Gilmore – Australia 2016

LIB 3.8%

Incumbent MP
Ann Sudmalis, since 2013.

Geography
Gilmore covers parts of the south coast and the southern Illawarra. This includes the entirety of the City of Shoalhaven and Kiama LGA, and northern parts of the Eurobodalla council area. The southernmost significant settlement is Moruya.

Map of Gilmore's 2013 and 2016 boundaries. 2013 boundaries marked as red lines, 2016 boundaries marked as white area. Click to enlarge.
Map of Gilmore’s 2013 and 2016 boundaries. 2013 boundaries marked as red lines, 2016 boundaries marked as white area. Click to enlarge.

Redistribution
Gilmore expanded south, taking in Batemans Bay and Moruya from Eden-Monaro, and lost Shell Cove, Shellharbour and Barrack Heights to Whitlam. These changes increased the Liberal margin from 2.7% to 3.8%.

History
Gilmore was created in 1984 when the House of Representatives was expanded in 1984. The seat was first held by the National Party’s John Sharp until 1993, when he moved to the nearby seat of Hume. Sharp served in the first Howard cabinet until he resigned over the travel rorts affair in 1997.

The seat was won by the ALP’s Peter Knott in 1993, and he was defeated by Joanna Gash of the Liberal Party in 1996. The  seat was considered marginal after the 1996 and 1998 elections, but a large swing in 2001 saw Gash hold the seat by a much larger margin. This was cut back to a margin of about 4% in 2007.

Gilmore’s boundaries were redrawn before the 2010 election, making the seat a notional Labor seat. Gash gained a 5.7% swing.

Gash announced her impending retirement in 2012, and was elected as the directly-elected Mayor of Shoalhaven.

In 2013, Gash was succeeded by Liberal candidate Ann Sudmalis, who won despite a 2.7% swing to Labor.

Candidates

Assessment
Gilmore is a marginal seat, and certainly could be one to fall at this election, but there are reasons to doubt that Gilmore will swing as strongly as other marginal seats. The current margin is the result of the swing to Labor in 2013, while most of the country was swinging away from Labor. With the retirement of Joanna Gash in 2013, the Liberal Party was weakened – they should now benefit from Sudmalis’ personal vote. And despite this seat often being marginal (and sometimes being drawn as a notional Labor seat), the Liberal Party has managed to hold on consistently since 1996.

Polls

  • 53% to Liberal – Reachtel commissioned by NSW Teachers Federation, 19 April 2016
  • 51% to Liberal – Galaxy commissioned by Daily Telegraph, 11 May 2016
  • 53% to Labor – Reachtel commissioned by NSW Teachers Federation, 20 June 2016

2013 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Ann Sudmalis Liberal 41,726 46.0 -4.9 46.9
Neil Ernest Reilly Labor 31,789 35.1 -0.1 34.6
Terry Barratt Greens 8,438 9.3 -0.3 9.1
Lyndal Gai Harris Palmer United Party 5,726 6.3 +6.3 6.1
Steve Ryan Christian Democratic Party 3,030 3.3 +0.7 2.9
Others 0.4
Informal 4,946 5.5

2013 two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Ann Sudmalis Liberal 47,758 52.7 -2.7 53.8
Neil Ernest Reilly Labor 42,951 47.4 +2.7 46.2
Polling places in Gilmore at the 2013 federal election. Batemans Bay in red, Jervis Bay in yellow, Kiama in orange, Nowra in green, Ulladulla in blue. Click to enlarge.
Polling places in Gilmore at the 2013 federal election. Batemans Bay in red, Jervis Bay in yellow, Kiama in orange, Nowra in green, Ulladulla in blue. Click to enlarge.

Booth breakdown
Booths in Gilmore have been divided into five areas. Polling places in Eurobodalla and Kiama council areas have been grouped along council boundaries. Those polling places in Shoalhaven have been divided in three. From north to south these are: Nowra, Jervis Bay and Ulladulla.

The Liberal Party won a majority in four out of five areas, ranging from 51% in Kiama and Jervis Bay to 55% in Nowra. The ALP won a slim 50.5% majority in Batemans Bay (which covers those booths redistributed from Eden-Monaro).

The Greens came third, with a vote ranging from 7.4% in Batemans Bay to 14% in Kiama.

Voter group GRN % LIB 2PP % Total votes % of votes
Nowra 8.9 54.7 17,920 19.0
Batemans Bay 7.4 49.5 10,150 10.7
Jervis Bay 8.0 51.0 10,293 10.9
Kiama 13.7 50.9 8,408 8.9
Ulladulla 10.8 52.1 7,643 8.1
Other votes 8.7 55.0 40,045 42.4
Two-party-preferred votes in Gilmore at the 2013 federal election.
Two-party-preferred votes in Gilmore at the 2013 federal election.
Greens primary votes in Gilmore at the 2013 federal election.
Greens primary votes in Gilmore at the 2013 federal election.
Two-party-preferred votes in Nowra at the 2013 federal election.
Two-party-preferred votes in Nowra at the 2013 federal election.
Greens primary votes in Nowra at the 2013 federal election.
Greens primary votes in Nowra at the 2013 federal election.

124 COMMENTS

  1. Do not write off this electorate just yet. Last eat Reachtel put the electorate on a 53-47 ALP win. Also worth mentioning that Bill Shorten will be visiting this electorate on Tuesday the 28th of June. This will be the first time that a Labor federal leader has visited the electorate since Paul Keating. Clearly ALP head quarters has picked up significant interest in this electorate

  2. Katherine you let the cat out of the bag re Bill’s visit. The they Lib fan club would just assume he is visiting your lovely region just to enjoy the scenery. We of course know better. Go Fiona!

  3. @Katherine, they could well pick it up. A 3.8% margin is by no means insurmountable. All I’m saying is that the odds are not in their favour.

    For clarification here are all the polls for Gilmore:
    19 April: 53 – 47 LIB
    11 May: 51 – 49 LIB
    June 20: 53 – 47 ALP
    June 25: 51 – 49 LIB

    3/4 have the Libs leading here. Granted it is very close so small variations could easily change these results but this is still significant. But who really knows? Seat polls are notorious for their inaccuracy. It will be interesting come election day to compare our predictions with the final result.

  4. wreathy…… the polls if right show a trend labor’s way………. but as you said mor makes difference

  5. Quite the contrary guys. Katherine’s points are entirely reasonable. A seat with a margin of 3.8%, that has not been on the Lab radar for donkey’s years. And now in play?

    We need to rethink our notions of what is doable in this election. As I have said before, expect the unexpected.

  6. Placido
    Obviously i regard economic issues as being paramount in ANY federal election, so i’m hardly going to resile from the views i’ve put forward. Labor’s economic policy is a shambles, as i’ve demonstrated.

    WRT the NBN. Like many others you are very passionate about it, & it is a very complex subject WRT options, & outcomes.

    Do you have any interest of the cost /value / return on investment of the NBN ??

    Or do you simply want, & believe in getting the “best possible” regardless ??.

    Do you think technological advances will create rapid obsolescence ??

    Are you aware, & do you have any interest in, that the ENTIRE project , & cost is treated as an asset , & therefore off the fed “balance sheet”.???

    Therefore we will only know what it has really cost when it is on sold !!!.

    It is also worth remembering that Telstra would have built the whole thing, at no public cost, & it probably would have been completed by now,if Stephen Conroy was not such a lunatic. Sol Trujillo just couldn’t negotiate with him.

  7. Just quietly. You will find this electorate is a good case study as to what has happened to NBN policy. Most of the Kiama LGA received NBN under the previous labor government. The rest of the electorate is receiving NBN under the current LNP government and there is a noticeable difference in Internet access etc. Its clearly an under the radar issue here.

  8. Excellent point Katherine. The other issue of course is the flawed analogy that Nodes and copper are appropriate for Australia’s future. At some point a future government be it Lab or Lib will be cursing Abbott/Turnbull re the cost of decommissioning their mistake and replacing it with fibre.

    We are currently 60th in world internet speed wise. It used to be 30th. When do we act, say 999???

  11. Prediction: Will be close, Sudmalis doesn’t seem like a great MP but is still unlikely to lose

  12. I think that is a reasonable assumption. Certainly Sudmalis is not coming across well to the electorate. It is evident that a swing against LNP is on in this electorate. Whether that swing is big enough, remains to be seen. However when you look at the history of this electorate, many have said that it traditionally isn’t volatile. The previous labor candidate for Gilmore ran three times. He isn’t necessarily controversial but was never good at campaigning in the electorate and only was known in the Kiama LGA as a councillor (10% of the electors) – Fiona Phillips draws her popularity in the Shoalhaven LGA which represents the bulk of the electorate.

  13. If the ALP do not win this seat, they probably never will. It wouldn’t surprise me if in the event that Sudmalis does get re-elected, that she does not run again for re-election in 2019 because the local Liberal branches are running scared right now.

  14. If liberal win this 2016 gilmore seat that be 30 years in office here so people dont blame labour if nothing much is done in this area.

  16. Katherine, Neil Riley the previous labor candidate ran 3 times as you said steadily reducing the LNP margin, he was becoming known in the area. Having said that Fiona is a remarkable grass roots campaigner, she has visited every village on the South Coast boosting her visibility. An observation from a week on pre polling is that the number of labor intending voters has increased significantly over pre polling in 2013. Note: an observation not an exit poll. Labor’s presence is much higher now and ALP membership in the area has grown significantly with energetic people since 2013.

  18. Still very close at the moment, Labor have done very well. According to the ABC’s projections last night however, the Libs will hold here with about a 1% buffer.

  20. Certainly hopeful. The margin is a few hundred votes. Interesting to see how the polling stations in council boundary areas voted differently. The above average swing certainly occurred.

  21. Wreathy…. the margin has shrunk to from 405 votes to 321 votes after counting resumed today 85% counted. Hardly a 1% buffer at this point closer to .36%
    1% is about 890 votes.

    Cheers

  22. It is only roughly 80% counted. The shrink from 401 to 321 is because the AEC found 50 votes counted for Ann Sudmalis which should have been counted as informal.

  23. A lot is spoken about ” Sophomore Surge”

    Sophomore Surge was clearly missing in Gilmore as the results are showing, pretty much line ball with the”old” margin.

  24. @Placido perhaps you should wait before jumping the gun – the margin is now 1000 votes or so, about 0.5%. All I was saying is that the ABC had it on about 51% on election night based on their projections. With more counting to come, I expect that Antony Green was bang-on 😉

« Older Comments

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here