or Australian-born. West of the Camden Bypass, there are some southern European migrants and their descendents (Italian, Maltese). East of the Camden Bypass, there are more non-English-speaking migrants.

  10. It’s worth noting that when Labor last held the seat, it included Claymore, Eagle Vale, Kearns and Raby. Past results on these boundaries would be:
    2007: LIB 0.1%
    2003: ALP 3.9%
    1999: LIB 9.0%
    1995: LIB 9.9%
    1991: LIB 8.8%
    Not sure why there would have been a 12.9% swing in 2003.

  11. 2003 the sitting liberal mp retired that is why the big swing she must have had a sizable personal vote. In.2007 the addition of the Campbelltown suburbs improved the alp.position.

  13. With the reduction in candidates on the right, I think this will help the Coalition. There is close to 6,000 votes to mop up, of which the Sidgreaves should win some, coupled with a sophomore surge. He will lose margin but should retain the seat.

    This is actually a good value bet on Sportsbet at $1.80.

  16. Labor reasonably safe seat as of election night.

    This seat will be a true bellwether for future elections and is a must win for the Liberals to win back government in the future.

  17. I thought this could be tight but expected a Liberal retain. Like most of the comments here, did not pick the extent of the incoming swing here.

    What’s stranger to me is that neighbouring Badgerys Creek has had little to no swing (albeit some of the bigger booths have yet to report results) while this seat swung a lot. I would have thought it might be the other way around if anything because most of the newer developments have moved into Badgerys Creek.

    Harrington Park and the suburb of Camden itself have swung considerably in line with most higher SES Sydney suburbs but the eastern end with newer developments around Currans Hill, Gledswood Hills and Gregory Hills has too. The same isn’t apparent in suburbs like Oran Park in Badgerys Creek. Not sure why this might be the case and am interested in any insight on this.

  18. could labor winn this well dont think the liberal devitions and the bulying aligations against Sidgreoavess bulying his own side plus him saying he backs privatising sydney water might have hurt plus aparently he was a bad mp

  19. ONP vote increased by 0.6% this is where Mark Latham said many people who were unhappy about the Libs being too moderate and pro-climate action etc would drive a strong vote for them but the Greens actually increased their vote by a bigger percentage and the seat moved to the left with Labor and Greens picking up the the decline of the Liberal vote.

  20. Very surprised by the swing here (13%). I put it down to Labor’s appeal to the suburban fringes and hence the double-digit swings in the Richmond Line, Norwest and Hills Shire as well as in Camden.

    @Nimalan, I knew that ONP was overhyped and overexagerrated but I thought that ONP would split the conservative vote here and elsewhere and exhaust votes. Funny that you mentioned Mark Latham and his tirades on climate change. In neighbouring Wollondilly, there were big swings to the independent (backed by Climate 200) and Labor.

  21. aparently peter sidgreaves was a terible mp late in the campaign he was acused both of branch stacking and bullying people with in his own local party he seems to have not dun much as the mp hear and is disliked by most peopleheard he was not a good mayor iva

  22. Agree Votante, Wollondilly which includes both growth areas around Wilton and Rural areas was won by a Teal. In my view it shows Australia is not as divided as the US or post-brexit UK into Outer Suburban/Rural areas versus inner city. It was those who have the best views of Sydney Harbour from Rose Bay to Clontarf, Longueville and Mosman who stayed Loyal to the Libs. One thing i did not know about this seat and the Shire etc areas seen as new Liberal heartlands was that these areas have some the highest numbers of teachers and nurses. There has a been a lot of focus in the past that Outer Suburban areas are tradie central which is true but this was missed in the narrative. It seems in Camden those voters voted with their economic interest rather than the culture wars.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-27/how-labor-s-new-working-class-helped-party-seal-nsw-election-win/102146898

  23. It’s still rather strange how patchy the swings in the outer suburbs are. Badgerys Creek also has a lot of teachers and nurses as indicated on that map but barely swung to Labor unlike here. Not really sure how to explain that.

  24. “There has a been a lot of focus in the past that Outer Suburban areas are tradie central which is true but this was missed in the narrative.”

    This “outer suburbia = more Coalition leaning voters” idea that seems to be popular in some psephological circles is 1) over-simplistic and 2) WRONG.

    Many different groups of people live in outer suburbia due to the housing crisis in Australia and their voting behaviour is more complex than “oh I think they’re aspirational therefore they’ll probably vote for the Coalition”. Like they all move in from somewhere else and bring their own characteristics with them – it’s not like ALP leaning voters will suddenly becomes Libs leaning voters just because they moved into an outer suburban area. Outer suburbia is more than just tradies and small business owners.

  25. this sidgreaves seems like a nice guy after a week its clear he lost he still refusis to consede like Wendey lindsay in east hills buy all acounts Sidgreaves delivered nothing for camden in four years was difficult to get in contact then he is suprised he lost plus acused of bullying and branch stacking was the former mayor

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