Kingsford Smith – Australia 2016

ALP 2.7%

Incumbent MP
Matt Thistlethwaite, since 2013. Previously Senator for New South Wales 2011-2013.

Geography
South-eastern Sydney. Kingsford Smith covers southern parts of the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, including all of Botany Council and most of Randwick Council. Kingsford Smith includes the suburbs of Coogee, Randwick, Maroubra, Mascot, Malabar and Kensington.

Redistribution
No change.

History
Kingsford Smith was first created for the 1949 election after the House of Representatives was expanded. The seat has always been held by the ALP, originally being a marginal seat in its early years before gradually becoming safer, and it has been solidly safe since at least the 1960s.

Gordon Anderson (ALP) won the seat in 1949 with a bare 50.9% margin over the Liberal Party, and only won a 50.5% margin upon reelection in 1951. Anderson won with 54.2% in 1954, before retiring in 1955.

The seat was won in 1955 by Daniel Curtin (ALP), who had previously held the seat of Watson since 1949. Curtin won in 1955 with 55% of the vote, and the seat’s has only dipped below 5% once since 1955, in the 1966 landslide.

Curtin held the seat until 1969, and in that time solidified the ALP’s hold on the seat, but was almost defeated at his last election in 1966.

Curtin retired in 1969 and was succeeded by the state member for Randwick, Lionel Bowen, who won the seat with a margin over 10% for the first time. Bowen was a minister in the Whitlam government and became a senior member of the ALP in opposition in the late 1970s.

Bowen served as Deputy Prime Minister for the first three terms of the Hawke government, from 1983 until his retirement at the 1990 election.

He was succeeded in 1990 by Laurie Brereton. Brereton had briefly succeeded Bowen as member for Randwick from 1970 until the seat was abolished in 1971, when he moved to the seat of Heffron. Brereton served as a minister in the Wran and Unsworth governments before switching to the federal arena in 1990, after the Liberals won a landslide victory in New South Wales.

Brereton served as a federal minister in the final term of the Keating government and served as Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1996 until 2001, when he moved to the backbench.

In 2004 Brereton retired and was succeeded by Peter Garrett, former lead singer of Midnight Oil and President of the Australian Conservation Foundation. Garrett had also previously run for the Nuclear Disarmament Party in the Senate at the 1984 election, losing due to the Labor and Liberal parties preferencing each other over the NDP.

Garrett joined the ALP frontbench upon the election of Kevin Rudd as Labor leader in late 2006. Garrett served as Environment Minister in the first term of the Labor government, and as Minister for School Education from 2010 to 2013.

Peter Garrett retired in 2013, and he was replaced in Kingsford Smith by Matt Thistlethwaite, who had served as a Labor senator since 2011.

Candidates

• Matt Thistlethwaite (Labor)
• James Macdonald (Greens)
• Andrew Weatherstone (Christian Democratic Party)
• Michael Feneley (Liberal)
• Andrea Leong (Science Party)

Assessment
Kingsford Smith is very marginal, but Thistlethwaite should be in a position to claw back Labor’s position thanks to his personal vote. Combined with a likely swing back to Labor in New South Wales, this should put Kingsford Smith out of reach for the Liberal Party.

2013 result

2013 two-party-preferred result

Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into three areas. Booths in the City of Botany Bay have been grouped together. Booths in the City of Randwick have been split between Coogee in the north and Maroubra in the south.

The ALP won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 52.6% in Coogee to 58.2% in Botany. The Liberal Party won a slim majority of the two-party-preferred vote amongst the other votes.

The Greens vote ranged from 5.9% in Botany to 13.6% in Coogee.