Macquarie – Australia 2025

ALP 6.3%

Incumbent MP
Susan Templeman, since 2016.

Geography
Macquarie covers the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury council areas as well as the part of the City of Penrith west of the Nepean River, including the towns of Katoomba, Blaxland, Wentworth Falls, Lawson, Richmond, Windsor and Kurrajong.

Redistribution
Macquarie mostly maintained its existing boundaries, but expanded slightly to take in the small part of the City of Penrith west of the Nepean River, including Emu Plains, Emu Heights and Leonay. These changes cut the Labor margin from 7.8% to 6.3%.

History
Macquarie is a federation seat, and has always sat to the west of Sydney and covered the Blue Mountains, although its boundaries have shifted. It has tended to be a marginal seat, although in recent decades it has not always swung with the national trend.

The seat was first won by the Free Trade party in 1901, and they held it for two terms before Ernest Carr won it in 1906 for Labor. Carr held the seat until 1917, when he was defeated for reelection after leaving the ALP in late 1916 to join the Nationalist Party. The ALP held the seat again from 1917 until 1922, when the Nationalist Party won back the seat. Arthur Manning was reelected in 1925 against future Prime Minister Ben Chifley, who defeated Manning on a second attempt in 1928.

Chifley held the seat for two terms before losing to John Lawson of the United Australia Party in 1931. Lawson was reelected in 1934 and 1937 before Chifley defeated him in 1940. Chifley went on to serve as a senior Minister under John Curtin and became Prime Minister in 1945. He lost the Prime Ministership in 1949, then led his party in Opposition. He was reelected in Macquarie at the 1951 double dissolution before dying a few weeks later.

The seat was won in 1951 by Anthony Luchetti, a longstanding Labor activist in Macquarie. Luchetti had been Chifley’s campaign manager during his first stint in Macquarie in the 1920s, but stood as a Lang Labor candidate at the 1931 election. The split Labor vote saw the UAP win the seat in a slim margin. Luchetti held the seat from 1951 until his retirement in 1975.

The Liberal Party won the seat in 1975 in the person of Reg Gillard, who was defeated by the ALP’s Ross Free in 1980. The 1984 redistribution saw Free move to the new seat of Lindsay, and the Liberal Party’s Alasdair Webster won Macquarie.

Webster lost the seat in 1993 to Maggie Deahm of the ALP, who lost the seat herself in 1996 to Kerry Bartlett. Bartlett made the seat fairly safe over the next decade before the 2007 redistribution saw Bartlett defeated by the long-serving state MP and Minister Bob Debus. Debus went straight into Kevin Rudd’s ministry as Minister for Home Affairs. Debus resigned from the ministry in June 2009 in anticipation of his retirement from politics at the next election.

At the 2010 election the seat’s boundaries were shifted back to the boundaries in 2004. Louise Markus, who held Greenway in 2007 when it covered Hawkesbury council, chose to run for Macquarie instead, and won the seat with a 1.3% margin. Markus was re-elected in 2010 and 2013.

Markus lost in 2016 to Labor’s Susan Templeman. Templeman was re-elected in 2019 and 2022.

Candidates

Assessment
Macquarie is much stronger for Labor now than it was in past decades, and Templeman is the favourite to win re-election.

2022 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Susan Templeman Labor 41,025 43.0 +4.7 41.8
Sarah Richards Liberal 32,980 34.6 -10.3 35.9
Tony Hickey Greens 9,115 9.5 +0.4 9.5
Tony Pettitt One Nation 4,955 5.2 +5.2 5.2
Nicole Evans United Australia 2,774 2.9 -1.1 2.9
Greg Keightley Animal Justice 2,013 2.1 -1.6 1.9
Michelle Palmer Informed Medical Options 1,318 1.4 +1.4 1.5
James Jackson Liberal Democrats 1,272 1.3 +1.3 1.3
Informal 5,095 5.1 +0.8

2022 two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Susan Templeman Labor 55,143 57.8 +7.6 56.3
Sarah Richards Liberal 40,309 42.2 -7.6 43.7

Booth breakdown

Booths have been divided into three parts. The Macquarie electorate is clearly divided between the Hawkesbury and the Blue Mountains. There is also clear divisions between the upper and lower mountains.

Labor won a majority in two out of three areas, with 57.3% in the lower mountains and 74.2% in the upper mountains. The Liberal Party polled 54.1% in the Hawkesbury.

The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 5.1% in Hawkesbury to 17.8% in the upper mountains.

Voter group GRN prim ALP 2PP Total votes % of votes
Hawkesbury 5.1 45.9 22,678 21.7
Lower Mountains 11.5 57.3 16,793 16.1
Upper Mountains 17.8 74.2 10,554 10.1
Pre-poll 9.0 57.4 39,943 38.2
Other votes 9.3 55.5 14,589 14.0

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

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28 COMMENTS

  4. From what I heard and read, the last Liberal candidate was a controversial one.

    The swings to Labor were huge, even double-digit swings, in Windsor, Richmond and surrounding areas like Kurrajong and Bilpin. Coincidentally, they were hit hardest by floods and submerged bridges and cut-off roads last term, so the natural disasters may’ve been an issue last election.

  5. @votante i think macquarie followed the rest of nsw in pumping up the labor vte but it may have helped here. Labor is popular in Blue Mountains Liberals in Hawkesbury. the new area of Emu Plains is Liberal. I reckon Labor retain on reduced margin but a 2028 target for the Libs.

  6. The Emu Plains part having a strong Lib vote could be due to the member for Lindsay’s personal vote. There may be a swing to Labor in Emu Plains whilst there’s a swing back to the Libs in the Hawkesbury.

  7. The YouGov poll released today shows that there’s likely going to be a very close race in Macquarie. I think 50-50.

    Pretty dumbfounded if the Liberals won considering the gentrification in the Blue Mountains making things a lot worse for them. I predict Templeman will hang on but to be honest I don’t really know what the final result will be.

  9. MRP polling doesn’t take into account the MP’s personal vote nor local factors nor electioneering. It gives estimates adjusted by various combinations of socio-demographic attributes such as income levels, age groups and gender. This means that it predicts outer-suburban electorates in the same state and with similar demographics will swing the same way.

  11. I doubt it will flip but will likely tighten because Labor overperformed last time due to reasons I mentioned in my first post.

  12. I agree an individual seat poll can be very unreliable. Mrp is basically an extension of that.
    It is only of value assessing global percentages ie primary votes and 2pp

  14. The feeling here is that it’s close and the only thing keeping Labor in it is Templeman’s local profile.

    It’s true that it’s gentrified in the Blue Mountain parts, but possibly as prices go up that gentrification is starting to tilt to more to the right. On top of this, the economic environment and Albanese himself is not appealing.

    On top of that adding Emu Plains on top of around here in Windsor is really pushing the seat into a Liberal leaning one. These areas are affordable to young professionals and tradies with their families.

  15. The upper Blue Mountains (Wentworth Falls to Blackheath) are a magnet for tree-changers and those seeking an alternative lifestyle. The area is politically left-leaning but the Greens vote has been surpressed by Labor. In Katoomba, there’s a hipster vibe.

    Emu Plains is interesting. It’s a part of Penrith LGA and therefore Western Sydney. T1 trains terminate in Emu Plains. Trains go to Parramatta and the city more frequently than from Glenbrook or Lapstone. The voting differences between Emu Plains and the lower Blue Mountains is like night and day.

    The Hawkesbury part could be the most swingy. In 2022, there were double-digit swings in Windsor, Richmond and surrounding areas like Kurrajong. The vote would calibrate in part because of the Labor over-performance last time and also cost of living. South of the Hawkesbury River are more mortgage holders and young families.

  16. My perception (based on (highly fallible) memory) is that in her physical mail, Facebook posts, and quotes in the local paper, Susan Templeman has more often than not led with the Hawkesbury before the Blue Mountains when promoting place-based issues, benefits of government policy, her advocacy in parliament, etc., during this term. I think she’s been making a sustained effort through her comms to consolidate/defend the swing she achieved in that half of the electorate in 2022.

  17. Her office is in Windsor. Also, her vote is the weakest in Hawkesbury. The current Liberal candidate is a Hawkesbury councillor.

  18. I thought her office was in Lawson? I have often driven past it there. She must have two which is unusual for an electorate that isn’t that big.

  20. @Adam – yes while Macquarie is very small in comparison to electorates with multiple electorate offices (Calare, Parkes etc.) Macquarie has very different ends, in terms of demographics and also physical population. There aren’t a lot of links from the Hawkesbury to the Blue Mountains so two electorate offices in each end is fair.

  22. Mps with large electorates have more then 1 office for obvious reasons they can’t expect constituents at one end of the seat to travel to the other end if that’s where their office is

  23. The office in Lawson is a satellite office used for occasional meetings and other specific instances. It’s not permanently staffed. The Windsor office is the main electorate office and is permanently staffed and accepts walk-ins like any other electorate office.

  24. The Greens, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, and the Libertarian Party have announced their candidates.

    The Greens’ candidate is Terry Morgan. He was described in the Blue Mountains Gazette as a “teacher, activist and musician” who has lived in the Blue Mountains for over ten years. The article further states that he is a former teacher and school principal, has worked in the Northern Territory, Queensland Cape and Gulf, and the Western Desert, and has spent six years teaching First Nations students at Western Sydney University and working on language preservation and revitalisation.
    https://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/8892788/terry-morgan-runs-for-greens-in-macquarie-election/?msg=login

    PHON’s candidate is Matthew Jacobson. The party website describes him as “a dedicated father, Army Reserve officer, school principal and leadership consultant”. It further states that he has lived and worked in rural and regional communities across Australia, including as a principal in rural schools, and that he is a former soldier.
    https://www.onenation.org.au/matthew-jacobson

    The Libertarian Candidate is Joaqium de Lima, an IT professional. This will be the Lawson resident’s ninth time as a candidate for the Libertarians/LDP, having previously run for all three levels of government.
    https://www.lpnsw.org.au/federal_candidates

  25. As a resident in Emu Plains, I have to say that the area is a reliably Liberal one. A mix of aspirational yuppies and tradies means that the area is favourable to the Liberals, combined with a suburban conservatism and you have demographics which are strong for the Blues. Even during the Liberal defeat at the state election, the Liberal vote held strongly in these suburbs.
    I think these suburbs will contribute to a swing away from Susan Templeman, but I don’t think it will be enough to get Mike Creed over the line.
    I think the only way for the Libs to win here would be to preselect someone well known to the Blue Mountains, carrying the reliable Hawkesbury and Emu Plains votes, and swinging Mountains voters across. Susan Templeman and Labor are too loved in the Blue Mountains.

  27. This was the most marginal Labor seat at the last election.

    I agree that the Liberals should preselect someone who could connect with the Blue Mountains to boost their chances. The current Liberal candidate and the last one are Hawkesbury councillors.

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