Auburn – NSW 2023

ALP 13.4%

Incumbent MP
Lynda Voltz, since 2019. Previously member of the Legislative Council 2007-2019.

• Geography
• Redistribution
• History
• Candidates
• Assessment
• 2019 results
• Booth breakdown
• Results maps

Geography
Western Sydney. The seat of Auburn covers the eastern side of the Cumberland council area and north-western parts of the City of Canterbury-Bankstown. It includes the suburbs of Auburn, Berala, Birrong, Chester Hill, Lidcombe, Potts Hill, Rookwood, Regents Park, Sefton and Yagoona.

Redistribution
Auburn shifted south, losing Wentworth Point, Newington, Silverwater and Sydney Olympic Park to Parramatta and losing South Granville and the remainder of Guildford to Granville. Auburn then picked up Birrong, Chester Hill, Potts Hill, Sefton and Yagoona from Bankstown. These changes increased the Labor margin from 9.1% to 13.4%.

History
Auburn was first created at the 1927 election. The seat has always been held by either the Labor Party, or by members of the Lang family representing one of a number of breakaway Lang Labor parties.

The seat was first won in 1927 by the defeated premier, Jack Lang. Lang had held the seat of Granville from 1913 to 1920, when he won one of the seats for the district of Parramatta. He became Premier following the 1925 election.

At the 1927 election, proportional representation was replaced by single-member districts, and Auburn was created. Lang won the seat, but lost power.

Lang held Auburn continuously for almost twenty years. He served again as Premier from 1930 to 1932, when he was sacked by the governor and lost the following election. He led a breakaway party from the ALP from 1940 to 1941 and again in 1943.

Lang resigned from Auburn in 1946, and won the federal seat of Reid. He held the seat until 1949, when he lost an attempt at re-election in the new seat of Blaxland.

Jack Lang’s son, James, won the seat of Auburn at a 1946 by-election. He won re-election in 1947, but lost in 1950 following a redistribution.

The rural seat of Ashburnham had been abolished at the redistribution, and the Labor member for the seat, Edgar Dring, moved to Auburn after serving in Ashburnham since 1941. Dring held Auburn until his death in 1955.

Auburn was won in 1956 by the ALP’s Thomas Ryan. A former Langite, he had returned to the ALP in protest at the preselection of the younger Lang to replace his father. He held the seat until 1965, when he lost preselection.

Peter Cox replaced Ryan in 1965. He served as a minister in the Labor state government from 1976 to 1988. He retired in 1988, and the ALP lost badly in the polls.

Peter Nagle retained Auburn for the ALP in 1988. He held it until his retirement in 2001. The 2001 by-election was won by Barbara Perry, and she was re-elected in 2003, 2007 and 2011.

In the lead-up to the 2015 election, Perry faced a serious preselection challenge from Auburn councillor Hicham Zraika. The preselection dragged on, and in December 2014 Labor leader John Robertson resigned, and was replaced by upper house MP Luke Foley. In early 2015, a new preselection was called for Auburn, which was won by Luke Foley after Perry and Zraika both withdrew.

Luke Foley led Labor into the 2015 election. The Coalition was re-elected, although with a smaller majority.

Foley continued to lead Labor until late 2018, when he was forced to step down as Labor leader, and also withdrew from contesting his seat of Auburn in 2019.

Labor candidate Lynda Voltz won Auburn in 2019. Voltz had previously held a seat in the Legislative Council from 2007 until 2019.

Candidates

• Lynda Voltz (Labor)
• Masoomeh Asgari (Greens)
• Jamal Daoud (Independent)
• Julie Morkos Douaihy (Liberal Democrats)
• Shelley Goed (Sustainable Australia)
• Haseen Zaman (Liberal)

Assessment
Auburn is a safe Labor seat.

2019 result

2019 two-party-preferred result

Booth breakdown

Booths in Auburn have been split into three parts: central, north and south.

Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 62.8% in the north to 64.7% in the centre.

Election results in Auburn at the 2019 NSW state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor and the Liberal Party.

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