ALP 0.3%
Incumbent MP
Chris Minns, since 2015.
- Geography
- Redistribution
- History
- Candidate summary
- Assessment
- 2019 results
- Booth breakdown
- Results maps
Geography
Southern Sydney. Kogarah includes parts of the Georges River and Bayside local government areas, including the suburbs of Allawah, Carrs Park, Carlton, Kogarah, Kogarah Bay, Bexley, Blakehurst, Hurstville, Kingsgrove and Beverly Hills.
Redistribution
Kogarah expanded south, taking in Blakehurst from Oatley and Kogarah Bay from Rockdale. These changes reduced the Labor margin from 1.8% to 0.3%.
History
The electoral district of Kogarah has existed continuously since 1930. The seat was marginal in the first half of the twentieth century but has been held by the ALP since 1953.
The seat was first won by the ALP’s Mark Gosling in 1930. He had held one of the seats in the St George district from 1920 to 1927 and then Oatley from 1927 to 1930. He lost Kogarah after one term in 1932.
The United Australia Party’s James Ross held the seat from 1932 to 1941, when he lost to the Victoria’s Cross recipient William Currey, running for the ALP. Currey held the seat until his death in 1948.
The 1948 by-election was won by Liberal candidate Douglas Cross. Cross lost Kogarah in 1953, but he won the neighbouring seat of Georges River in 1956, holding it until his death in 1970.
Bill Crabtree held Kogarah for the ALP from 1953 to 1983. He served as a minister in the Wran Labor government from 1976 to 1981.
Kogarah was won in 1983 by Brian Langton. He became a minister when the ALP won power in 1995. In 1998, he was forced to resign as a minister after a scandal involving misuse of air travel expenses. He retired from Kogarah in 1999.
Kogarah was won in 1999 by Cherie Burton. She served as a minister from 2005 to 2007. Following the 2007 election she returned to the backbench, and held the seat until 2015.
Kogarah has been held since 2015 by Labor’s Chris Minns. Minns was elected Labor leader in 2021.
Assessment
This is the most marginal Labor seat in the state, but in current circumstances, and considering his elevated role in the party, Minns should be re-elected.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Scott Yung | Liberal | 19,185 | 42.1 | +7.9 | 43.5 |
| Chris Minns | Labor | 19,254 | 42.2 | -3.2 | 41.1 |
| Greta Werner | Greens | 2,950 | 6.5 | 0.0 | 6.4 |
| Phillip Pollard | One Nation | 2,790 | 6.1 | +6.1 | 5.9 |
| Natalie Resman | Keep Sydney Open | 1,397 | 3.1 | +3.1 | 2.9 |
| Others | 0.2 | ||||
| Informal | 2,120 | 4.4 |
2019 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Chris Minns | Labor | 21,544 | 51.8 | -5.1 | 50.3 |
| Scott Yung | Liberal | 20,073 | 48.2 | +5.1 | 49.7 |
Booths in Kogarah have been split into three parts: north-east, north-west and south.
Labor won 56.8% of the two-party-preferred vote in the north-east, while the Liberal Party won more narrow majorities in the north-west (50.8%) and the south (53.4%).
| Voter group | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| North-East | 56.8 | 12,674 | 25.3 |
| North-West | 49.2 | 10,332 | 20.6 |
| South | 46.6 | 9,913 | 19.8 |
| Pre-poll | 45.1 | 9,079 | 18.1 |
| Other votes | 51.8 | 8,128 | 16.2 |
Election results in Kogarah at the 2019 NSW state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party and Labor.
Daniel, Craig Chung was born in this area but actually spent his adult life in the Ryde area. He represented the east side of bennelong whilst serving as a local councillor.
the liberals must be strugiling if chung is the candadate he first wanted to be liberal candadate for ride acoring to reports but jordan lain the former mayor backed buy dominelow plus wason city of sydney cowncil until last election lives in epping liberals first two picks including Scott yung who ran last time pulled out when liberals would not garintee him a safe seat
the liberals must be strugiling if chung is the candadate he first wanted to be liberal candadate for ride acoring to reports but jordan lain the former mayor backed buy dominelow plus wason city of sydney cowncil until last election lives in epping liberals first two picks including Scott yung who ran last time pulled out when liberals would not garintee him a safe seat what seats could liberals posibly take strugiling in pitwater cogie seems unlikely as oniel is a hard worker there is little chance of liberals picking up any extra seats even barwin muray butler and dallton are popular chung wantedride but lost lain will probaly go for benalong if he loosis ride then again the current mp is x mayor who is reasonably popular yung tried t o get a safe seat as time for running so he would not be happy if chung got the deal when he could not
Minns should win this and will have this seat for as long as he wants. Scott Yung (only 30) is building his education business and was formerly on Mark Bouris’ senior staff — will be great addition to parliament in future
Minns will be re-elected by 7pm on election night
@notlibgoss il hold you to that if hes not you owe everyone lunch
Probably not 7PM but not because of the margin, most seats still have no result or little results by 7pm. I reckon by 7:30 or 7:45 latest.
Perrottet’s seat will be more marginal than this after the election, but Matt Kean likely the next opposition leader, should have a safer margin than either of the 2 men. (Against Labor TPP)
il be to drunk to see who wins the election
matt kean wont be next opposition leader. if he is he’ll do a turnbull and he’ll be out like nothing
A rare occurence when the ballot order matches the Labor HTV order.
1. Labor
2. Greens
3. Independent
4. Liberal
Why is there no Liberal posters around suburbs in the Kogarah electorate yet? Do they know the chances of winning are extremely low?
If the ALP retained this in 2011, there is no reason why they should not be able to retain Kogarah in 2023, especially with someone as high profile as Chirs Minns. The pre and post redistribution margins are inflated for the Liberals off the back of Daley’s comments on Asians, as such, I have no expectation that Kogarah will fall on the 25th. Antony Green has also reported that on federal figures, Kogarah would be a fairly safe Labor seat on around 7%. I know federal figures don’t always translate, but in this case, on a disparity of 7% between the state and federal figures, I think it would be ludicrous to suggest a chance for an LNP pickup, not this election, where the mood in certainly one for change.
@Tijiana, I would just say the late preselection means they haven’t had time to print corflutes. I live in the Castle Hill electorate, held by the Liberals on a 22.4% margin, but I have seen many corflutes for the Labor candidate, Tina Cartwright.
matt kean will be the nexxt opposition leader what other options do the liberals have realy only Alistair henskins or speakman but Speakman will contest cook when scott morrison retiressome in moderits may not like kean but he seems to have most mps behind him now harwins gone
@aaron not necessarily first tey have to lose the election and secondly they have to elect him leader
Surprising Perrottet actually spent quite a bit of time campaigning here given basically everyone has written this seat off for the Libs. The main problem is they selected Craig Chung way too late.
to those who said matt kean will be next opposition leader hes already hinted he wants a tilt at federal politics in the event they lose the election
There this is a article in the guardian about it and talks about Matt kean possibly parachuting himself into one of the teal seats most likely north Sydney at the next election in 2025 so he wants the same backlash Kristina Keneally got in Fowler so he might be liberal leader for 20 months
Not necessarily as his seat is pretty close to that o e so it’s not the same
@Dan do you really think that it matters so much that Craig Chung was selected so late? I believe Liberal voters will vote for whoever is nominated. It’s the party that matters for them, not the individual candidate. I understand Minns has a huge advantage, but the seat being so marginal, you never know…
One of the safer Labor seats now, Minns should hold this until he retires. Scott Yung didn’t run because he knew he would be humiliated here if he did.
I don’t think any one was anticipating the results here to be so decisive for Minns. The results here are much safer than those of the federal figures which are already pretty inflated on the back of a collapse in the federal Lib vote among Chinese Australian voters.
I wasn’t quite picking 16%+ swing but I did expect a likely return to double digit margins. The seat was very safe prior to the 2011 collapse. In addition to the artificial closeness likely caused by Daley’s comments, lots of seats that were solidly Labor prior to 2011 in Sydney have had a massive swing that has resulted in their return to the fold – a fairly common pattern for a change election. Naturally, the profile of Minns plus reverting the damage from 2019 made the swing even more outsized here.
It’s ridiculous how some people talk about Chinese background people like they *all* vote the same way. People who aren’t white have different socio-economic and educational backgrounds, values etc LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE. They do not vote a particular way solely because of their ethnicity. Most Chinese background people aren’t going to vote for a candidate *just because* they’re Chinese background. A few of them might, but I think these election results show that a clear majority think otherwise. We can surely have more sophisticated discussions on how cultural backgrounds can potentially affect somebody’s vote.
Considering the makeup of Kogarah federally is basically Barton plus the ALP leaning areas of Banks, I think the big swing in this election is not all surprising. Consider it a corrective swing to whatever was keeping the margin down before. The Libs didn’t even win here in great landslide of 2011 so I think this can be considered reliable ALP heartland in ‘regular times’ and 2015 and 2019 seem to be aberrations.
Whatever the reasons are for the huge swing, one thing for sure is Craig Chung’s political ambitions aren’t going anywhere in the near future unless he already made a deal beforehand in exchanged for contesting Kogarah.
This result only adds to Scott Yung’s reputation as one of the Liberals key campaign assets. They need to use him to his full potential state or federal — win a seat / add to their renewed look (if that’s going to happen)
“This result only adds to Scott Yung’s reputation as one of the Liberals key campaign assets.”
One decent election result (which he didn’t win anyway) and he’s a key campaign asset? Is the bar really that low for the Liberals nowadays?
The 30% swing at the Hurstville pre-polling centre is rather remarkable. Even the only Liberal booth in the far south of the seat swung 20% lol. They could have used some of this swing next door in Oatley…
Agree with some of the points that @SP made. I don’t assume ethnic communities are homogenous. It isn’t that simple. Chinese-Australian encompasses ethnic Chinese voters who were also born in Australia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, SE Asia and elsewhere, and are from different religious backgrounds. There were swings AWAY from Labor in Cabramatta where there is a strong Chinese-Vietnamese and Chinese-Cambodian presence and on the other end of town, there were 10% 2PP swings TO Labor in Maroubra where there’s a strong Chinese-Indonesian and Chinese-Malaysian presence.
I also don’t like saying that ethnic communities they vote for candidates simply because they are from the same ethnicity. Scott Yung was a strong campaigner who could connect like no other ethnic Liberal candidate. He was also at the right place at the right time and scored a good swing to him. We all remember Michael Daley. Mark Coure in neighbouring Oatley got a swing to him in 2019.
The large swings at the 2023 NSW state election may be attributable to corrections as well as a personal vote. Minns always knew he had a marginal seat. Similarly, at the 2022 federal election, there were big re-calibration swings following the negative gearing and franking credits scares of 2019 (which made Banks swing to the Liberals).