Division of North Sydney

This article is about the Australian federal electorate. For the historical New South Wales state electorate, see Electoral district of North Sydney.

North Sydney Australian House of Representatives Division
300px Division of North Sydney (green) in New South Wales
Created	1901
MP	Trent Zimmerman
Party	Liberal Party
Namesake	North Sydney, New South Wales
Electors	104,352 (2015)
Area	48 km2 (18.5 sq mi)
Demographic	Inner Metropolitan

The Division of North Sydney 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.

Located along Sydney's North Shore, the division is named after the North Sydney area and includes the suburbs of Artarmon, Cammeray, Cremorne, Cremorne Point, Crows Nest, Gore Hill, Greenwich, Henley, Hunters Hill, Huntleys Point, Kirribilli, Lane Cove, Lane Cove North, Lane Cove West, Lavender Bay, Linley Point, Longueville, McMahons Point, Milsons Point, Naremburn, Neutral Bay, Northbridge, Northwood, Riverview, St Leonards, Waverton, Wollstonecraft, Woolwich and parts of Castlecrag, Gladesville and Willoughby.

Second only to the nearby Division of Wentworth, the Division of North Sydney has the nation's second highest proportion (56.4%) of high income families. As with all North Shore seats, the division is a safe seat for the Liberal Party of Australia, though the Australian Labor Party came within 3.1 percent of winning North Sydney at the 1943 election landslide. North Sydney and Wentworth are the only two federation divisions in New South Wales to have never been held by Labor. It has been held by a member of a non-Labor party for all but six years of its existence, when held by "father of the independents" Ted Mack, from the 1990 election before choosing to resign from federal parliament after two terms at the 1996 election, for the same reason he previously chose to resign from state parliament after two terms − to avoid receiving a parliamentary pension.

Succeeding Mack was Joe Hockey who represented North Sydney from 1996 to 2015 and served as Abbott Government Treasurer from 2013 to 2015. Following the successful September 2015 Liberal leadership spill Hockey moved to the backbench, however six days later he announced his intention to resign from parliament, taking effect from 23 October. The 2015 North Sydney by-election occurred on 5 December to elect his replacement, Trent Zimmerman, a former Hockey staffer, despite a large swing.

Zimmerman won with 48.2 percent of the primary vote after a larger-than-predicted 12.8 percent swing against the Turnbull Coalition Government. This was only the second time in North Sydney since federation that the successful Liberal candidate did not obtain a majority of the primary vote and had to rely on preferences. Zimmerman faced a double-digit primary vote swing − more than triple that of the 2015 Canning by-election − despite the absence of a Labor candidate. Labor have never been successful in the safe Liberal seat.

The Liberal two-candidate vote of 60.2 percent against independent Stephen Ruff compares to the previous election vote of 65.9 percent against Labor. The reduction of 5.7 percent cannot be considered a "two-party/candidate preferred swing" − when a major party is absent, preference flows to both major parties does not take place, resulting in asymmetric preference flows.

Ian Macfarlane attempted to defect from the Liberal party room to the National party room with accompanying demands for additional Nationals cabinet representation, and the Mal Brough James Ashby diary controversy deepened in the last week of the campaign. Along with the unexpected by-election swing and Turnbull's significantly lessened personal ratings in the concurrent December Newspoll, some News Limited journalists opined Malcolm Turnbull's honeymoon to be over.

Zimmerman became the first openly-LGBTI member of the House of Representatives.

Members

Member		Party	Term
	Dugald Thomson	Free Trade, Anti-Socialist	1901–1909
		Commonwealth Liberal	1909–1910
	George Edwards	Commonwealth Liberal	1910–1911
	(Sir) Granville Ryrie	Commonwealth Liberal	1911–1917
		Nationalist	1917–1922
	Billy Hughes	Nationalist	1922–1929
		Independent Nationalist	1929–1930
		Australian	1930–1931
		United Australia	1931–1945
		Liberal	1945–1949
	William Jack	Liberal	1949–1966
	Bill Graham	Liberal	1966–1980
	John Spender	Liberal	1980–1990
	Ted Mack	Independent	1990–1996
	Joe Hockey	Liberal	1996–2015
	Trent Zimmerman	Liberal	2015–present

Election results

Main article: Electoral results for the Division of North Sydney

North Sydney by-election, 2015

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	Trent Zimmerman	36,690	48.20	−12.84
	Independent	Stephen Ruff	14,303	18.79	+18.79
	Greens	Arthur Chesterfield-Evans	11,959	15.71	+0.36
	Independent	Maryann Beregi	2,613	3.43	+3.43
	Sustainable Population	William Bourke	2,189	2.88	+2.88
	Christian Democrats	Silvana Nero	1,917	2.52	+1.51
	Liberal Democrats	Sam Kennard	1,591	2.09	+2.09
	Arts	Lou Pollard	1,400	1.84	+1.84
	Bullet Train	Tim Bohm	964	1.27	+1.27
	Voluntary Euthanasia	Kerry Bromson	815	1.07	+1.07
	Cyclists	Luke Freeman	815	1.07	+1.07
	Future	James Jansson	513	0.67	+0.67
	Palmer United	Robert Marks	352	0.46	−1.23
Total formal votes			76,121	93.08	−1.54
Informal votes			5,658	6.92	+1.54
Turnout			81,779	78.37	−13.88
Two-candidate-preferred result
	Liberal	Trent Zimmerman	45,848	60.23	−5.66
	Independent	Stephen Ruff	30,273	39.77	+39.77
	Liberal hold		Swing	N/A

External links

• Division of North Sydney - Australian Electoral Commission