ALP 8.3%
Incumbent MP
Stephen Jones, since 2016. Previously member for Throsby 2010-2016.
Geography
Southern Illawarra and Southern Highlands of NSW. Whitlam covers the entirety of the Shellharbour council area along with southern parts of the City of Wollongong. These suburbs mostly surround Lake Illawarra, including Shellharbour, Dapto and Albion Park. It also covers the entire Wingecarribee council area in the Southern Highlands, including Bowral, Moss Vale and Mittagong.
Redistribution
Whitlam expanded to the west, taking in the remainder of the Southern Highlands including Exeter and Bundanoon. Whitlam lost the southern Wollongong suburbs of Berkeley, Cringila, Korongulla and Windang. These changes cut the Labor margin from 10.1% to 8.3%.
History
The seat of Whitlam was known as Throsby until 2016. Throsby was first created for the 1984 election, and has always been held by the ALP. It has always been won by the ALP by a large margin.
The seat was first won in 1984 by Colin Hollis. Hollis had previously been elected in Macarthur for one term in 1983. Hollis retired in 2001, and was succeeded by former ACTU President Jennie George. George held the seat from 2001 to 2010.
In 2010, Stephen Jones won the seat for the ALP upon Jennie George’s retirement. Jones has been re-elected four times.
Candidates
Sitting Labor MP Stephen Jones is not running for re-election.
Assessment
Whitlam is a reasonably safe Labor seat, alhough the redistribution slightly weakened Labor’s position.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Stephen Jones | Labor | 49,218 | 45.0 | -3.8 | 42.4 |
| Mike Cains | Liberal | 30,849 | 28.2 | +2.8 | 29.8 |
| Jamie Dixon | Greens | 11,779 | 10.8 | +1.6 | 10.4 |
| Colin Hughes | One Nation | 7,543 | 6.9 | +6.9 | 6.9 |
| Allan Wode | United Australia | 5,886 | 5.4 | -3.5 | 5.2 |
| Michael Wheeler | Liberal Democrats | 4,062 | 3.7 | +3.7 | 3.5 |
| Independent | 1.5 | ||||
| Others | 0.3 | ||||
| Informal | 5,637 | 4.9 | -2.4 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Stephen Jones | Labor | 65,683 | 60.1 | -0.8 | 58.3 |
| Mike Cains | Liberal | 43,654 | 39.9 | +0.8 | 41.7 |
Booths have been divided into three areas, along local government boundaries.
The ALP won large majorities of the two-party-preferred vote in Shellharbour (63.8%) and Wollongong (66.6%). The Liberal Party won 50.2% in Southern Highlands.
The Greens primary vote ranged from 11.1% in the Southern Highlands to 12.8% in Wollongong.
| Voter group | GRN prim | ALP 2PP | Total votes | % of votes |
| Shellharbour | 11.7 | 63.8 | 21,030 | 19.5 |
| Southern Highlands | 11.1 | 49.8 | 15,870 | 14.7 |
| Wollongong | 12.8 | 66.6 | 8,967 | 8.3 |
| Pre-poll | 9.1 | 57.5 | 50,720 | 47.0 |
| Other votes | 11.2 | 57.3 | 11,388 | 10.5 |
Election results in Whitlam at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, the Liberal Party and the Greens.
Yes, would agree with that assessment Tommo. The previous iteration of Hume (established 2016) could also qualify as it combined outer suburban Sydney (Camden) with the rural towns like Goulburn.
The Liberals have blown their chance to make in-roads in this seat. It had key ingredients for them such as traditional, working-class outer suburbs – the sort of demographic that the Liberals would hope to target longer-term. They also had the Nationals withdraw and hence removing the risk of splitting the non-Labor vote.
The southern suburbs of Wollongong are economically dependent on steelworks. I don’t think a candidate who reminds them of Trump would go well, since he is putting huge tariffs on aluminium and steel imports and US is a major export market of ours.
Ben Britton still using Liberal corflutes and has a bunch of Liberal volunteers still. Liberal campaign in serious trouble, hard to believe a campaign can implode at the level this one has.
Interesting to see how well the Liberals will go and how much all of the Britton stuff will impact upon voters.
AB, I think this might be like Gilmore 2019 where a preselection conflict (Warren Mundine vs Grant Shultz) caused the Liberal Party to kick away a winnable seat. Gilmore saw a swing of 3% to Labor so the result for Whitlam could well see Labor hold easily with little or no swing against them.
I’ve seen a photo of Ben Britton’s corflute. It’s the Liberal one with an Australian flag covering where the Liberal logo usually is.
Imagine getting after volunteering for and building a connection with Britton as a Liberal volunteer, you get a message that Nathaniel Smith is now your candidate.
@votante id say its just old htv cards repurposed to save on costs. cant use the aussie log. Labor retain on a 3-4% margin due to liberal kerfuffle. probably helps the libs win in 2028 if they can get a decent candidate
cant use the liberal logo that should have read
HTV cards only get printed after the ballot draw. At the time of the ballot draw, Britton was already disendorsed and declared himself an independent and wouldn’t have had HTV cards.
Meant to say corflutes
Skulduggery afoot… Britton ax’d, fell’d… Nathaniel Smith will not win as a result of the skulduggery.
Carol Berrys HTV is out, #2 pref to the greens, then seemingly nonchalant they’ve numbered the rest sequentially
Full Labor HTV:
2 – Jamie Dixon
3 – Nathaniel Smith
4 – Ben Britton
5 – Angelo Cuda
6 – Sharon Cousins
7 – Raymond Khoury
8 – Cheryl Ann Hinton
9 – Paddy Moylan
1 – Carol Berry
10 – Glenn Butterfield
doesnt matter labor wont fall out of the 2cp/2p anyway
Liberal campaign in Whitlam continuing to implode. Liberals have somehow sent out Ben Britton in their postal vote packs. Anyone thinking that this seat is under threat in 2028 is dreaming. The Liberals have lost any chance with this continuing soap opera of winning Whitlam for a long time.
Dumped candidate Benjamin Britton included in Liberal party’s postal vote packs
By Defence correspondent Andrew Greene
A candidate dumped by the Liberal party for his views opposing women in combat, has been included in campaign material sent out to households in the New South Wales seat of Whitlam.
Last week former solider Benjamin Britton was removed as the Liberal candidate for his controversial views and is now contesting the Labor held seat as an independent in a major embarrassment for the opposition.
Despite the move, Britton’s image and written pitch to voters has been included inside the Liberal party’s postal vote material sent to electors who have chosen to cast their ballots before election day.
Former NSW state Liberal MP Nathaniel Smith, has now been endorsed as the party’s candidate for the seat which has been held by retiring Labor Minister Stephen Jones.
I don’t think they were gonna win here anyway I think it would have been close but probably not as much I would have said 1-2% before the shit hit the fan. Now probably 5%
@AB23 the Liberals are certainly some smart beans down in the Illawarra. No direction, no plans, no proper policies and just endorsing nutjob after nutjob who aren’t even genuinely productive or fundamentally serious candidates. Labor will be laughing at the prospect of holding this seat more securely now that the Liberals have self-inflicted themselves with fatal wounds.
Wonder if Katrina Hodgkinson’s regretting dropping out of the race now for the Nationals.
She wouldn’t have made the count. The libs should be able to unseat Labor in 2028 if they can get their act together
https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/politics/the-curious-case-of-benjamin-britton-comes-back-to-bite-shadow-home-affairs-minister-james-paterson-following-leaked-emails-and-documents/news-story/17266c08666de774adf2e52500b30cf1
Ben Britton is truly the gift that keeps on giving for the Labor Party. He has caused serious reputational damage to the Liberal Party nationwide and it shows how badly the Hard Right of the Liberal Party are at candidate selection with continually selecting these awful candidates who are completely unelectable.
I just googled “Ben Britton how to vote for Whitlam” and got this site
https://nswliberal.org.au/nathaniel-smith/meet-nathaniel
I googled Ben Britton facebook site which “isn’t available at the moment” except bizarrely for an endorsement from Warren Mundine? too weird?
https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1189580195946803&id=100046845017061&_rdr
If it is true that the Liberal party owned his Facebook site? then he will not be able to establish a new Facebook site with this name for yonks?
Crickey has reported that the Liberal campaigns for the seats of Cook and Hughes had been depending on Britton’s father, Steve Britton, to store their campaign corflutes at a business he runs in the Sutherland Shire suburb of Kurnell. But after the Liberals cut ties with the younger Britton, the elder apparently decided he was done doing favours for the party, and told the Liberals they would have to find a new storage space.
This may explain why re-doctored Liberal corflutes have turned up in Britton’s campaign. You steal my Facebook site & I … Will the Liberals sue Britton after campaign for theft or conversion after this is over?
https://www.crikey.com.au/2025/04/17/liberals-ben-britton-dad-store-corflutes/
Meanwhile turf war seems to have broken out with official liberal corflutes going up & some Britton signs coming down?Labor & voters are watching bemused?
Just saw Paddy Moylan’s how to vote. Until Whitlam got a Melbourne Cup field he was THE community independent. His how to vote is a disaster with a one & then 9 question marks [?] against the other candidates rather than numbers. Expect at least 50% informal on his vote?
Roger, I guess Paddy Moylan was trying to emulate an ‘open’ ticket where voters are encouraged to number their own preferences. But I do agree that he did it in a rather confusing/weird manner because an open ticket should have instructions to say place numbers 2 to 10 in the order of your choice, rather than have question marks on the ballot.
link?
Im pretty sure Allegra Spender has the same.
The Ben Britton volunteers through Whitlam prepoll booths are still wearing T shirts that say ‘Ben Britton – Liberal for Whitlam’. The trainwreck continues.
Ben Britton already has a facebook page with his HTV looking similar to a Liberal HTV https://www.facebook.com/benbrittonforwhitlam
He got new signs printed up for his Independent campaign, which begs the question of why he didn’t completely rebrand with different colours to cut ties with the Libs. Only serves to confuse voters and split the Lib/Britton vote
Been driving around for work and passed a couple of the pre-poll booths. It’s not looking good for Labor. At Shellharbour and Dapto, the Libs have Labor outnumbered at least three to one. I only caught a quick look at Albion Park, but that didn’t look much better either. Didn’t get up to the Highlands. I’m generally a Labor voter but this makes me question how seriously they’re taking the campaign here. Does anyone know why they are so low on volunteers? Between the booths and the sheer number of signs out, you’d think this was a safe Liberal seat.
Is the Labor candidate not inspiring enough to get the local membership mobilised?
Ben Britton has the shirts, corflutes and merch of the same colour as the Liberals. The ones seen with Liberal colours on may in fact be Ben Britton’s supporters.
@Tommo9, you mentioned what happened to the last candidate here. I don’t know, but I would make the point that any party can only nominate the people who are (a) willing to be party members and (b) willing to actually be candidates, with all that involves.
I can well imagine, given falling numbers of party members for both major parties over the past few decades that gives very slim pickings for any party trying to make a showing in each of our 150 seats. There’s only so much actual *talent* to go around, especially if local branches are dying.
@vontante Voted in Shellharbour today. Mostly Liberal shirts on the ground, with a few Britton ones thrown in. Even without them, the Libs were outnumbering Labor at least 2 to 1. Not a great look. Where are the Labor members or the election signs?
@Ryoma Doesn’t look like they’re backing local talent. I’ve been keeping an eye on all the Mercury stuff — seems like they’ve passed over local people from the area. Do we know if Berry actually lives in the electorate yet?
@steve this seat is gonna be close despite the margin but i think labor will probably scrape through. that might be beneficial to the liberals so they can get a decent candidate in instead of just a one term wonder who would lose once labor preselects someone decent
Maybe the local Labor branches aren’t very supportive of Carol Berry, or Albos decision to slot her into the seat over hopefuls in the local branch and their supporters. But hey, thats big parties for ya. Libs are showing force because they are trying to “go big” and have the voters believe they’ve been here to support us all along, when really they only descended upon our region for the election to tell us how great they are.
@SteveShellharbour, I am not sure where Berry lives. It’s interesting (and somewhat sad) to hear your local perspective. I would have thought that any party would be well served by having someone who knows the local area and community really well could only be a huge advantage.
But maybe (and I don’t know Shellharbour at all) it could be a disadvantage if there is a lot of population churn – i.e long time residents moving out and high levels of both domestic and international migration.
After all, there’s little point in telling voters how (for example) your grandparents got through the Depression on a dairy farm if they have arrived from overseas two years ago. In many cases, they couldn’t care less about what came before them.
Do you think that part of the problem is that they are trying to parachute Sydney-based candidates in to keep promises made because they see this as a safe seat, Steve?
You’d think they’d have learned their lesson if that’s indeed the case….
The Liberal candidate and their disendorsed candidate both do not live in the Electorate. As for the number of volunteers, I would suggest a lot of the liberals are being bussed in from Sydney. I was next door at Kiama in Gilmore today and that was certainly the case there.
The comment about my htv is not entirely correct.
I have not done any deals re preferences.
People put me 1 then number the other boxes as they see fit. I make it very clear to people they number the rest of the boxes 2-10. I cannot upload a file here but it is very clear.
@IllawarraObserver, that claim is completely baseless. What evidence do you have that suggests they’re not local?
@IllawarraObserver – I believe you are correct about Britton, but Nathaniel Smith’s profile on the NSW Liberal website says he lives in the Southern Highlands. The Southern Highlands traditionally refers to Wingecarribee, all of which is in Whitlam.
This will be a seat to watch on election night
@james he lives in the Hume portion of “The Highlands “
@Paddy Moylan – agree with your HTV being understandable to educated voters. Teal independents also have a similar HTV (1 for the candidate and ? for everyone else with instructions to number all boxes) and people have no trouble electing them
Still there’s a difference between not living in the seat and not being local I mean you can’t expect a c a ndidiate to uproot every time there’s a redistribution as long as your not doing a Kristina zkennelay
@Ryoma I believe Berry is from the Illawarra region – just north of this seat. Also was previously a greens candidate I believe
Correct
Thank you Bazza. I was actually answering SteveShellharbour’s question as best I could, but it’s good to know the answer 🙂
@Daniel: thanks.
@SteveShellharbour: all pre-poll booths are adequately covered by ALP. Usually 3 or 4 people. You don’t need 10 people when there is one entrance at each booth & about 1000 people voting all day. They just trip over each other & block entrances. When it’s busy a queue forms & you can do it with one. The plethora of signs on the booths is counter productive & have produced many ironic comments from women “like it’s raining men politicians in Whitlam”. The only other women in 10 is ON & her preferences will leak to the other women Carol Berry for sure based on women’s comments. Sensibly Liberal numbers on booths have dropped off this week with the exclusive brethren going back to school?
@Ryoma: everybody knows that Carol Berry lives in Mt Kembla about 2 kms north of Dapto. But more importantly she was the CEO of the largest disability provider in Illawarra/Shellharbour. No one has mentioned that she not a local because she is. Interesting is the disability vote coming out strongly at pre-poll.
@StewRockdale: Britten comes from & lives in the shire; he ran for LNP pre-selection there. He’s a single guy & can rent anywhere? Of course Nathaniel is a highlands local now & for 7+ years although originally from Sans Souci but most of the electorate is on the coast.
@bazza: have you seen the tiny how to vote? obviously can’t publicly disagree that the voters are intelligent because Whitlam is a safe ALP seat. But standby my comment on informal votes. Berry was never a green.
candidate.
Libs are throwing the kitchen sink at Whitlam – alas it’s wasted.