LIB 3.5%
Incumbent MP
Jenny Ware, since 2022.
Geography
Hughes covers southern parts of Sydney. A majority of the seat lies in the Sutherland Shire, including Menai, Bangor, Sutherland, Como, Jannali, Illawong, Barden Ridge, Engadine, Heathcote, Waterfall and Bundeena. The remainder of the seat lies at the southeastern end of the City of Liverpool, including Moorebank and Wattle Grove, or in northern parts of the City of Campbelltown, including Ingleburn, Macquarie Fields, Glenfield and Bardia.
Redistribution
Hughes shifted west, which meant that the Sutherland Shire now makes up less than 60% of the electorate. The City of Liverpool makes up just under one fifth of the roll, and almost a quarter of the electorate now lives in the City of Campbelltown, to the west of the Georges River.
To be more specific, the Sutherland Shire suburbs of Grays Point, Kareela, Kirrawee and Oyster Bay to Cook, gained the suburbs of Bardia, Glenfield and Macquarie Fields from Werriwa and also gained the suburb of Ingleburn from Macarthur.
These changes cut the Liberal margin from 7.0% to 3.5%.
History
Hughes was first created in 1955 and has been held by the ALP for much of its history despite generally covering relatively affluent areas that would usually be thought of as more favourable to the Liberals. Its first MP was Les Johnson, who held the seat for Labor until he was defeated in the 1966 landslide by the Liberal Party’s Don Dobie. Dobie transferred to the newly created seat of Cook in 1969, and Johnson regained Hughes for the ALP, going on to serve as a minister in the Whitlam government.
Johnson resigned in December 1983, and was succeeded at a by-election by Robert Tickner, who went on to serve a high-profile tenure as Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs from 1990 until losing his seat when the Keating government lost office in 1996.
Danna Vale won the seat for the Liberals in 1996 and held the seat for the next five terms.
Vale retired in 2010 and Liberal candidate Craig Kelly won the seat, increasing the Liberal margin to 5.2%. Kelly has been re-elected three times.
Kelly resigned from the Liberal Party in February 2021 to sit as an independent, eventually joining the United Australia Party.
Liberal candidate Jenny Ware won in 2022, with the sitting MP coming a distant fourth.
- David Miller (Citizens Party)
- David Moncrieff (Labor)
- Elvis Sinosic (Libertarian)
- Jenny Ware (Liberal)
Assessment
Hughes has become much more marginal due to the redistribution, as it has been pulled into historically strong Labor suburbs in Campbelltown. The suburbs of Hughes (both on the 2022 and 2025 boundaries) have been more favourable for the Liberal Party in recent years than they were a decade earlier, and that combined with the Liberal Party being on an upswing should be enough to retain the seat. Ware should also have a personal vote which should help her, particularly with Craig Kelly out of the race now.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Jenny Ware | Liberal | 42,148 | 43.5 | -9.7 | 40.4 |
| Riley Campbell | Labor | 21,828 | 22.5 | -7.9 | 27.9 |
| Georgia Steele | Independent | 13,891 | 14.3 | +14.3 | 10.9 |
| Craig Kelly | United Australia | 7,186 | 7.4 | +4.9 | 7.3 |
| Pete Thompson | Greens | 6,118 | 6.3 | -0.6 | 6.4 |
| Narelle Seymour | One Nation | 2,600 | 2.7 | +2.7 | 3.4 |
| Linda Seymour | Independent | 3,138 | 3.2 | +3.2 | 2.5 |
| Others | 1.1 | ||||
| Informal | 4,387 | 4.3 | -0.8 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Jenny Ware | Liberal | 55,244 | 57.0 | -2.8 | 53.5 |
| Riley Campbell | Labor | 41,665 | 43.0 | +2.8 | 46.5 |
Polling places in Hughes have been divided into four parts. Polling places in the Campbelltown and Liverpool council areas are grouped as “north-west”, while central, east and south covers the Sutherland Shire booths.
The Liberal Party won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in the Sutherland Shire sub-areas, ranging from 50.4% in the east to 64.1% in the centre. Labor polled 53.7% in the north-west.
Two teal independents stood in Hughes, and they polled a primary vote ranging from 5.1% in the north-west to 27.3% in the east, although the north-west includes a number of booths that weren’t in Hughes in 2022 and where no independent candidate was on hte ballot.
| Voter group | IND prim | LIB 2PP | Total votes | % of votes |
| North-West | 5.1 | 46.3 | 16,035 | 16.3 |
| Central | 14.1 | 64.1 | 15,967 | 16.2 |
| South | 21.8 | 54.1 | 10,155 | 10.3 |
| East | 27.3 | 50.4 | 9,148 | 9.3 |
| Pre-poll | 11.7 | 52.1 | 34,254 | 34.9 |
| Other votes | 11.1 | 54.4 | 12,729 | 13.0 |
Election results in Hughes at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, Labor and independent candidates.
Liberal hold. Jenny Ware should get enough of a sophomore surge and the absence of a teal (for now) should increase her vote enough to hold on.
Interesting that on these boundaries Labor would have won here in 2007.
@SpaceFish unsurprising given it should be an area Labor focuses on, it’s just not.
It’s sandwiched between the Liberal-voting, blue ribbon Shire and Labor-voting, working-class Wollongong in the east and Labor-voting, working-class Campbelltown, the ethnic yet now politically diverse Liverpool area and the Liberal-voting, rural Southern Highlands. So you’d think it’d be a pretty mixed, centrist seat. Federal Labor just underperforms even though the last MP was literally Craig Kelly.
This electorate looks like three geographically-separated pieces randomly joined up together.
Jenny Ware will score a swing. Presumably, there won’t be Craig Kelly or a teal running. The redistribution has removed the teal-ish areas of Oyster Bay and the eastern part of Jannali.
I’ve long thought that the swing away from Labor will correlate with mortgage/rental stress. West of the Georges River has some mortgage belt territory but is newer and lower-income. There are large South Asian and Indo-Fijian communities. There might be some anti-Labor swings due to the Palestine issue amongst the South Asian Muslim communities. Further north-east, Moorebank, Holsworthy and Hammondville are mortgage belt suburbs but are more established and middle-class.
@Nether Portal, I don’t agree that Labor should’ve focused on this. It hasn’t been that winnable for Labor since 1996. The Liberals tends to get 55% to 60% 2PP. It was mainly Sutherland Shire-based with a bit of Liverpool LGA in it for decades. Sutherland Shire is mainly Anglo-Celtic and is quite conservative. The Liverpool part was either very small or contained Moorebank, Holsworthy and Hammondville – they tended to vote Liberal with a 2PP of low to mid 50s.
Think liberal retain
All of Menai in the seat.
Nsw state election figures an alp won
Labor are definitely not acting like this is a winnable seat, despite the redistribution and decent results at other tiers. Their preselected candidate, a staffer, isn’t even featured on the ALP website.
This seat would be better if stretched southwards to Helensburgh than westwards. Helensburgh has more in common and is closer to Sutherland Shire than Moorebank and Macquarie Fields are.
Hughes once stretched down all the way to the northern suburbs of Wollongong so there’s a precedent. The state seat of Heathcote stretches across Royal NP and unites Sutherland Shire with the northern suburbs of Wollongong, including Bulli and Thirroul.
@Blue Not John – agreed. On state results this seat would be notionally Labor, especially with big swings to Labor around Engadine and Sutherland. Yet I’m tipping the Liberals to retain with a swing to them, especially as there doesn’t seem to be a teal running that would hurt the Liberals, and pretty obviously, Labor aren’t bothering here despite a good set of boundaries for them to go off of. You would also expect Jenny Ware to get a sophomore surge.