Dobell – Australia 2025

ALP 6.6%

Incumbent MP
Emma McBride, since 2016.

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

Geography
NSW Central Coast. Dobell covers northern parts of the Central Coast council area. Dobell covers Lake Tuggerah and the suburbs surrounding it, including Wyong, Bateau Bay, The Entrance and Toukley. The seat also extends as far as Wyoming and the northern parts of Terrigal.

Redistribution
Dobell contracted slightly, losing a part of the sparsely-populated rural west of the electorate around Kulnura to Robertson. This change increased the Labor margin from 6.5% to 6.6%.

History
Dobell was created in 1984 when the House of Representatives was expanded. It was first won by Michael Lee (ALP). Lee held the seat by largely safe margins for over a decade, becoming a federal minister from the 1993 election until Paul Keating’s defeat in 1996, when Lee came close to losing Dobell.

Lee served as a senior member of the Labor frontbench from 1996 to 2001, when he was defeated by Ken Ticehurst (LIB). Lee went on to run as the ALP candidate for Lord Mayor of Sydney in 2004 and served on the City of Sydney council from 2004 to 2008 after losing the lord mayoralty to Clover Moore.

Ticehurst won the seat twice before losing in 2007 to Labor candidate Craig Thomson, then Assistant Secretary of the Health Services Union. Thomson was re-elected in 2010.

In his second term, Thomson was accused of improper use of his HSU credit card before entering Parliament. Thomson was suspended from the ALP in 2012 and finished his term as an independent.

Dobell was won in 2013 by Liberal candidate Karen McNamara, with Thomson coming a distant fifth.

McNamara only held Dobell for one term, losing to Labor’s Emma McBride in 2016. McBride was re-elected in 2019 and 2022.

Candidates

• Simon Cooper (Greens)
• Emma McBride (Labor)
• Brendan Small (Liberal)
• Martin Stevenson (One Nation)

Assessment
Labor has built up a sizeable margin here. The Liberal Party would have to be doing quite well to win. While Dobell is famously a marginal seat, but has only been won by the Liberal Party at high points.

2022 result

2022 two-party-preferred result

Booth breakdown

Booths have been divided into four parts:

• Central – Berkeley Vale, Chittaway Bay, Tuggerah, Wyong
• North-East – Gorokan, Toukley, Tuggerawong
• South-East – Bateau Bay, Killarney Vale, The Entrance, Wyoming
• West – rural areas away from the coast.

Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all four areas, ranging from 51.3% in the west to 61.3% in the north-east.

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

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