LIB 15.4%
Incumbent MP
Scott Morrison, since 2007.
Geography
Southern Sydney, Cook covers parts of the Sutherland Shire and the St George area. Suburbs in Sutherland include Cronulla, Sylvania, Miranda, Gymea, Caringbah and Taren Point. Suburbs in the St George area include Sans Souci, Ramsgate, Sandringham, Monterey, Beverley Park, Kogarah Bay, Kyle Bay and Blakehurst.
History
Cook was first created for the 1969 election. The suburbs around the current seat of Cook were first included in the seat of Illawarra from federation until the 1922 election, when it was transferred to Werriwa, when Werriwa was a large rural seat covering areas south of Sydney. The seat of Hughes was created in 1955, which was the first seat based in Sutherland. Cook was then created in 1969. This used the same name as an earlier seat based in inner Sydney, which had been a safe Labor seat before its abolition in 1955.
For the previous sixty years the seat covering Sutherland had been mostly held by the Labor Party, although Hughes was lost to Liberal candidate Don Dobie in 1966, and Cook has been held by the Liberals for most of its existence.
Dobie transferred to Cook in 1969, but was defeated by Labor’s Ray Thorburn in 1972. Thorburn was defeated by Dobie in 1975 and Dobie held the seat until his retirement in 1996.
Dobie was succeeded by Stephen Mutch, a member of the NSW upper house, in 1996, and Mutch was defeated for preselection by Bruce Baird in 1998. Baird had previously been a state MP and Minister for Transport from 1988 to 1995, as well as taking charge of Sydney’s Olympic big up to 1993.
Baird held the seat for nine years, during which time he developed a reputation as an independent-minded Liberal backbencher who was occasionally critical of the Howard government.
Baird announced his retirement at the 2007 election, and the Liberal preselection was originally won by Michael Towke. Towke’s preselection was overturned amid allegations of branch stacking in a controversial contest, and he was replaced by the former director of the NSW Liberal Party, Scott Morrison.
Morrison won the seat in 2007, and has been re-elected three times. Morrison served as a senior minister in the coalition government from 2013 until he became Prime Minister in 2018.
Candidates
- Scott Morrison (Liberal)
- Peter Kelly (Conservative National)
- Simon O’Brien (Labor)
- Gaye Cameron (One Nation)
- Jon Doig (Greens)
- Roger Bolling (Christian Democratic Party)
- John Neil McSweyn (United Australia)
Assessment
Cook is a safe Liberal seat.
2016 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Scott Morrison | Liberal | 53,321 | 58.3 | -1.4 |
| David Atkins | Labor | 24,283 | 26.6 | +0.4 |
| Nathan Hunt | Greens | 6,198 | 6.8 | +0.9 |
| George Capsis | Christian Democratic Party | 4,430 | 4.8 | +2.9 |
| John Brett | Independent | 3,153 | 3.5 | +3.5 |
| Informal | 4,983 | 5.2 |
2016 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Scott Morrison | Liberal | 59,760 | 65.4 | -0.3 |
| David Atkins | Labor | 31,625 | 34.6 | +0.3 |
Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into five parts named after key suburbs. All of the booths in the St George area have been grouped as “Sans Souci”. Those in the Sutherland Shire have been split between Sylvania in the north, Cronulla in the east, Gymea-Miranda in the south-west and Caringbah in the centre.
The Liberal Party won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all five areas, ranging from 59.7% in Sans Souci to 70.5% in Caringbah.
| Voter group | LIB 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| Sans Souci | 59.7 | 16,218 | 17.7 |
| Caringbah | 70.5 | 14,133 | 15.5 |
| Gymea-Miranda | 63.8 | 14,029 | 15.4 |
| Cronulla | 66.0 | 12,487 | 13.7 |
| Sylvania | 69.1 | 7,750 | 8.5 |
| Other votes | 65.1 | 11,896 | 13.0 |
| Pre-poll | 66.2 | 14,872 | 16.3 |
Two-party-preferred votes in Cook at the 2016 federal election
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but the boundaries of this seat could be compact and sensible and solely in the shire the areas round San souci should be else where as should those round Connells point.
Hughes could start where cook ends in the shire and extend down the Illawarra
A more than reasonable suggestion as well. The question would be how far do you think Hughes would end up then? I would imagine that it would start eating into Throsby.
Jesus Mick
You actually posted this a few months ago. Then i actually responded to this a few months ago !!.
You really are a stubborn old bugger !!
yes We have room in Sutherland Shire for one seat solely there…. and Hughes the rest of Sutherland shire plus extra now We have no seats solely in Sutherland Shire….. what about community of interest?
The PM was pictured in the Canberra Times online today attending Easter church service and as some religious types do he had his right arm extended up to the heavens and some unkind social media trolls said it looked like a Nazi (1933-1945) salute. This is wrong as Jesus lived in Roman Palestine and it was obviously a Roman salute. If it was at the Olympics it would be an Olympic salute too. These three salutes are all the same.
I’ve actually been to the church that the PM frequents; it’s near my old high school believe it or not! I’ve always found the people there to be quite nice and not at all like Nazis. It’s simply the kind of wild gesticulating that religious types, particularly Pentecostals, like to do.
One Nation’s HTV card has put Labor ahead of the Libs in Cook and placed Fraser Anning’s Party second last.
Interesting strategy…
That is quite surprising actually. Regardless, the Libs will win this one of first preferences anyway.
One nation had a policy of preferencing against sitting members from memory at the last election, maybe they are just continuing with that policy?
No, boatswain1025, that was my initial thoughts too, but they’re preferencing the LNP ahead of Labor in Dawson.
I’d say it’s in retaliation to Scott directing the Libs to preference One Nation last.
The PM, in his ANZAC Day speech, mentioned conflict that the Coalition Government has involved the ADF in since WW2, like South Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, but he forgot to mention the Malaya/Borneo conflicts fight Communist Terrorists (CT’s) in Malaya and Indonesian insurgents in Borneo who were trying to operate in Sabah and Sarawak in the 1950/60’s. These British Commonwealth operations were successful unlike the others involving the Americans he mentioned.
I have no idea then, perhaps the Dawson decision is unique just due to Christensen? I haven’t seen what they’re doing in seats like Capricornia and Flynn with LNP incumbents
One Nation seems to be more a PR outfit than a proper political party. They issue press releases and perform photo ops for the media but do they actually have a proper party organisation with branches on the ground? In the 2017 Qld election they also preferenced against sitting MP’s and LNP seats like Whitsunday and Burdekin should have easily fallen because they were sitting on a knife-edge and there is a huge ON vote in these areas. However the sitting members held on. The preferencing allocation made no difference even in their heartland. I can only surmise, they had no one on the ground handing them out.
Yeah agreed Peterjk, it’ll be the same with the Palmer preference deal I feel. The preferences don’t tend to flow that well when no one is actually handing out HTV cards, especially in Palmer’s case when he has to pay people to do it