Bennelong – Australia 2025

LIB 0.1%

Incumbent MP
Jerome Laxale (Labor), since 2022.

• Geography
• Redistribution
• History
• Candidates
• Assessment
• 2022 results
• Booth breakdown
• Results maps

Geography
Bennelong covers western parts of the north shore of Sydney. The seat covers the entirety of the Ryde, Lane Cove and Hunter’s Hill council areas, along with small parts of the Willoughby and Parramatta council areas. Main suburbs in the seat are Ryde, Eastwood, Gladesville, Hunters Hill and Lane Cove.

Redistribution
Bennelong shifted east, gaining the Lane Cove and Hunter’s Hill council areas from the abolished seat of North Sydney, along with a small part of the Willoughby council area. To compensate, Bennelong lost most of the suburbs within the City of Parramatta, namely Ermington and Epping. These changes flipped the seat’s margin from 1.0% for Labor to 0.1% for Liberal. With the uncertainty in estimating vote for each part of an electorate, it is not possible to be certain as to whether this is a notional Labor or Liberal seat, but my estimate came out as Liberal 0.1%.

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 were later added to 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 and retired in 2022.

Bennelong was narrowly won in 2022 by Labor candidate Jerome Laxale, a former mayor of Ryde.

Candidates

Assessment
Bennelong is an extremely marginal seat. The seat could easily go to either Labor or Liberal. It would be easy to assume that any swing to the Liberal Party nationally would see this seat flip, but the loss of Liberal Party incumbency in this electorate could see this seat buck the trend. Laxale now has a personal vote (admittedly just for the two thirds of the seat contained in Bennelong back in 2022), and the entire seat (both the areas previously contained in Bennelong and North Sydney) no longer has a personal vote for a sitting Liberal MP that was defending each seat in 2022. The third of the electorate added from North Sydney has also had an independent MP representing the area for three years which may benefit Laxale in a close race.

2022 result

2022 two-party-preferred result

Booth breakdown

Polling places in Bennelong have been split into three parts. Polling places in Hunters Hill, Lane Cove and Willoughby council areas have been grouped as “east”, while the rest of the electorate was split into north-west and south-west.

The Liberal Party won 51.5% of the two-party-preferred vote in the east, while Labor won 50.9% in the south-west and 52.1% in the north-west.

The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 8.2% in the east to 12.1% in the north-west. Independent candidate Kylea Tink polled 23.6% of the vote in the east of the electorate, which lines up with the former North Sydney boundaries.

Election results in Bennelong at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, Labor and the Greens.

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