Division of Wentworth
| Wentworth Australian House of Representatives Division | |
|---|---|
 Division of Wentworth in New South Wales, as of the 2016 federal election. | |
| Created | 1901 |
| MP | Malcolm Turnbull |
| Party | Liberal |
| Namesake | William Wentworth |
| Electors | 102,811 (2016) |
| Area | 38 km2 (14.7 sq mi) |
| Demographic | Inner Metropolitan |
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The Division of Wentworth is an Australian electoral division in the state of New South Wales. It was proclaimed in 1900 and was one of the original 75 federation divisions contested at the first federal election. The division is named after William Charles Wentworth (1790–1872), an Australian explorer and statesman. In 1813 he accompanied Blaxland and Lawson on their crossing of the Blue Mountains.
Wentworth is the second-smallest geographical electoral division in the Parliament with an area of just 38 square kilometres (15 sq mi), covering Woolloomooloo along the southern shore of Sydney Harbour to Watsons Bay and down the coast to Clovelly—an area largely coextensive with Sydney's Eastern Suburbs. The western boundary runs along Oxford Street, Flinders Street and South Dowling Street, then eastward along Alison Road to Randwick Racecourse and Clovelly Beach. It includes the suburbs of Bellevue Hill, Ben Buckler, Bondi, Bondi Beach, Bondi Junction, Bronte, Centennial Park, Darling Point, Double Bay, Dover Heights, Edgecliff, Moore Park, North Bondi, Paddington, Point Piper, Queens Park, Rose Bay, Rushcutters Bay, Tamarama, Vaucluse, Watsons Bay, Waverley, and Woollahra; as well as parts of Clovelly, Darlinghurst, East Sydney, Elizabeth Bay, Kings Cross, Potts Point, and Randwick.
Considered a safe seat for the Liberal Party of Australia, Wentworth is one of only two original federation divisions in New South Wales, along with the Division of North Sydney, which has never been held by the Australian Labor Party, though Labor candidate Jessie Street came within 1.6 percent of winning Wentworth at the 1943 election landslide. According to the census, the seat covers some of the wealthiest suburbs in Australia and has the highest proportion of high income families of all seats in Australia, with the Division of North Sydney coming second.[1][2]
The current member since the 2004 election is Liberal Malcolm Turnbull who has served as Prime Minister of Australia since the September 2015 Liberal leadership ballot. Both Turnbull and a previous member John Hewson had been Opposition Leaders, with both becoming Opposition Leaders in their respective second terms as members for Wentworth.
During the 2016 election campaign, a ReachTEL opinion poll of 626 Wentworth voters conducted on 31 May predicted a two-party swing against the Liberals' Turnbull for the first time since his election to Wentworth—revealing a reduced 58 percent two-party vote from a large 10.9 percent two-party swing.[3]
Members
| Member | Party | Term | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sir William McMillan | Free Trade | 1901–1903 | |
| Willie Kelly | Free Trade, Anti-Socialist | 1903–1909 | |
| Commonwealth Liberal | 1909–1917 | ||
| Nationalist | 1917–1919 | ||
| Walter Marks | Nationalist | 1919–1929 | |
| Independent | 1929–1930 | ||
| Australian | 1930–1931 | ||
| United Australia | 1931 | ||
| Sir Eric Harrison | United Australia | 1931–1944 | |
| Liberal | 1944–1956 | ||
| Les Bury | Liberal | 1956–1974 | |
| Bob Ellicott | Liberal | 1974–1981 | |
| Peter Coleman | Liberal | 1981–1987 | |
| John Hewson | Liberal | 1987–1995 | |
| Andrew Thomson | Liberal | 1995–2001 | |
| Peter King | Liberal | 2001–2004 | |
| Independent | 2004 | ||
| Malcolm Turnbull | Liberal | 2004–present | |
Election results
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Liberal | Malcolm Turnbull | 52,353 | 62.26 | −2.35 | |
| Labor | Evan Hughes | 14,913 | 17.73 | −0.98 | |
| Greens | Dejay Toborek | 12,496 | 14.86 | +0.84 | |
| Arts | Anthony Ackroyd | 1,478 | 1.76 | +1.76 | |
| Science | Peter Xing | 988 | 1.17 | +1.17 | |
| Christian Democrats | Beresford Thomas | 901 | 1.07 | +0.62 | |
| Independent | David Allen | 573 | 0.68 | +0.68 | |
| Independent | Marc Aussie-Stone | 390 | 0.46 | +0.46 | |
| Total formal votes | 84,092 | 94.87 | +0.60 | ||
| Informal votes | 4,549 | 5.13 | −0.60 | ||
| Turnout | 88,641 | 86.22 | −3.78 | ||
| Two-party-preferred result | |||||
| Liberal | Malcolm Turnbull | 56,971 | 67.75 | −1.17 | |
| Labor | Evan Hughes | 27,121 | 32.25 | +1.17 | |
| Liberal hold | Swing | −1.17 | |||
References
- ^ Wentworth profile, 2013 election: Antony Green ABC
- ^ 2015 North Sydney by-election: Antony Green ABC
- ^ Malcolm Turnbull facing 10% swing in Wentworth as his popularity plummets: SMH 5 June 2016
- ^ Wentworth, NSW, Virtual Tally Room 2016, Australian Electoral Commission.