Hughes (NSW)

Danna Vale (Liberal)

Outer Metropolitan^A

Seat Margin: 10.4%

2001 election swing:

 4.2% to Coalition

NSW swing: 

3.4% to Coalition

  Republic 'yes': 49.2^r

Read about this graph        

Hughes was Paul Keating's Aboriginal Affairs Minister Robert Tickner's electorate - until it swung massively  to John Howard in 1996. This was taken as evidence of "Howard's Battlers".

But the numbers above tell a different story - of one of the highest earning and best employed electorates in the land.

Hughes, Macarthur and Lindsay were the three biggest NSW swingers in 1996 - and in the top five nationally. But with hindsight the writing was on the wall at the previous poll.

At the 1993 election NSW swung to Paul Keating by over 2%. Genuine "battler" seats in Sydney were the biggest contributers - Blaxland by 9%, Watson and Prospect by 6% for example. Even John Howard's Bennelong scraped together a 4% move. 

But not our trio, which sullenly refused to partake. Their votes barely shifted. 

And again in 1998 for the GST referendum Mark II, when deep western Sydney Labor heartland seats recorded their largest two party preferred Labor votes in decades, and NSW went to Beazley by over 4 percent, Hughes moved further to the Liberals.

Hughes is now solid Liberal territory. That happens when your wallet expands.

See also this table.

See also this.

External links

AEC Member

   ABC (Antony Green)

<sub>A: AEC socio-demographic  
r: yes vote at 1999 referendum 
* From Parliament House Library</sub>