Division of Werriwa

Werriwa
Australian House of Representatives Division
Werriwa; Australian House of Representatives Division
	Division of Werriwa in New South Wales, as of the 2016 federal election
Created	1901
MP	Anne Stanley
Party	Labor
Namesake	Lake George (Aboriginal name)
Electors	126,141 (2022)
Area	172 km2 (66.4 sq mi)
Demographic	Outer metropolitan

The Division of Werriwa is an Australian electoral division in the state of New South Wales. The name Werriwa derives from a local Aboriginal name for Lake George, which was located in the division when it was established in 1900. The division was one of the original 65 divisions first contested at the first federal election.

Werriwa now covers an area in south-west Sydney, including the suburbs of Ashcroft, Austral, Bonnyrigg Heights, Bradfield, Busby, Carnes Hill, Cartwright, Casula, Cecil Hills, Edmondson Park, Glenfield, Green Valley, Heckenberg, Hinchinbrook, Horningsea Park, Hoxton Park, Long Point, Lurnea, Macquarie Fields, Macquarie Links, Middleton Grange, Miller, Prestons, Sadleir, and West Hoxton; as well as parts of Badgerys Creek, Bonnyrigg, Bringelly, Cecil Park, Denham Court, Ingleburn, Kemps Creek, Leppington, Mount Pritchard, and Rossmore.

The current Member for Werriwa, since the 2016 federal election, is Anne Stanley, a member of the Australian Labor Party.

Geography

Since 1984, federal electoral division boundaries in Australia have been determined at redistributions by a redistribution committee appointed by the Australian Electoral Commission. Redistributions occur for the boundaries of divisions in a particular state, and they occur every seven years, or sooner if a state's representation entitlement changes or when divisions of a state are malapportioned.^[1]

History

Originally, Werriwa was a large and mostly rural electorate that stretched from south-west Sydney to the northern part of what is now the ACT, and included the Southern Highlands, Goulburn, and part of the South West Slopes. In succeeding years, with demographic change and electoral redistributions, Werriwa began to shrink and, from 1913 onwards, no longer included Lake George. It underwent several other major changes to its borders over the years. The 1949 expansion of Parliament saw Werriwa lose most of its remaining rural territory to the newly created Division of Macarthur and move to approximately its current position in south-west Sydney, over 150 kilometres (93 mi) away from Lake George. However, it has retained the name of Werriwa, primarily as it is an original Federation electorate—the Australian Electoral Commission's guidelines on electoral redistributions require it to preserve the names of original Federation electorates where possible.^[2]

It is a very safe seat for Labor, which has held it continuously since 1934 and for all but nine years since 1906.

Werriwa is best remembered for being the electorate of former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, who held it from 1952 to 1978. It was represented from 1994 to 2005 by one of Whitlam's former aides, Mark Latham, the leader of the ALP and Leader of the Opposition from 2003 to 2005. In more recent times, a by-election in March 2005 resulted in Labor's Chris Hayes elected with over 55% of the vote, in a 16-candidate race which saw no other candidate poll above 8%.

Demographics

Werriwa is a heavily working class electorate and is considered part of Labor's Western Sydney "Red Wall" (seats that are reliably safe for Labor).^[3]

Werriwa is home to relatively large immigrant communities. According to the 2016 census, 64.8% of electors had both parents born outside of Australia.^[4] 40.0% of people only speak English at home.^[4] Other languages spoken at home include Arabic 10.1%, Vietnamese 6.3%, Hindi 4.3%, Spanish 2.8% and Italian 2.2%.^[4]

Members

Member	Party	Term	Notes
Alfred Conroy (1864–1920)	Free Trade	29 March 1901 – 1906	Lost seat
Alfred Conroy (1864–1920)	Anti-Socialist	1906 – 12 December 1906	Lost seat
David Hall (1874–1945)	Labor	12 December 1906 – 1 April 1912	Previously held the New South Wales Legislative Assembly seat of Gunnedah. Resigned to become a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council
Benjamin Bennett (1872–1939)	Labor	1 June 1912 – 23 April 1913	Retired
Alfred Conroy (1864–1920)	Liberal	31 May 1913 – 5 September 1914	Lost seat
John Lynch (1862–1941)	Labor	5 September 1914 – 14 November 1916	Lost seat
	National Labor	14 November 1916 – 17 February 1917
	Nationalist	17 February 1917 – 13 December 1919
Bert Lazzarini (1884–1952)	Labor	13 December 1919 – 27 March 1931	Lost seat
Bert Lazzarini (1884–1952)	Labor (NSW)	27 March 1931 – 19 December 1931	Lost seat
Walter McNicoll (1877–1947)	Country	19 December 1931 – 14 September 1934	Resigned to become Administrator of the Territory of New Guinea
Bert Lazzarini (1884–1952)	Labor (NSW)	15 September 1934 – February 1936	Served as minister under Curtin, Forde and Chifley. Died in office
Bert Lazzarini (1884–1952)	Labor	February 1936 – 1 October 1952
Gough Whitlam (1916–2014)		29 November 1952 – 31 July 1978	Served as Opposition Leader from 1967 to 1972, and from 1975 to 1977. Served as Prime Minister from 1972 to 1975. Resigned to retire from politics
John Kerin (1937–2023)		23 September 1978 – 22 December 1993	Previously held the Division of Macarthur. Served as minister under Hawke and Keating. Resigned to retire from politics
Mark Latham (1961–)		28 January 1994 – 21 January 2005	Served as Opposition Leader from 2003 to 2005. Resigned to retire from politics. Later elected to the New South Wales Legislative Council in 2019
Chris Hayes (1955–)		19 March 2005 – 21 August 2010	Transferred to the Division of Fowler
Laurie Ferguson (1952–)		21 August 2010 – 9 May 2016	Previously held the Division of Reid. Retired
Anne Stanley (1961–)		2 July 2016 – present	Incumbent

Election results

2022 Australian federal election: Werriwa^[5]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labor	Anne Stanley	40,108	39.86	−7.90
	Liberal	Sam Kayal	30,864	30.67	−4.60
	Liberal Democrats	Victor Tey	8,978	8.92	+8.92
	United Australia	Tony Nikolic	8,813	8.76	+4.56
	Greens	Apurva Shukla	6,772	6.73	+1.36
	One Nation	Adam Booke	5,096	5.06	+5.06
Total formal votes			100,631	90.18	+1.75
Informal votes			10,962	9.82	−1.75
Turnout			111,593	88.53	−2.00
Two-party-preferred result
	Labor	Anne Stanley	56,173	55.82	+0.35
	Liberal	Sam Kayal	44,458	44.18	−0.35
	Labor hold		Swing	+0.35