NAT 16.4%
Incumbent MP
Michael McCormack, since 2010.
Geography
South-Western NSW. The seat stretches from Wagga Wagga and Lockhart in the south to Parkes and Forbes in the north, and also covers Cootamundra, Young, Cowra, Gundagai, Grenfell, Junee and Temora.
History
Riverina is an original federation electorate, although it was renamed as ‘Riverina-Darling’ from 1984 until 1993. It has been dominated by conservative parties, namely the Country/National Party since its emergence in the 1920s. Having said that, the ALP has managed to win the seat on a number of occasions, most recently in 1977.
The seat was first won in 1901 by Protectionist candidate John Chanter, who had been a member of the State Parliament since 1885. At the 1903 election, Free Trade candidate Robert Blackwood defeated Chanter by five votes. An appeal saw the result overturned, and Chanter won the ensuing by-election in 1904.
Chanter continued to serve as a Protectionist until 1909, when he refused to support the Fusion of conservative parties to form the Liberal Party, and instead joined the Labor Party. He managed to win reelection for the ALP in 1910, but lost his seat in 1913 to Liberal candidate Franc Falkiner. Chanter again managed to win the seat back in 1914, and Falkiner went on to serve one term as Member for Hume from 1917 to 1919.
Chanter left the ALP in 1916 over the issue of conscription and joined the new Nationalist Party. He held the seat for them until 1922, when he was defeated by William Killen, candidate for the new Country Party.
Killen held Riverina for the Country Party until his retirement in 1931, when he was succeeded by Horace Nock. Nock served as a Minister in the Menzies government in 1940, but lost his seat later that year to ALP candidate Joseph Langtry.
Langtry was re-elected in 1943 and 1946 before losing Riverina to the Country Party’s Hugh Roberton in 1949.
Roberton held Riverina for sixteen years. He was made Minister for Social Services in 1956, serving in that role until 1965, when he left Parliament to become Australia’s Ambassador to Ireland. The ensuing by-election was won by Adam Armstrong, who held the seat until 1969, when he lost to the ALP’s Al Grassby.
Grassby was appointed Minister for Immigration following the election of the Whitlam Labor government in 1972, and was a fierce advocate of multiculturalism in the role, however he failed to win reelection in 1974, losing Riverina to the Country Party’s John Sullivan.
Sullivan held Riverina for two terms, losing to the ALP’s John FitzPatrick in 1977. FitzPatrick lost in 1980 to the National Country Party’s Noel Hicks.
Hicks held Riverina for most of the next two decades. The seat was renamed Riverina-Darling in 1984 but reverted to its original name in 1993. Hicks retired in 1998, and the Nationals candidate Kay Hull retained the seat. Hull held the seat from 1998 until her retirement in 2010.
In 2010, Nationals candidate Michael McCormack. was elected. The Liberal Party challenged for the Nationals seat, but only managed 16.5% and failed to overtake the Labor candidate. McCormack was re-elected in 2013 and 2016, and became Nationals leader and Deputy Prime Minister in early 2018.
Candidates
- Michael McCormack (Nationals)
- Michael Bayles (Greens)
- Mark Jeffreson (Labor)
- Richard Foley (United Australia)
Assessment
Riverina is a safe Nationals seat.
2016 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Michael Mccormack | Nationals | 56,581 | 57.2 | +15.4 |
| Tim Kurylowicz | Labor | 25,244 | 25.5 | +3.8 |
| Richard Foley | Independent | 6,058 | 6.1 | +6.1 |
| Kevin Poynter | Greens | 4,444 | 4.5 | +0.8 |
| Glenn O’Rourke | Family First | 3,386 | 3.4 | +3.4 |
| Philip Langfield | Christian Democratic Party | 3,207 | 3.2 | +1.5 |
| Informal | 4,784 | 4.6 |
2016 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Michael Mccormack | Nationals | 65,719 | 66.4 | -2.6 |
| Tim Kurylowicz | Labor | 33,201 | 33.6 | +2.6 |
Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into four parts:
- East – Cootamundra, Cowra, Gundagai, Harden, Weddin and Young council areas
- North – Forbes and Parkes council areas
- South – Lockhart and Wagga Wagga council areas
- West – Bland, Coolamon, Junee and Temora council areas
The Nationals won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all four aras, ranging fro
| Voter group | NAT 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| South | 63.3 | 26,160 | 26.4 |
| East | 62.1 | 17,013 | 17.2 |
| West | 74.0 | 10,454 | 10.6 |
| North | 68.5 | 9,877 | 10.0 |
| Other votes | 68.5 | 8,662 | 8.8 |
| Pre-poll | 67.9 | 26,754 | 27.0 |
Two-party-preferred votes in Cook at the 2016 federal election
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God this guy is an idiot. Sooner he is gone the better.
Riverina is really dumb name for this electorate, it should have been changed years ago. So Gundagai is a Labor town. Who’d have thought….
Maybe the last Labor candidate was from Gundi? 22 and 24% swings to Labor in those two booths – must have come from somewhere…
The Labor candidate is from Wagga, so that can’t be it.
PJ
Interesting idea
the council amalgamations shifted Gundagai from solid np to solid Alp….. this was repeated even more so in the Cootamundra byelection.
Riverina used to contain…… the towns of the Murrumbidgee irrigation area…….then extend elsewhere……… either to Broken Hill or along the murray river. Farrrer used to be Wagga and Albury…….. ……. Hume used to be yass, cootamunda, young, Grenfell etc….. now again there are bits and pieces electorates which tend not to put big towns together…. and ignore communities of interest for the sake of mathematical precision
Severe resistance to council mergers seems like the correct theory; the swing in Gundagai is similar to that in Tumbarumba.
It might also be the legacy of the Sheahans who represented that area in state parliament until 1988. Labor used to do a lot better in regional NSW but outside the Hunter, now you just have a few scattered “Labor towns”.
I seem to remember the Liberals proposing renaming this seat to Bradman a few years ago, which I thought was a reasonable proposal. I believe Labor has proposed it for the chopping block a few times as well. Certainly it would be good to see the name discontinued, and hopefully the Committee’s enthusiasm for removing geographical names (even Federation ones sometimes) in Victoria will be replicated at the next NSW redistribution as well, although obviously Werriwa is priority number one there.
With the result in Wagga Wagga how safe is the Deputy Prime Minister???
Pretty safe. Joe McGirr was very well known locally and actually got a lower primary vote in the byelection than he did in 2011. It’s harder for someone to get a local reputation across a federal electorate.
I’m not ruling out a whole swag of Cathy McGowan types emerging across the country, but none of the campaigns would be easy.
Also the fact that it was a Liberal and not a National running in Wagga Wagga makes a difference. Local nationals actually handed out for McGirr, just like they handed out for Cathy McGowan when she first ran.
Liberal candidate Donald Mackay was murdered in 1977 in the car park of a Griffiths hotel but this in s not mentioned above which surprises me. A friend of mine who managed Tooths hotels in NSW shortly after the murder was approached by the Griffiths hotel licencee who wanted to give up his hotel licence following the stress of the murder. My friend said he would find a replacement but when he report this to his superiors at Tooths they said dont worry we will find a replacement. The replacement was Sydney crook the late Abe Saffron. My friend decided it was time to move on. Griffiths was now truly multiculturally diverse as they has both Italian Mafia and Jewish Mafia running the drug trade. I had a relative trying to run a legitimate business in Griffiths at this time too and they sold up and move away from Griffiths because they were hassled by the Dago Mafia.
Michael McCormack should safely retain his seat. As for his leadership? Well that’s another matter with some Queensland Nationals getting very angst about the next election and some agitating for a change back to Barnaby Joyce. A change of National party leadership before the election will only tap in the narrative of chaos and dysfunction but for some worried National party mps that does not seem to matter.
If Barnaby comes back as leader and Deputy PM, The National’s will do far worse than what they would do with McCormack, That child scandal will demolish joyce and the national’s and may even hurt Morrison and the liberal’s itself
McCormack on the ropes,following recent disasters
Joyce waiting in the wings ready to pounce
It will be a case of which National will be left standing. I can see the Nationals as the biggest loser from this Federal Election and it won’t surprise me if Barnaby does not win his seat.
Bring Back Barnaby…….. almost like swear words…….. he will be pushed to hold New England……..
he might not even be able to contest the leadership after the election
yes mate could have more in the senate than the reps if all went bad what is a majority of 8