LIB 6.9%
Incumbent MP
John Alexander, since 2010.
Geography
Bennelong straddles the north shore and western suburbs of Sydney. The seat covers the entirety of Ryde local government area, as well as Epping, Carlingford and Ermington, from Hornsby and Parramatta council areas. Main suburbs in the seat are Ryde, Epping, Ermington, Eastwood and Gladesville.
History
Bennelong was created in 1949, and was held by only two MPs between then and the 2007 federal election. Bennelong originally covered Ryde, Hunters Hill and Lane Cove, but not areas such as Eastwood and Epping that are now contained within the seat.
Bennelong was first won by John Cramer (LIB) in 1949. Cramer served as Minister for the Army under Robert Menzies from 1956 to 1963. During his time holding Bennelong the seat was never a very safe seat, and in 1961 Cramer only held on by 1832 votes. His largest margin was 15.4% in 1966.
Cramer retired at the 1974 election and was succeeded by John Howard (LIB). Howard went on to serve as a minister under Malcolm Fraser, including as Treasurer from 1977 to 1983. He then served in a variety of roles on the opposition frontbench after 1983, including as two stints as Opposition Leader (1985-1989, 1995-1996). He was elected as Prime Minister in 1996 and served until 2007.
The seat of Bennelong had gradually shifted to the north-west over the decades, taking in Epping. The 1992 redistribution saw the last parts of Lane Cove removed from the seat, and Howard’s margin was cut in 1993. After recovering in 1996 to a margin over 10% it gradually declined to a 4.3% margin in 2004, when the Greens ran high-profile former intelligence officer Andrew Wilkie against Howard.
The 2006 redistribution saw Howard’s margin cut slightly and the ALP decided to target the seat, running former journalist Maxine McKew. McKew won the seat with 51.4% of the two-party vote.
In 2010, McKew was defeated by former tennis champion John Alexander. Alexander was re-elected in 2013 and 2016.
John Alexander was found to be a British dual citizen in 2017, and resigned from his seat to recontest without any citizenship concerns. He was re-elected at that by-election, despite a swing to Labor. Alexander was re-elected in 2019.
Candidates
Sitting Liberal MP John Alexander is not running for re-election.
- John August (Fusion)
- Tony Adams (Greens)
- Dougal Cameron (Liberal Democrats)
- Simon Kennedy (Liberal)
- Rhys Collyer (United Australia)
- Victor Waterson (One Nation)
- Jerome Laxale (Labor)
- Kyinzom Dhongdue (Democratic Alliance)
Assessment
Bennelong has been drifting back to the Liberal Party after being a key seat in 2007 and 2010, but it is still not particularly safe.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| John Alexander | Liberal | 48,942 | 50.8 | +0.4 |
| Brian Owler | Labor | 32,769 | 34.0 | +5.6 |
| Qiu Yue Zhang | Greens | 9,116 | 9.5 | +0.3 |
| Julie Worsley | Christian Democratic Party | 3,588 | 3.7 | -2.7 |
| Andrew Marks | United Australia Party | 1,890 | 2.0 | +2.0 |
| Informal | 5,237 | 5.2 | +0.1 |
2019 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| John Alexander | Liberal | 54,809 | 56.9 | -2.8 |
| Brian Owler | Labor | 41,496 | 43.1 | +2.8 |
Booths have been divided into five parts around the main suburbs of Bennelong: Eastwood, Epping, Gladesville, Ryde and West Ryde.
The Liberal Party won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all five areas, ranging from 53% in West Ryde to 60% in Gladesville.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | LIB 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| Ryde | 9.2 | 56.2 | 14,207 | 14.8 |
| Eastwood | 10.5 | 54.3 | 13,192 | 13.7 |
| West Ryde | 9.4 | 53.0 | 12,083 | 12.5 |
| Epping | 10.3 | 54.5 | 11,444 | 11.9 |
| Gladesville | 9.3 | 60.0 | 8,084 | 8.4 |
| Pre-poll | 8.7 | 58.0 | 24,198 | 25.1 |
| Other votes | 9.6 | 62.2 | 13,097 | 13.6 |
Election results in Bennelong at the 2019 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, Labor and the Greens.
Between expanding into Lane Cove and Hunters Hill (highly surprising if it doesn’t) and a good Liberal pick, it is hard to see Bennelong not returning comfortably to the Liberal camp.
@redistributed agreed. i wouldnt rule out parramatta being picked up by the libs either as it will probably shed cumberland city council and be focused entirely on parramatta picking up the bottom end of mitchell and the western parts of bennelong
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/push-to-dump-liberal-s-chinese-candidate-in-bennelong-20240615-p5jm0l
Well I’m sure this is going to go down well here. This is Josh Frydenberg running in Kooyong all over again. The Libs might just be gifting Jerome Laxale a 2nd term.
It’s not the same because they have 2 preselected candidates and one seat. Either way someone will miss out. It’s more like if they ran Katie Allan for Kooyong which would be quite defensible. Of course it might hurt them in the western end of the seat.
This is an inevitable consequence of preselecting in an area which was bound to have dramatic changes and likely lose one seat.
Why is Scott being replaced? Why can’t Gisele contest Warringah instead? We Liberals need to show that we care about the Chinese community.