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.