NAT 2.4% vs IND
Incumbent MP
Pat Conaghan, since 2019.
Geography
Cowper lies on the mid-north coast of New South Wales, stretching from Port Macquarie to Coffs Harbour. The seat covers the towns of Coffs Harbour, Port Macquarie, South West Rocks, Nambucca Heads, Bellingen and Kempsey.
Redistribution
Cowper slightly contracted on the northern end, losing Korora at the northern fringe of Coffs Harbour to Page. These changes had a minimal effect on the margin.
History
Cowper was an original federation seat, and has almost always been held by conservative parties, with the Country/National Party holding it for all but two years since 1919.
The seat was first held by Francis Clarke of the Protectionist Party, who was defeated by Free Trader Henry Lee in 1903. Lee was defeated by John Thomson in 1906. Thomson first held the seat for the Protectionist Party and held the seat for successive non-Labor parties for the next 13 years.
In 1919, Thomson, then representing the Nationalists, was defeated by Earle Page, who joined the Country Party the next year. Page held the seat for over 40 years.
Page became Country Party leader in 1921 and led the party into government for the first time in 1922, forcing the senior Nationalists to drop Billy Hughes as Prime Minister. He served as Treasurer in the Bruce government until 1929. He also served as a minister in the second and third terms of the Lyons government, and served as acting Prime Minister for three weeks upon Lyons’ death.
Page refused to serve in a government led by Lyons’ deputy Robert Menzies, but the Country Party rebelled and replaced Page with a new leader. Page returned to government in 1940 as a minister, and again served as a minister from 1949 to 1956. Page continued to serve in Parliament until the 1961 election. At that election, he was too ill to campaign and fell into a coma before the election. In a surprise upset, Page was defeat by the ALP’s Frank McGuren, and he died days later.
McGuren only held the seat for one term, which was the only term the ALP has ever held Cowper. He was defeated in 1963 by the Country Party’s Ian Robinson. Robinson transferred to the new seat of Page in 1984, and Garry Nehl won Cowper for the Nationals.
Nehl retired in 2001, and was succeeded by Luke Hartsuyker. Hartsuyker has held the seat ever since.
A redistribution shifted the seat south at the 2016 election, and former independent MP Rob Oakeshott, who previously represented Lyne to the south, contested Cowper and came within 5% of defeating Hartsuyker.
Hartsuyker retired in 2019 and Oakeshott took another shot at the seat, but lost to Nationals candidate Pat Conaghan by a slightly increased margin. Conaghan was re-elected in 2022, again defeating an independent.
- Pat Conaghan (Nationals)
- Wendy Firefly (Greens)
- Caz Heise (Independent)
- Peter Jackel (Family First)
- Greg Vigors (Labor)
- Chris Walsh (One Nation)
Assessment
Cowper is quite a marginal seat but the performance of the independent here is dependent on local issues that might not match the national swings.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Pat Conaghan | Nationals | 43,909 | 39.5 | -7.6 | 39.5 |
| Caz Heise | Independent | 29,206 | 26.3 | +26.3 | 26.2 |
| Keith McMullen | Labor | 15,566 | 14.0 | +0.2 | 14.0 |
| Faye Aspiotis | One Nation | 9,047 | 8.1 | +8.1 | 8.2 |
| Timothy Nott | Greens | 6,518 | 5.9 | -0.1 | 5.9 |
| Simon Chaseling | Liberal Democrats | 4,316 | 3.9 | +3.9 | 3.9 |
| Joshua Fairhall | United Australia | 2,674 | 2.4 | -0.6 | 2.4 |
| Informal | 5,770 | 4.9 | -2.9 |
2022 two-candidate-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Pat Conaghan | Nationals | 58,204 | 52.3 | 52.4 | |
| Caz Heise | Independent | 53,032 | 47.7 | 47.6 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Pat Conaghan | Nationals | 66,153 | 59.5 | -2.4 | 59.5 |
| Keith McMullen | Labor | 45,083 | 40.5 | +2.4 | 40.5 |
Booths have been divided between the five local government areas: Bellingen, Coffs Harbour, Kempsey, Nambucca and Port Macquarie.
The Nationals won a majority of the two-candidate-preferred vote in Port Macquarie-Hastings (50.4%) and Kempsey (58.3%). Independent Caz Heise won 50.3% in Nambucca Valley, 53.8% in Coffs Harbour and 63.5% in Bellingen.
| Voter group | ALP prim | NAT 2CP | Total votes | % of votes |
| Coffs Harbour | 13.7 | 46.2 | 14,957 | 13.7 |
| Port Macquarie-Hastings | 14.5 | 50.4 | 12,322 | 11.3 |
| Kempsey | 15.7 | 58.3 | 8,725 | 8.0 |
| Nambucca Valley | 15.0 | 49.7 | 7,222 | 6.6 |
| Bellingen | 9.6 | 36.5 | 5,984 | 5.5 |
| Pre-poll | 13.6 | 56.3 | 49,031 | 44.9 |
| Other votes | 16.2 | 51.4 | 10,872 | 10.0 |
Election results in Cowper at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-candidate-preferred votes (Nationals vs Independent), two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Nationals, independent candidates and Labor.
Thoughts on this seat? The teal is running a hard campaign but I’m curious to see what everyone else thinks the result will be.
@James Nationals hold. The south votes Nationals and the north voted marginally for the teal. The teal (Caz Heise) did best in Coffs where she’s from. Apparently she now has ads in the movies now though. I feel like that’s kinda overkill.
@np i doubt the coalition will lose any seats
Caz Heise is one of several teal independents who will be re-running this election.
It’ll be interesting to see if she or anyone of them will hold firm or improve their vote with more exposure and experience. She knows her weak areas but at the same time, Pat Conaghan knows his weak areas and strong areas. I expect Labor to run dead. Their votes may or may not flow to Heise.
I don’t think she will improve, it was very different three years ago.
We should start a tally of every seat where it has been mentioned that Labor will ‘run dead’.
Cowper above, Casey the other day and then are the seats where they will – current Teal seats plus Indi, Mayo then Bradfield, Wannon. It almost seems that Labor could ‘run dead’ themselves into oblivion? Who knows what it will do to their senate vote.
Labor ‘running dead’ or ordinarily Labor voters voting for independents to try and defeat the Coalition in unwinnable seats for Labor is the reason Labor’s vote is at a record low of around 30%. If not for all these seats it would easily be upwards of 35%.
That’s what I think is going on @Adam, and additionally the 2PP in teal/progressive independent seats is likely to still be one favouring the Liberals. Labor are in a stronger position than the polls suggest
There’s not that many seats where the teals are the clear challengers, and not that many voters who will vote tactically even though it’s enough in a few cases to turn the teal into the clear challenger. At most it can account for maybe 1% of the primary vote.
Where teal candidates have been successful the seats have either had LNP members who didn’t align with the views of the wider population or they said that they are aligned but when in government didn’t actually act that way
Good teal vote
Boundaries strange
What Adda wrote. The numbers don’t support it being the full difference between 28% and 35% that’s truely wishful thinking from Labor aligned people.
Apparently Conaghan is running ads with the Nats Port Macquarie By-election candidate
An article in the Saturday Paper shows that the Caz Heise campaign is confident of picking this up. The article even says that this seat is more likely to flip than Bradfield. Climate 200 polling shows a 2CP of 53/47 going the teal’s way.
Worth a read. It has seat polling for other seats though I take seat polling (especially ones with a political motive) with a grain of salt.
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2025/03/22/polling-shows-teals-support-growing-coalition-base
Yeah of the three most competitive regional seats independents are targeting (Wannon, Calare and Cowper) I’d say the ingredients are best for the IND here – growing cities and evolving demographics, a coalition primary already below 40%, and candidate that appears likeable and inoffensive