ALP 17.6%
Incumbent MP
Tim Crakanthorp, since 2014.
- Geography
- Redistribution
- History
- Candidate summary
- Assessment
- 2019 results
- Booth breakdown
- Results maps
Geography
Central Newcastle. The district of Newcastle covers the central suburbs of the City of Newcastle, including the CBD, Merewether, Hamilton, Tighes Hill, Broadmeadow, Stockton, Islington, Mayfield and Warabrook, as well as Sandgate, Kooragang and Fern Bay to the north of Newcastle.
Redistribution
Newcastle underwent minor changes, losing the remainder of New Lambton to Charlestown and Wallsend, and seeing some minor changes to the border with Port Stephens which did not affect any voters. These changes reduced the Labor margin from 17.7% to 17.6%.
Newcastle has existed as a district in the Legislative Assembly almost continuously since 1859. The seat elected a single MLA from 1859 until 1880, when it began electing a second MLA. It gained a third MLA in 1889. In 1891, Newcastle elected two Labor MLAs, some of the first Labor MPs in New South Wales.
In 1894, Newcastle was abolished when Legislative Assembly districts were redrawn. It was restored as a single-member district in 1904.
The seat was won in 1904 and 1907 by Liberal Reform candidates, but was won by the ALP’s Arthur Gardiner in 1910. He was re-elected in 1913, and in 1917 won re-election as an independent.
New South Wales electoral boundaries were radically redrawn before the 1920 election due to the creation of multi-member districts electing MLAs using proportional representation. Newcastle expanded to be a five-member district covering a much larger area than the previous single-member district.
While Gardiner was re-elected in 1920, Newcastle elected three Labor MLAs and one Nationalist that year. The ALP managed to win four out of five seats in Newcastle in 1925, and in 1927 single-member districts were restored, and Newcastle was reduced to its former size.
From 1927 to 2007, Newcastle elected Labor MPs at all but one election, with an independent winning the seat in 1988.
The seat was won in 1927 by Peter Connolly, who held the seat until 1935, when he lost preselection and retired.
The seat was won in 1935 by Frank Hawkins. He held the seat until 1968. He served as a minister in the state Labor government from 1950 until the party lost power in 1965.
The seat was won in 1968 by Newcastle City Council alderman Arthur Wade. He held the seat for the next twenty years.
In 1988, Wade retired in Newcastle. The ALP lost power in a massive landslide, and in Newcastle the seat was won by independent candidate and local real estate agent George Keegan.
Keegan lost in 1991 to the ALP’s Bryce Gaudry. He won re-election in 1995, 1999 and 2003.
Prior to the 2007 state election, the NSW Labor head office intervened in the seat, stripping Gaudry of his preselection in 2006 and preselecting NBN television newsreader Jodi McKay, despite Gaudry having the support of local party branches.
Gaudry announced that he would run as an independent in early 2007. In addition, the independent Lord Mayor of Newcastle, John Tate, also ran for the seat.
At the 2007 state election, the ALP’s margin in the seat was cut from the previous 14.9% margin to only 1.2%. The Liberal Party polled less than 10%, with John Tate polling 24% and Gaudry 21%. The Greens also outpolled the Liberals. After preferences from the Liberals, Greens and Gaudry, Tate came within 1.2% of defeating McKay.
In 2011, McKay was again challenged by John Tate, as well as Liberal candidate Tim Owen. Tate was expected to be the main opposition to McKay. Tate’s vote, however, collapsed from 34.1% to 11.6%. Tim Owen increased the Liberal vote from 9.8% to 36.7% of the primary vote, and won the seat over McKay by a 2.6% margin.
Tim Owen stepped down from the Liberal Party and announced that he would not re-contest Newcastle in May 2014 after admitting at ICAC that he had probably received donations from prohibited donors. In August, he resigned from Parliament after admitting that he had lied to ICAC.
The ensuing by-election was won by Labor candidate Tim Crakanthorp, a Newcastle city councillor, with an 11% swing. Crakanthorp was re-elected in 2015 and 2019.
Assessment
Newcastle is a safe Labor seat.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Tim Crakanthorp | Labor | 23,231 | 46.2 | +6.0 | 45.9 |
| Blake Keating | Liberal | 13,224 | 26.3 | -9.2 | 26.4 |
| Charlotte Mccabe | Greens | 8,281 | 16.5 | -1.9 | 16.6 |
| Sean Bremner Young | Animal Justice | 1,478 | 2.9 | +2.9 | 2.9 |
| Beverley Jelfs | Sustainable Australia | 1,219 | 2.4 | +2.4 | 2.4 |
| Glen Fredericks | Small Business | 1,178 | 2.3 | +2.3 | 2.3 |
| Claudia Looker | Keep Sydney Open | 854 | 1.7 | +1.7 | 1.7 |
| Steve O’Brien | Socialist Alliance | 854 | 1.7 | +0.5 | 1.7 |
| Informal | 1,703 | 3.3 |
2019 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Tim Crakanthorp | Labor | 29,843 | 67.7 | +10.3 | 67.6 |
| Blake Keating | Liberal | 14,236 | 32.3 | -10.3 | 32.4 |
Booths in Newcastle have been split into four areas: north-east, north-west, south-east and south-west.
Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all four areas, ranging from 60.6% in the south-east to 77.1% in the north-west.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 10.8% in the north-east to 19.3% in the north-west.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| North-West | 19.3 | 77.1 | 10,355 | 21.5 |
| South-East | 19.1 | 60.6 | 10,012 | 20.8 |
| South-West | 16.0 | 70.2 | 6,986 | 14.5 |
| North-East | 10.8 | 67.5 | 5,260 | 10.9 |
| Other votes | 16.4 | 66.5 | 8,599 | 17.8 |
| Pre-poll | 14.3 | 62.6 | 7,026 | 14.6 |
Election results in Newcastle at the 2019 NSW state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, the Liberal Party and the Greens.
Greens only 2% behind the Liberal with a few left-wing minor parties in the mix.
Even with OPV I wonder if that’s close enough for the Greens to catch them and finish second.
Either way it doesn’t really matter because Labor already has 50% primary vote with a 20%+ gap separating 1st and 2nd place candidates. Because most Liberal votes will exhaust, the ALP-Green margin wouldn’t change much compared to the Labor-Liberal 2PP margin.
Newcastle, along with Wollongong, should be major Greens targets in future. They may not fall for a long time, as it is very difficult winning safe Labor seats away from them when they have such a high primary vote, but the Greens would gain a lot of credibility being able to win seats in regional cities, away from their Inner West and Byron Bay strongholds.
Horrible news out of here.
Thank god Crakanthorp and others weren’t harmed.
This is the type of shit you never want to see in Australia, or any other Western democracy.
@Scart I agree and I hope he’s well even as someone who isn’t a Labor supporter at all.
For those who don’t know, a 19-year-old from Raymond Terrace named Jordan Patten attempted to assassinate Newcastle MP Tim Crakanthorp, arriving at his office armed with knives and tactical equipment.
He allegedly published a 200-page manifesto, which outlined many far-right, antisemitic, Islamophobic, anti-LGBT and anti-immigrant views, but denied being a white nationalist or a white supremacist. Allegedly inspired by Christchurch mosque shooter Brentan Tarrant, he allegedly threatened to behead MPs, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his family.
@NP, @Scart – That is honestly just really sad. I’ve heard the stories in the UK of politicians being stabbed at their own mobile offices. Last thing I want is for that to happen in Australia.
Really hope Tim and his staff are OK after that. Must be absolutely petrifying for that to happen. I hope the attacker is locked up for good.
Looking at older comments – In the end Greens did not finish 2nd in the distribution of preferences, falling behind the Liberals by a bit over 1000 votes 3CP. It’s the 2nd closest the Greens came to 2nd place in any of the conventional seats, with Heffron being closer (400 vote gap). The gap wasn’t too big in Wallsend either, though with a much higher Labor primary there.
However at the point Greens were excluded, Crakanthorp had passed 50%. The ALP vs Green 2CP is over 70/30 ALP, only slightly closer than the 72.6% 2PP against the Liberals.
All that to say it’s hard to say when the seat will be winnable. Federal Newcastle with the possibility of Liberal preferences is a better target (though I seem to be on my own with the view that they’re possible).
Really hard to say what the good NSW Green targets are next time. Tweed is probably the best one where LNP are winning on primaries and Greens could potentially overtake Labor leveraging some local strength (especially if Nolan gets up in Richmond). But they’re starting from quite low (they need a 10% ALP to Green swing just to get into 2nd), and there’s a 10% gap between the ALP vs Nat 2CP and GRN vs Nat 2CP to worry about. Ben has written about how a strong Green campaign can minimize this, but it’s still a concern.
Even when they do overtake Liberals I’m not seeing a 17% swing happening in Summer Hill or a 20% swing in Heffron or Newcastle, and the exclusion order in once winnable Coogee is all wrong now. So it’s likely to be a statewide LC focused campaign plus sandbagging Balmain.
The Greens are so far behind Labor in Tweed – the Greens votes in Richmond largely locked up in Ballina. Lismore might be a better chance once Janelle Saffin retires and her substantial personal vote is up for grabs.
The Greens won’t win Tweed. Full stop.
Questions about Newcastle: the federal seat, the state seat and the council:
1. Could a moderate, Berejiklian/Schrinner-style Liberal win the lord mayoralty here if they ran on a community-focused and moderate platform?
2. The Liberals only lost Merewether and Merewether Heights in 2019 on preferences and it was quite close (if Gladys were leader at the last state election, especially if it was held during COVID, they would’ve won those booths and the seat would have been more competitive). These are small-l-liberal booths like Pyrmont and Millers Point in Sydney, Sandy Bay in Hobart and Docklands in Melbourne. Do you think these booths will keep trending towards Labor if Tim Crakanthorp is a popular MP or will they go towards a more moderate Liberal like Mark Speakman? What other more affluent or middle-class suburbs in Newcastle itself could be targets?
3. Do you think Tim Crakanthorp has a personal vote? It seems so, at least in some booths.
4. Will the Greens win or lose the small-l-liberal and inner-city booths? Newcastle is still in most aspects one of those Old Labor, working-class, less socially progressive areas but like all major metropolitan areas its CBD is trending to be more progressive.
I know I should know this since I used to live here (I lived in Merewether Heights) and I love spending time in and around Greater Newcastle (one of the best cities in Australia) but I’m curious for any thoughts. I asked a similar thing on the Melbourne thread particularly about Docklands and East Melbourne so I thought “Why not ask about other seats with small-l-liberal booths?”
Any thoughts?
I think a moderate could win the lord mayorality based on a strong personal profile. I think Mereweather, Bar Beach the Junction could be Liberal targets but otherwise Newcastle has a rich Labor history and seems to be proud of its working class past. Other parts of Newcastle are just not rich enough that people would vote on economic reasons alone and i am not sure how much effort libs would put in.
@Nimalan I agree about the economic factors, the middle-class parts of Newcastle are scattered around the south in Lake Macquarie or in the north up in Port Stephens.
But, Ned Mannoun won the mayoralty in Liverpool as a Liberal and is likely to win again despite Liverpool too being a proudly working-class (in the case of Liverpool, ethnic working-class) area.
@ NP
I agree Ned Mannoun has lifted the Liberal brand at all levels of government in the Liverpool area. L