Electoral district of Dubbo

Location in New South Wales

Dubbo is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of New South Wales. It is represented by Troy Grant of the National Party of Australia.

At the 2007 election it included the City of Dubbo (including Dubbo), most of Narromine Shire (including Narromine), Parkes Shire (including Parkes, Peak Hill, Alectown, Bogan Gate, Trundle and Tullamore), Forbes Shire (including Forbes) and part of Cabonne Shire (including Canowindra and Eugowra).

History

It was first created in 1894, abolished in 1904, and then recreated in 1930. Dubbo is a regional electorate, deriving its name from the town of the same name, covering 16,454.32 km² and encompassing the towns of Dubbo, Parkes, Narromine and Wellington as well as a variety of rural villages. There were 43,533 people enrolled within the electorate as of April 1999.

Dubbo has been generally conservative leaning throughout its history, with the Country/National and Liberal parties holding it for most of its lifetime. This grew stronger during the 1980s and 1990s, and the seat was widely seen as National Party heartland until 1999, when Dubbo became one of a number of key National Party seats to fall to rural independents, with the narrow victory of Tony McGrane. He was returned with a much larger majority at the 2003 election, and when he died in 2004, was replaced by another independent, Dawn Fardell, who won the resulting by-election. Fardell was re-elected in 2007 election; however was comprehensively defeated by the Nationals Troy Grant at the 2011 general election.

While the Australian Labor Party did manage to hold Dubbo for three short stints between the 1930s and 1950s, they have not held the seat since 1959, and show no sign of doing so in the foreseeable future. Labor did not field a candidate in either the 2004 by-election and 2007 general election, and achieved 6.5% of the first preference votes at the 2011 general election.

Members for Dubbo

First incarnation (1895—1904)
Member		Party	Term
	James Morgan	Protectionist	1894—1895
	Simeon Phillips	Free Trade	1895—1901
		Liberal Reform	1901—1904
Second incarnation (1930—present)
Member		Party	Term
	Alfred McClelland	Labor	1930—1932
	George Wilson	Country	1932—1942
	Clarrie Robertson	Labor	1942—1950
	Robert Medcalf	Country	1950—1953
	Clarrie Robertson	Labor	1953—1959
	Les Ford	Liberal	1959—1964
	John Mason	Liberal	1965—1981
	Gerry Peacocke	National	1981—1999
	Tony McGrane	Independent	1999—2004
	Dawn Fardell	Independent	2004—2011
	Troy Grant	National	2011—present

Election results

Main article: Electoral results for the district of Dubbo

New South Wales state election, 2011: Dubbo
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	National	Troy Grant	27,191	60.0	+17.4
	Independent	Dawn Fardell	14,129	31.2	-10.5
	Labor	Andrew Brooks	2,893	6.4	-4.8
	Greens	Matt Parmeter	1,119	2.5	+0.0
Total formal votes			45,332	98.1	+0.3
Informal votes			898	1.9	-0.3
Turnout			46,230	94.4	+0.2
Two-candidate preferred result
	National	Troy Grant	27,714	63.7	+14.5
	Independent	Dawn Fardell	15,827	36.4	-14.5
	National gain from Independent		Swing	+14.5

External links

• "Dubbo". New South Wales Electoral Commission. http://www.elections.nsw.gov.au/profiles/district_profiles/dubbo. Retrieved 2011-09-24.