ALP 16.3%
Incumbent MP
Greg Warren, since 2015.
Geography
South-western Sydney. Campbelltown includes southern parts of the City of Campbelltown as well as a small part of Wollondilly Shire, including Airds, Ambarvale, Appin, Blairmount, Blair Athol, Bradbury, Claymore, Glen Alpine, Leumeah, Menangle Park, Rosemeadow, Ruse, Woodbine, and Campbelltown itself.
Redistribution
Campbelltown gained Appin from Wollondilly, gained the remainder of Leumeah from Macquarie Fields, and lost Eagle Vale to Leppington. These changes reduced the Labor margin from 17.0% to 16.3%.
History
The electoral district of Campbelltown has existed since 1968. It was first won by the Liberal Party in 1968, and was won again by the Liberal Party in 2011, but was held by Labor continuously for fourty years from 1971 to 2011.
The seat was won by Liverpool councillor and Liberal candidate Max Dunbier in 1968. In 1971, he lost to the ALP’s Cliff Mallam. He had previously held the seat of Dulwich Hill from 1954 until its abolition in 1968. After a failed attempt at entering federal politics in 1969, he won Campbelltown in 1971 and held it until his retirement in 1981.
Campbelltown was won in 1981 by the ALP’s Michael Knight. He was appointed Minister for the Olympics when Labor won power in 1995. After a successful Olympics, Knight retired in 2001.
The 2001 by-election was won by the ALP’s Graham West, a former Knight advisor who was elected with only token opposition. He was appointed as a minister after the 2007 election. He remained a minister until June 2010, when he announced his impending retirement at the 2011 election.
At the 2011 election, Liberal candidate Bryan Doyle won Campbelltown with a 21.8% swing. Doyle lost in 2015 to Labor candidate Greg Warren. Warren was re-elected in 2019.
Assessment
Campbelltown is a safe Labor seat.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Greg Warren | Labor | 24,476 | 53.8 | +3.5 | 52.1 |
| Riley Munro | Liberal | 12,069 | 26.5 | -11.4 | 26.6 |
| Jayden Rivera | Greens | 2,339 | 5.1 | -0.4 | 5.1 |
| James Gent | Christian Democrats | 2,001 | 4.4 | +0.8 | 4.0 |
| Matthew Stellino | Animal Justice | 1,822 | 4.0 | +4.0 | 3.8 |
| Martin O’Sullivan | Keep Sydney Open | 1,723 | 3.8 | +3.8 | 3.6 |
| Michael Clark | Sustainable Australia | 1,096 | 2.4 | +2.4 | 2.2 |
| Others | 2.5 | ||||
| Informal | 2,411 | 5.0 |
2019 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Greg Warren | Labor | 27,026 | 67.0 | +9.7 | 66.3 |
| Riley Munro | Liberal | 13,305 | 33.0 | -9.7 | 33.7 |
Booths in Campbelltown have been split into three parts: central, north and south.
Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 63.6% in the south to 71.5% in the north.
| Voter group | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| South | 63.6 | 14,099 | 30.4 |
| Central | 68.7 | 11,034 | 23.8 |
| North | 71.5 | 6,369 | 13.7 |
| Pre-poll | 64.1 | 8,391 | 18.1 |
| Other votes | 65.8 | 6,439 | 13.9 |
Election results in Campbelltown at the 2019 NSW state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor and the Liberal Party.
This seat is usually not one to watch so probably why i am the first one to post. Some interesting results. In Tharwal Medical Centre booth in Airds (one of the poorest places in Urban Australia) Labor got 90.2 of the TPP and a swing to them. Libs only got 4.7% of the Primary vote below that of the Greens, LDP and One Nation. In Claymore, Labor got 88.5% of the TPP and a small swing to them. Both suburbs have a SEIFA score of 1 and are public housing estates. Here, Labor kept its base unlike Meadow Heights in Melbourne where Lock downs artificially affected the result.
@Nimalan is the airds north booth the strongest labor tpp vote in greater sydney? a lakemba booth had a 92% tpp for labor but there were only 200 votes or so cast.
@ Louis, it seems like it. I am still looking to find other booths to see if it exceeds the Wiley Park booth close to Lakemba also had 91% TPP for Labor but that is a joint booth. I think the Airds North booth would have the lowest primary vote for the Libs in Greater Sydney and maybe even the state excluding some indigenous communities in the Far West. In terms of best Liberal booths in Greater Sydney it would be in the semi-rural areas such as Horsley Park, Orchard Hills etc. I am thinking some booths where Teals ran may still end up being very strong on Lib/ALP contest such as Beauty Point, Balmoral (Queenswood School) and St Michaels Vauclause.
Hard to believe that this seat was Liberal Held back in 2011. There are very large pockets here that is Deep-red territory.
Appin is a middle class area added to the seat… 15% swing
@Ninalam booths from auburn north are yet to be counted and labor has >70% of the primary vote so it’ll be interesting to see the tpp figures there. I also agree that elite areas on the north shore/eastern suburbs held up well for the liberals. The vaucluse booth used to have >90% tpp to the liberals versus labor unsurprisingly and the teals didn’t really make a large dent to this margin.
@ Louis, cool i will keep an eye out on the Auburn North booth. Do you know if notional Lib/ALP margin for those elite areas where teals ran both seats and booth level have been released.
Could the Liberals ever regain this? It seems unlikely but Bryan Doyle did it in 2011 and Labor only got 57% TPP in 2015.
I feel like demographic changes will eventually nip at Labor’s heels, but they will still run far ahead. It would basically mean the Liberals would have to regain their usually safest booths in Campbelltown (Glen Alpine, Wedderburn, Appin), and other ‘strong’ booths (Bradbury, Ruse, Kentlyn, Leumeah) – essentially booths that register a 2PP under the overall 2PP. And of course, it would mean an absolute voter revolt in working-class, multicultural, low-income communities.
It will take years though. As a resident of the Campbelltown electorate myself, there is a lot of public housing, working-class, and in general it’s not remotely a good Liberal area. They do good in Glen Alpine, a suburb with a lot of large homes/mansions, and a golf course. See it as the ‘Vaucluse of South-West Sydney’ I guess. But as I stated before, it will take a long time before an event like this occurs.
@James I do agree that Campbelltown itself and nearby areas like Claymore are working-class and have a lot of housing commission (YouTuber and rapper Spanian even made an episode of his “Into the Hood” series where he visited Claymore).
The Libs got 34.4% in Glen Alpine. I’d hardly call that good.
This seat has swung 31.08% to Labor since 2011, compared to the state average of 18.49%. The last time the seat was this safe for Labor was the 70s.
Nothing about this seat suggest it’s swinging to the Libs or winnable again for them. The large growth in this area seems to be very much helping Labor.
@ Drake
Thats why i feel that it is not a forgone conclusion that Outer Suburban seats will always move rightwards. This seat has a lot of Outer Suburban battlers, public housing areas and Outer Suburban Aspirational areas like Glen Alpine. The Federal seat of Macarthur (adjusted to current boundaries) has also shown an improvement over time see link below. By contrast state seat of Liverpool and Werriwa has shown Labor underperforming although if Labor has better quality and more active MPs there is a chance Labor can reverse that trend.
https://www.tallyroom.com.au/47432
@Nimalan
Seems it’s not so much outer-suburbs, it’s outer suburbs without a lot of growth. Seems if an outer suburb seat has a lot of growth, Labor can reduce their losses.
If you look at a seat like Werriwa, Labor had double digits swing to them in a lot of the growth suburbs, compared with the established suburbs which swung to the Libs. Same in Lindsay, where Labor had a horrible election result but some of the rural growth parts still swung to them.
An even more extreme version in the NSW state election where they got >40% swings to them in Marsden Park.
@ Drake
Interesting points. Marsden Park is rapidly growing and until recently was semi-rural the number of people living there has exploded. I agree the same trend in seen at Liverpool at a state election. You would think the Libs appeal better to areas like Cecil Hills, Elizabeth Hills etc as these suburbs are aspirational and very Christian, homewowning etc. However, they got swings to them in Casula, Lurnea which are much poorer and also very Muslim. It will be interesting if the Palestine issue may actually lead to the established working class suburbs such as Casula, Lurnea, Meadow Heights, Doveton etc swinging to Greens or Socialists and reverse any movement to parties such as the UAP. At a Victorian state election. Labor did well in Kalkallo which is a growth area but badly in Greenvale.
@Nimalan WIth any luck the Palestine war will be long over by the time of the next election.
Is it also that the new growth areas are really struggling with infrastructure issues, and as the Libs have been in power for yonks they would naturally look to the other side. If Labor do little to nothing for 4 years then potentially a lot of those voters could swing the other way?
I know where I am in Casey the Vic Gov has released the number of new dwellings they want built in each LGA over the next 10 years. Casey is to more than double, and everyone I have spoken to has said get the infrastructure fixed first then start building. There is palpable anger I can see building up, the kind that switches votes and that may well be a factor in NSW as well.
@MLV potentially yes but Campbelltown and the surrounding area have lots of housing commission and relative to other areas it’s quite poor and working-class.