ALP 2.2%
Incumbent MP
Susan Templeman, since 2016.
Geography
Macquarie covers the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury council areas, including the towns of Katoomba, Blaxland, Wentworth Falls, Lawson, Richmond, Windsor and Kurrajong.
History
Macquarie is a federation seat, and has always sat to the west of Sydney and covered the Blue Mountains, although its boundaries have shifted. It has tended to be a marginal seat, although in recent decades it has not always swung with the national trend.
The seat was first won by the Free Trade party in 1901, and they held it for two terms before Ernest Carr won it in 1906 for Labor. Carr held the seat until 1917, when he was defeated for reelection after leaving the ALP in late 1916 to join the Nationalist Party. The ALP held the seat again from 1917 until 1922, when the Nationalist Party won back the seat. Arthur Manning was reelected in 1925 against future Prime Minister Ben Chifley, who defeated Manning on a second attempt in 1928.
Chifley held the seat for two terms before losing to John Lawson of the United Australia Party in 1931. Lawson was reelected in 1934 and 1937 before Chifley defeated him in 1940. Chifley went on to serve as a senior Minister under John Curtin and became Prime Minister in 1945. He lost the Prime Ministership in 1949, then led his party in Opposition. He was reelected in Macquarie at the 1951 double dissolution before dying a few weeks later.
The seat was won in 1951 by Anthony Luchetti, a longstanding Labor activist in Macquarie. Luchetti had been Chifley’s campaign manager during his first stint in Macquarie in the 1920s, but stood as a Lang Labor candidate at the 1931 election. The split Labor vote saw the UAP win the seat in a slim margin. Luchetti held the seat from 1951 until his retirement in 1975.
The Liberal Party won the seat in 1975 in the person of Reg Gillard, who was defeated by the ALP’s Ross Free in 1980. The 1984 redistribution saw Free move to the new seat of Lindsay, and the Liberal Party’s Alasdair Webster won Macquarie.
Webster lost the seat in 1993 to Maggie Deahm of the ALP, who lost the seat herself in 1996 to Kerry Bartlett. Bartlett made the seat fairly safe over the next decade before the 2007 redistribution saw Bartlett defeated by the long-serving state MP and Minister Bob Debus. Debus went straight into Kevin Rudd’s ministry as Minister for Home Affairs. Debus resigned from the ministry in June 2009 in anticipation of his retirement from politics at the next election.
At the 2010 election the seat’s boundaries were shifted back to the boundaries in 2004. Louise Markus, who held Greenway in 2007 when it covered Hawkesbury council, chose to run for Macquarie instead, and won the seat with a 1.3% margin. Markus was re-elected in 2010 and 2013.
Markus lost in 2016 to Labor’s Susan Templeman.
Candidates
Assessment
Macquarie is a very marginal seat but Templeman should benefit from a personal vote which will give her a boost.
2016 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Louise Markus | Liberal | 34,946 | 38.2 | -9.2 |
| Susan Templeman | Labor | 32,480 | 35.5 | +4.5 |
| Terry Morgan | Greens | 10,257 | 11.2 | +0.1 |
| Catherine Lincoln | Christian Democratic Party | 3,567 | 3.9 | +0.9 |
| Jake Grizelj | Shooters, Fishers and Farmers | 3,550 | 3.9 | +3.9 |
| Hal Jon Ginges | Animal Justice | 2,554 | 2.8 | +2.8 |
| Carl Halley | Liberty Alliance | 1,693 | 1.9 | +1.9 |
| Liz Cooper | Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party | 1,653 | 1.8 | +1.8 |
| Olya Shornikov | Liberal Democrats | 752 | 0.8 | +0.8 |
| Informal | 6,389 | 6.5 |
2016 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Susan Templeman | Labor | 47,733 | 52.2 | +6.7 |
| Louise Markus | Liberal | 43,719 | 47.8 | -6.7 |
Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into three parts. The Macquarie electorate is clearly divided between the Hawkesbury and the Blue Mountains. There is also clear divisions between the upper and lower mountains.
Labor won solid majorities in the lower and upper Blue Mountains – 57.4% of the two-party-preferred vote in the former and 68.8% in the latter.
The Liberal Party won almost 59% in the Hawkesbury.
The Greens primary vote ranged from 5% in Hawkesbury to 20.3% in the upper mountains.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| Hawkesbury | 5.0 | 41.1 | 27,716 | 30.3 |
| Lower Mountains | 13.3 | 57.4 | 19,159 | 20.9 |
| Upper Mountains | 20.3 | 68.8 | 14,706 | 16.1 |
| Other votes | 11.9 | 48.9 | 9,848 | 10.8 |
| Pre-poll | 10.9 | 52.0 | 20,023 | 21.9 |
Election results in Macquarie at the 2016 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and Greens primary votes.
Glenbrook
My original 1500 was a wild guess assuming that a substantial number of the outstanding postals will not be received whereas the 2183 is the maximum possible number based o the number sent but not yet received and the number received but not yet added -971. I think my original guess of 1500 will prove pretty close as i doubt that many more than 600 will be received in the two days remaining.
Now I have no idea about the way the ballots moved over time – i thought that the ABC always had ALP ahead.
I first saw hawkeye comment about a 27 vote difference but when I looked the next day it was 284 so i suspect that there may have been a posting error or they posted early mid some form of recount.
Possibly they had NOT counted all the absentees which heavily favoured the ALP. This is not at all surprising – they always do. However to be more precise the absentees favoured the GREENs and to a lesser extent UAP. Not the ALP machine at work but a reflection of younger more mobile people and the booths in the CBD
The poster blaming everything on “the machine” has been wearing a tinfoil hat throughout.
We had the nice man from Telstra/NBNco playing in the pits outside yesterday and as a result the internet is even flakier than usual. I haven’t had the patience to wait for websites to load! So say the total vote to allocate is around 2183 (on 100,576 allocated 2PP so far, I did have that noted down) – Richards would need almost 30% of the remaining vote to get back on top. I think even Andrew might agree it’s a bridge too far. A bit more than 18% on the other hand would bring the gap under 100 and trigger a recount.
Glen
There is definitely Something odd going on – I suspect just not all links are being updated regularly.
Anyway although I definitely saw 971 postals received but not counted when I posted earlier NOW there are only 308, but the number of votes counted has stayed the same. It makes the chances of templeman being overtaken very slim indeed. There are about 1400 postals still to be received and couted and about 700 of the others .
At this stage i would say all over red rover.
311 atm, and counting has been put off until Monday as the window for postal votes has closed.
Above – meant to say 30% and 18% more than evens. Obvious enough, but I missed it at the time.
Glenbrook Local – Can confirm that the count of 27, at the time of writing, was correct. It has now jumped out.
There are still a number of Postal Votes to be “received” but if that window has closed, then I think Templemann has “won” the seat. Don’t be surprised if this goes to a re-count, especially given how much the margin has flipped backwards and forwards.
Labor has claimed victory, Antony Green’s computer declares Labor retain.
Templeman has announced victory. She’s promised to work with people who didn’t vote Labor, which could be interesting. Someone up-thread mentioned “cashed-up tradies” with a pro-development mindset – how’s that gonna work? There are possibilities, but the blinkers will need to be taken off on all sides.