NAT 20.1%
Incumbent MP
Leslie Williams (Liberal), since 2011.
- Geography
- Redistribution
- History
- Candidate summary
- Assessment
- 2019 results
- Booth breakdown
- Results maps
Geography
Mid-north coast. Port Macquarie covers the town of Port Macquarie itself, as well as coastal areas in Port Macquarie-Hastings Council, and a northeastern corner of Mid-Coast Council. Port Macquarie covers the towns of Port Macquarie, Dunbogan, Kendall, Kew, Laurieton, North Haven, West Haven, Coopernook, Moorland, Hannam Vale, Johns River and Stewarts River.
Redistribution
Port Macquarie slightly contracted, losing Lansdowne to Myall Lakes and losing areas near Port Macquarie to Oxley. These changes cut the margin from 20.3% to 20.1%.
History
The electoral district of Port Macquarie has existed since 1988. It was won by the Nationals at every election from 1988 to 1999. In 2002, the sitting Nationals MP left the party, and it was won by independents from 2003 until the Nationals won the seat back in 2011.
The seat was first won in 1988 by Bruce Jeffery of the Nationals. He had been elected to the seat of Oxley in 1984, but it was abolished in 1988. The 1991 redistribution restored the seat of Oxley, and Jeffery returned to his original seat. He held the seat until his retirement in 1999.
Nationals MP Wendy Machin won Port Macquarie in 1991. She had first won the seat of Gloucester in 1985. She moved to the new seat of Manning in 1988 when Gloucester was abolished. Manning was itself abolished in 1991.
Machin was appointed as a minister in the Coalition government in 1993, and was re-elected to Port Macquarie in 1995, when the Coalition lost power. She retired in 1996. She now serves as president of the NRMA Board.
The 1996 by-election was won by the Nationals’ Rob Oakeshott. He was appointed a shadow minister in the Liberal-National opposition after the 1999 election.
During his second term he became disenchanted with the Nationals, finding significant differences between his ideology and Nationals policies.
Oakeshott resigned from the National Party in 2002. He was re-elected as an independent at the 2003 election with almost 70% of the primary vote and 82.8% of the two-party-preferred vote. He was re-elected in 2007 with a slightly smaller margin of 78%.
Following the 2007 federal election, Nationals leader Mark Vaile resigned from his seat of Lyne in 2008, which overlaps with the state seat of Port Macquarie. Oakeshott resigned from Port Macquarie to contest the federal Lyne by-election. He won the seat with a 73.9% margin, which was cut to 62.7% in 2010. Following the 2010 election, Oakeshott and fellow crossbenchers Tony Windsor, Adam Bandt and Andrew Wilkie decided to support a minority Labor government in the hung parliament.
Following Oakeshott’s resignation, a state by-election was also held in Port Macquarie in 2008. The seat was won by independent Peter Besseling. He won with 54.5% of the two-party-preferred vote over the Nationals candidate. He was one of eight independent candidates, polling just under 36% of the primary vote.
In 2011, Besseling was defeated by Nationals candidate Leslie Williams, with a 35% two-candidate-preferred swing since Oakeshott last won the seat in 2007. Williams was re-elected in 2015 and 2019.
In 2020, Williams resigned from the Nationals and joined the Liberal Party in protest over Nationals leader John Barilaro threatening to take the party to the crossbench.
Assessment
Port Macquarie is a safe Nationals seat. It’s not clear if the Nationals will contest the seat – if not, Williams should have no trouble winning re-election as a Liberal.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Leslie Williams | Nationals | 33,538 | 63.6 | +1.5 | 63.5 |
| Peter Alley | Labor | 12,220 | 23.2 | -0.9 | 23.3 |
| Drusi Megget | Greens | 4,119 | 7.8 | -1.1 | 7.9 |
| Jan Burgess | Sustainable Australia | 2,858 | 5.4 | +5.4 | 5.2 |
| Informal | 1,971 | 3.6 |
2019 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Leslie Williams | Nationals | 34,725 | 70.3 | +1.3 | 70.1 |
| Peter Alley | Labor | 14,690 | 29.7 | -1.3 | 29.9 |
Booths in Port Macquarie have been split into three parts. Those polling places in the Port Macquarie urban area have been grouped, and the voters in this area make up a majority of the electorate. Rural booths were split between those in the Port Macquarie-Hastings council area as ‘Central’ and those in the Greater Taree council area as ‘South’.
The Nationals won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 68.1% in the south to 70.4% in the centre.
| Voter group | NAT 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| Port Macquarie | 69.2 | 17,086 | 34.0 |
| Central | 70.4 | 7,476 | 14.9 |
| South | 68.1 | 2,813 | 5.6 |
| Pre-poll | 72.3 | 15,578 | 31.0 |
| Other votes | 68.0 | 7,285 | 14.5 |
Election results in Port Macquarie at the 2019 NSW state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Nationals and Labor.
Nats will re-gain this. The coalition agreement won’t apply here because the sitting member switched parties. I doubt the Liberals would be too bothered anyway considering this returning to the Nats won’t affect the coalitions numbers on the floor of the house.
If Rob Oakeshott runs here he could win. But I believe he is done with politics after his double loss in Cowper.
Daniel – you really don’t have a clue mate. Leslie Williams posted a 2PP of 70% as a Nat in the last election but Port is not naturally a Nat seat.
She will hold easily for the Libs. She is a quality local member.
No she won’t, why would political treachery be rewarded? The Northern NSW coast is safe national territory. The past time the Liberals contested a seat in this region seems to be Cowper in 2001 (although I don’t think Port Macquarie was in the seat at the time, the regions around it have similar demographics) they got only 16% of the vote in Cowper in 2001, only 16! You cannot say with certainty Williams will win. Mate she doesn’t have a 20-30% personal vote here. At best she has 10%
I agree this will be a Nat vs Liberal contest. But Labor will not preference Williams over the nats, trust me on that. For Williams to win she would need preferences from other parties. Where is she getting them from?
She gets more than 50% of primaries mate. Trust me.
And the so called treachery was her support of locals koalas. I’d reckon that’s pretty popular in Port…
Daniel,
NSW National Party hasn’t really existed for the past 20 years.
The members elected under the ‘Nationals’ brand have either been members of the Liberal Party, or journalists / marketing types with no connection to the National Party.
Melinda Pavey appears to be the last person from the National Party to sit under the ‘Nationals’ banner in NSW Parliament. Ms Pavey said she was ‘tapped on the shoulder’ to leave.
Leslie Williams is part of South Australian Liberal Party royalty.
The current member for Cowper was a member of the Liberal Party before being preselected.
Regardless of the outcome, this seat will be an extremely competitive NAT v LIB contest. However, it does seem as if Ms. Williams is a popular incumbent. The seat trended 3.6% to the right last state election, and Coalition margins tend to be higher here than at the federal level. So I would assume this would be a Liberal hold, likely with around 52% of the 2PP vote.
Is Leslie Williams running for re-election? I think this seat will probably stay with the Coalition either way although it could be interesting.
Ben, I guess the answer is Yes. There’s no news of her retiring. Very likely she’ll hold.
I can’t remember a time when a Nat switched to Lib, or vice versa, in a safe seat and then lost.
If she runs she could face a Nationals opponent which could make this interesting especially with OPV.
Given existing patterns you would expect a nat win. Margin 2pp 70% but opv bonus 7%
I would expect a general swing to Labor. Say was 3 % even. Then with a nat standing and opv their will be some exhaustion and some leakage in either direction lp to nat or visa versa. The effect of opv is who ever polls the highest primary vote usually wins. This is also Rob oakshot territory. If he or some strong alternative ind ran they could win..The state of this seat ie is the winner is uncertain. As I could not guess the percentages what if alp 20 lib 20 ind 20 nats 15. 10 % gr 15% other probably left of centre non coalition who polls the highest primary in my example cannot tell till other preferences are distributed what if 40% exhaust? See my sums figures are only guess but combined lnp vote only 40% in my example 60% else where on primary votes. Opv discourages split of vote because in my example there could possibly be left less than 40% for lnp contesting as indiv partys
This seat could well return a non
Coalition mp
Rob Oakeshott, a former MP here, won’t run again it seems. He just graduated from med school and is a Climate 200 advisor and keeps a low profile.
He ran federally for Cowper in 2016 and 2019 but I reckon that he would’ve won in 2022 (the climate change election) if he’d run because there was anti-Morrison anger nationwide, an appetite to vote teals and independents and Climate 200 campaigning. A teal independent scored 48:52 on 2pp terms, which was way better than what Oakeshott scored in 2016 and 2019.
Yes confirms what I said most
Likely a coalition win but the seat is uncertain. The sitting mp needs probably a swing her way but this is I think impossible given maybe 4 way contest
it will be a coalition gain. greens will finsih last and their preferences will be split 3 ways with majority to labor but we could see a lib vs nat 2pp in whcih case it will depend where labor sends thirs
Not a coalition gain if nats or liberals win. Just status quo.if they were both to lose then it is a coalition loss. Labor not strong enough to win here. If a credible independent ran then they could win.. does anyone know? I would expect a nat candidate to take votes off the liberal mp. To get an absolute majority would be difficult here.
I assume that old people in Port Macquarie and surrounds will vote Libs above NAT
Bazza,
I tend to agree. National Party (nee Country Party) have gone out of there way to stop the Liberal Party fielding candidates in these parts.
I don’t think the Liberal Party has ran an endorsed state candidate in these parts since the 1965 Oxley by-election.
depending on he split in the coalition vote we could see a lib vs nat 2pp. given labor couldnt even maage to poll 30% on the 2pp after collecting greens and sstainable australia preferences
This is also a seat Labor won’t ever win. At the last state election if the Liberal and National votes are combined then the Coalition got a total of 65.1% of the primary vote (an increase of 1.5%), while Labor got just 19.2% (a decrease of 4.1%). This was one of Labor’s worst primary votes in a Liberal seat: the only Liberal seats where they got lower than 19.2% were Manly, North Shore, Pittwater and Vaucluse, all of which are blue-ribbon seats in Sydney (all of them except Vaucluse are on either the Northern Beaches or the North Shore, while Vaucluse stretches from the CBD to the Eastern Suburbs, taking in all the wealthy areas on the eastern side of Sydney Harbour). Pittwater had the lowest Labor vote in the entire state (just over 10%).
@nether portal agreed it was so bad it was a LIB v NAT on 2PP
this another reason supporting running 2 candidates in a seat without a member. the libs and nats both pull votes from Labor i reckon they would have had a shot at Hunter and maybe not so much Richmond
@John it wouldn’t be a smart idea to run two Coalition candidates in Port Macquarie in 2027. The voters have clearly prefer Williams and the Liberal Party. At my old high school the Liberal vote was higher than the Nationals vote and heaps higher than the Labor vote obviously and that’s a rural school (not even in Port itself).
Peta Pinson should focus on being Mayor and let Leslie Williams focus on state politics.
@ np it clearly states a seat without a member. The nats only ran here as it was a Nat seat prior to her switching parties. Therefore the nats can’t run as per the handshake agreement. And it was more in line with the federal seats as in NSW there is no FPV. Though I think liberals should perhaps run in Ballina as the nats are getting nowhere and I don’t think they will ever again
@John oh okay yeah that makes sense.
Ballina is also tricky because of the hippie culture of the seat. If that dies down then it’s winnable. That’s the only reason it’s a Greens seat.
@np Yea a good idea would be for liberal and Labor to get together and preference each other to defeat the greens especially since the greens will become a threat to Labor in Lismore so a quid pro quo arrangement could be in order
@John Coalition voters already preference Labor over the Greens.
Lismore is also more Legalise Cannabis than Greens now.
@np not all some tactically vote green to damage Labor. I do it though it makes no difference where I live. And sometimes libs do a put Labor last like in vic
Essentially this is what the vote total looked like in 2023, if the Nationals didn’t contest and only the Liberals did:
Coalition: 65.1% (+1.5%)
Labor: 19.2% (–4.0%)
Greens: 6.5% (–1.3%)
Then rest is others.
On a TPP basis, I would estimate something like:
Coalition: 72.4% (+2.1%)
Labor: 27.6% (–2.1%)
This would make Port Macquarie a very safe Liberal seat on a 22.4% margin, making it the fourth-safest Coalition seat in the NSW Legislative Assembly (behind only the very safe Nationals seats of Bathurst, Cootamundra and Northern Tablelands) and the safest Liberal seat in NSW.
As for if Leslie Williams recontests in 2027: I hope she does as she is a good local member and I’ve even met her before.
John alp and liberals prefencing each other will
Not occur. Greens will be a
Better alternative as far as
Labor are concerned