ALP 4.8%
Incumbent MP
Daniel Repacholi, since 2022.
Geography
Hunter covers inland parts of the Hunter region, including western parts of the City of Lake Macquarie, most of the Cessnock council area, as well as the entirety of the Singleton council area. A majority of the seat’s population lies in the Lake Macquarie council area, with the bulk of the remainder in the Cessnock area.
Redistribution
Hunter contracted, losing the Muswellbrook council area to New England and gaining Kurri Kurri from Paterson. These changes increased the Labor margin from 4.0% to 4.8%.
History
Hunter is an original Federation seat, and has been held by Labor for most of its history. The seat was first won by Prime Minister Edmund Barton in 1901. Barton resigned as Prime Minister and Member for Hunter in 1903 to take a seat on the High Court, and Hunter was won at the following election by Free Trader Frank Liddell. Liddell held the seat at the 1906 election, but lost in 1910.
The seat was won in 1910 by the ALP’s Matthew Charlton. Charlton served as the ALP’s leader from 1922 to 1928, retiring at the 1928 election. He was succeeded by Rowley James, elected as a Labor candidate. James held the seat for thirty years, although he served as a member of Jack Lang’s breakaway party from 1931 to 1936, when he was readmitted to the ALP.
James retired in 1958, and was replaced by Labor leader HV Evatt. Evatt had previously held the Sydney seat of Barton, but judged it to be too marginal and moved to the safer Hunter.
Evatt resigned as Labor leader and Member for Hunter in 1960, and the by-election was won by Bert James, son of Rowley. The younger James held Hunter for twenty years, retiring in 1980.
He was succeeded by the ALP’s Bob Brown. Brown moved to the new seat of Charlton in 1984, and was succeeded in Hunter by former Mayor of Cessnock, Eric Fitzgibbon. Fitzgibbon held the seat for twelve years before retiring in 1996.
The seat was won in 1996 by Joel Fitzgibbon, son of the previous MP. Fitzgibbon junior has held Hunter since 1996. He served as Defence Minister from 2007 to 2009, and briefly served as a minister again in 2013.
The redistribution prior to the 2016 election effectively merged the seat of Hunter with the Lake Macquarie electorate of Charlton, which was another reasonably safe Labor seat. Hunter expanded into the Lake Macquarie area to take in most of Charlton, while losing rural areas to the north and west of the seat. A slight majority of the seat’s population was drawn from Charlton.
Fitzgibbon was re-elected in the redrawn seat, and won again in 2019. Charlton MP Pat Conroy, who had held the seat for one term, shifted to the neighbouring seat of Shortland.
Fitzgibbon retired in 2022, and Labor’s Daniel Repacholi won Hunter.
Assessment
Hunter is quite marginal, but Repacholi should benefit from incumbency that may help him buffet whatever broader swings are taking place.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Dan Repacholi | Labor | 41,514 | 38.5 | +1.0 | 39.4 |
| James Thomson | Nationals | 29,540 | 27.4 | +4.0 | 27.3 |
| Dale McNamara | One Nation | 10,759 | 10.0 | -11.6 | 10.1 |
| Janet Murray | Greens | 9,562 | 8.9 | +2.0 | 8.8 |
| Stuart Bonds | Independent | 6,126 | 5.7 | +5.7 | 5.1 |
| Geoff Passfield | United Australia | 4,370 | 4.1 | -0.3 | 4.0 |
| Victoria Davies | Animal Justice | 2,469 | 2.3 | -0.9 | 2.1 |
| Scott Fulvio Laruffa | Independent | 1,929 | 1.8 | +1.8 | 1.6 |
| Cathy Townsend | Informed Medical Options | 1,458 | 1.4 | +1.4 | 1.4 |
| Others | 0.2 | ||||
| Informal | 8,901 | 7.6 | -1.3 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Dan Repacholi | Labor | 58,200 | 54.0 | +1.1 | 54.8 |
| James Thomson | Nationals | 49,527 | 46.0 | -1.1 | 45.2 |
Booths have been divided into five parts. A majority of the seat’s population is contained within the City of Lake Macquarie, and these areas have been split into central, north and south. The remaining booths were grouped according to local government boundaries: Cessnock and Singleton.
The ALP won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in four out of five areas, ranging from 51.6% in the south of Lake Macquarie to 62.6% in the north of Lake Macquarie. The Nationals won 51% in Singleton.
One Nation came third, with a primary vote ranging from 7.1% in central Lake Macquarie to 15.0% in Singleton.
| Voter group | ON prim | ALP 2PP | Total votes | % of votes |
| Cessnock | 11.7 | 57.7 | 15,339 | 14.7 |
| Lake Macquarie Central | 7.1 | 57.5 | 11,152 | 10.7 |
| Lake Macquarie South | 10.5 | 51.6 | 7,403 | 7.1 |
| Lake Macquarie North | 8.1 | 62.6 | 6,572 | 6.3 |
| Singleton | 15.0 | 49.0 | 5,529 | 5.3 |
| Pre-poll | 9.9 | 53.1 | 45,925 | 43.9 |
| Other votes | 10.3 | 55.1 | 12,692 | 12.1 |
Election results in Hunter at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, the Nationals and One Nation.
Think PHON peaked in 2019 here, will do very well to crack 20%
Given how Labor and the greens will make up close to 50%. 20% will be enough and all they need to do is scoop up the minor party preferences to jump over the nats
If PHON do particularly well there might not be so many preferences to scoop up, Nats will get their 25% at least I’d think, looked to me as if both were campaigning pretty hard in Singleton but the PHON vote might drop away as you get closer to the M1, the seat has urbanised a little too much for PHON to make the count in 2025 I suspect, unless their vote comes out a bit higher nationwide than the already bullish polling suggests IMO
Agreed and imagine the Nat-> onp preference flow would be alot weaker then the other way around. Same with the Libs it will only be a matter of time before the urbanisation forces the nats to let the Libs run here. Same as in Richmond. Labor’s support in both is subject to long term decline. Except in Richmond it’s trending towards the greens to the left and here it’s trending towards the right.
There’s a view that Dan Repacholi is now Bob Kattering the Liberals. Peter Dutton suggested nuclear power needed to be brought in because coal mining areas like the Hunter are done. Repacholi like a cat has pounced on the comments. It could be a factor in this seat.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-17/dutton-blunder-damages-coalition-election-chances/105184990
@Political Nightwatchman:
Problem for Dan Repacholi is Labor is leading the charge to shut Coal down. Dutton’s plan is to build 2 Nuclear Reactors, Labor’s plan is the coal miners become landscapers remediating the old mines and Power Houses.
On Bob Katter, his seat of Kennedy now reaches from the NT border to the Coral Sea and down into Central Qld, because so many once thriving towns in his Electorate are ‘done’.
Absolutely will be Labor hold. Repacholi is seen as ‘one of their own’ in the Hunter (coming from a coal mining background) and is sensible enough to tread the middle ground between current coal mining and transitioning into renewables. Dutton’s all over the place in Hunter and doesn’t even know what he’s talking about, and we haven’t seen Sue Gilroy out and about. Don’t think Barnabus or Littleproud has visited yet either.
Same can’t be said for Paterson to the north. That one’s a Liberal gain.
Agreed but this has a strong one nation vote for x reasons? Might be close. Definitely a coalition target in 2028
Its labor that want.to kill the coal industry not the libs. if the greens.get their.way in.the next.minority govt they will shit them down or at very least stop new ones
I think we could be in for a close shave if stuart bonds squares off against Dan repacholi or even if it’s v nats I wouldn’t write off them either. While he may be popular remember fitzgibbon almost lost this seat despite his family having long term ties here. And it’s been trending against Labor over the years. But I’d say repacholi will hold this time around
@ Darth Vader
Over 70% of the Coal mined in Australia is exported and the policy of the Labor party is that there is no end date for that and for as long as there is a market Coal will be mined indefinately and exported. That is the same policy as the Coaltion.
Yea but it’s domestic coal they want to shut down
Yes Labor supports phasing out Domestic Coal but so does the Coalition who want to replace it with nuclear neither of the major parties support Domestic Coal indefinately.
Still this seat could get interesting that’s get the majority of preferences here and pretty get 50% of ajp votes. Grn votes are higher then the usual 10% varying from 20-25%. Even if he can hold this time around I think the nats or the centre right will win this seat finally in 2028.and they have good prospects in ahortland. I wouldn’t be surprised if pat convoy muscles his way into the seat of Newcastle.
Chances of ON finishing second here?
I’d say quite reasonable they make the cut vs labor
I’m thinking so as well. I’m guessing that poll that mystery poll from Gilmore was for AAP, as they wrote a couple of stories about regional voters which is linked to some of the other of the ten seats that appear to have been polled on Wikipedia. One of the stories didn’t give specific numbers, but mentioned Hunter near the end as having a lower Coalition vote.
https://www.huntervalleynews.net.au/story/8951530/leaders-ease-off-on-messaging-as-aussies-tune-out/
I’m not sure I trust any of those ten polls too much with their have a MoE of 6%+-, but taken at face value with ALP 36%, ON 25%, Nats 15%, Greens 9% and the rest on 15%, that would ring some real alarm bells for Labor. If true. But I’ll believe it when I see it.
The only poll I’m gonna trust is on the 3rd of may. That latest yougov poll. Seemed all over the shop tbh
Ik Dan Repacholi is incredibly popular in Hunter, but I wonder how he’ll fare in a scenario where there’s a prominent One Nation campaign.
@John April 27, 2025 at 2:45 am
The only poll you’ll trust is on polling day but it’s sorta curious that you seemed like you trusted that poll about Liberals winning Tangney and Blair you posted about yesterday.
No i just posted what I saw. The polls are all over the place this election. I never believed the polls in 2019 or 2016 for Donald Trump. Labor will win govt but I’m not convinced the liberals are gonna collapse into a dung heap
Confirmation of the YouGov/ACM poll: https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8950941/independents-shaking-up-federal-election-in-regional-australia-yougov-poll/
Could One nation win Hunter ?
Up the dragons, not likely in my view.
I’m even surprised there’s mention of PHON coming second. It could be tactical voting of right-wing voters or Stuart Bonds’s personal profile.
He came mighty close to coming second in 2019, and it’s not like major party popularity has improved since then.
With the Nats committed to nuclear and Labor to renewables (with some gas on the side) in a region where the future of coal still casts a long shadow over their economic outlook – why wouldn’t a party that is unashamedly supporting investment into the industry be set to outperform? Hunter isn’t exactly a diverse or heavily educated electorate either keep in mind
I think in 2019, Labor were blindsided and didn’t expect a backlash. It was when the issue of the Adani Carmichael coal mine caused a backlash in regional QLD and in the Hunter. A lot of people shifted to PHON.
The closest thing to a referendum on nuclear would probably be here. It’s mainly because the energy transition can make or break the area. Dan Repacholi has been campaigning against nuclear (at least for the Hunter) for a while. It doesn’t help the Nationals when there have been earthquakes around the Hunter as of late.
If on makes the 2cp this seat could be interesting if nats voters vote 90% towards one nation Dan could be cooked we know on votes around 70% nats but with on and nats swapping number 2s we could be I for a change here
“It doesn’t help the Nationals when there have been earthquakes around the Hunter as of late.”
If I was a person that believed that there were fairies living at the bottom of my garden then I would think that Mother Earth was trying to send a message ….
For goodness sake, The Japanese can manage both earthquakes and nuclear power. And before anybody says anything – at Fukushima it was the tsunami that did the damage. If there was a tsunami in Muswellbrook, there would be a lot of other places I would be worried about first.
At fukushima the earthquake knocked to the reactor causing it to go off-line “the failsafe” but the tsunami did the damage yes that cause the radiation leakage. And the earthquakes in Muswellbrook brook are knowhere near the magnitude in Japan which is near a major fault line.
In a continent of droughts and water scarcity, nuclear’s gigantic cooling needs don’t match Australia’s fragile water reality.
Il have to check the others but at 1 (collie) sits near the Collie River which feed into the leschenault inlet and pacific ocean
When was the last time One Nation was considered a serious chance at making a 2CP at a federal election?
1998
Maybe 2019 in hunter
One Nation made the Maranoa 2CP in 2019