Canterbury – NSW 2023

ALP 15.6%

Incumbent MP
Sophie Cotsis, since 2016. Previously member of the Legislative Council 2010-2016.

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

Geography
Inner south-west of Sydney. Canterbury covers eastern parts of the City of Canterbury-Bankstown, including the suburbs of Belmore, Canterbury, Campsie, Clemton Park, Earlwood, Lakemba and part of Wiley Park.

Redistribution
Canterbury shifted west, taking in Lakemba and part of Wiley Park from Lakemba, and lost Hurlstone Park to Summer Hill and Belfield and part of Campsie to Strathfield. These changes increased the Labor margin from 13.0% to 15.6%.

History

The district of Canterbury has sent members to the Legislative Assembly since 1859, with the exception of three elections in the 1920s. The seat has been held by the ALP continuously since 1935.

The district of Canterbury was included in the multi-member district of St George from 1920 to 1927. When the seat was restored in 1927, it was won by the ALP’s Arthur Tonge. He had been elected to a casual vacancy in the district of North Shore in 1926.

Tonge was defeated by 111 votes in 1932 by the United Australia Party’s Edward Hocking. He regained the seat in 1935, and held it until 1962, when he lost Labor endorsement and retired.

Kevin Stewart defeated Tonge for preselection in Canterbury in 1962. He served as a minister in the Labor government from 1976 to 1985, when he resigned from Parliament to take up appointment as NSW Agent-General in London.

The 1986 by-election was won by Canterbury mayor Kevin Moss. He retained the seat throughout the 1980s and 1990s, retiring at the 2003 election.

Canterbury was won in 2003 by Linda Burney, the first indigenous member of the NSW Parliament. She served as a minister in the Labor government from 2007 to 2011, and served as deputy leader of the NSW Labor Party from 2011 until 2016.

Burney resigned from Canterbury in 2016 to run (successfully) for the federal seat of Barton. The 2016 by-election was won by Labor’s Sophie Cotsis, who had held a seat in the Legislative Council since 2010. Cotsis was re-elected in 2019.

Candidates

Assessment
Canterbury is a safe Labor seat.

2019 result

2019 two-party-preferred result

Booth breakdown

Booths in Canterbury have been divided into three parts: north-east, south-east and west.

Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 60.9% in the south-east to 68.8% in the north-east.

The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 7.9% in the west to 15.7% in the north-east.

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

Become a Patron!