| Forrest |
Division of Fowler | Franklin |
 Julia Irwin (ALP) Her electorate website |  |
Location: Sydney: Bonnyrigg, Cecil Hills, Green Valley, Mount Pritchard Division named for: Lillian Fowler, first woman mayor in Australia Median weekly family income: $914 (74th highest) Persons born in non English speaking countries: 40.2% (4th highest) Persons born in South-East Asia: 20.3% (1st highest) Persons in professional occupations: 15.8% (145th highest) Persons aged 65 and over: 7.7% (135th highest) Couple families with dependent children: 48.2% (6th highest) Dwellings being purchased: 28.8% (50th highest) Sitting member: Julia Irwin (Labor), elected 1998, 2001, 2004, 2007 Born: 8 November 1951, Sydney. Career: Bank officer, trade union administration officer, electorate officer to Jack Ferguson MLA, Hon Ross Free MHR, and Ted Grace MHR. 1996 two-party majority: Labor 18.3 1998 two-party majority: Labor 26.3 Effect of 2001 redistribution: 00.3 shift to Liberal 2001 two-party majority: Labor 21.5 2004 two-party majority: Labor 21.4 Effect of 2006 redistribution: 07.9 shift to Liberal 2007 notional two-party majority: Labor 13.5 2007 two-party majority: Labor 18.3 
2004 enrolment: 82,885 2007 enrolment: 89,166 (+07.6%) (new boundaries) Fowler was created in 1984, based in the heartland of Sydney's south-western suburbs in the Liverpool-Cabramatta area. Over the past 30 years this has become Australia's most economically and socially deprived urban area. On its 2004 boundaries Fowler had the highest proportion of families in poverty of any urban seat. The 2006 redistribution, however, shifted the electorate substantially westwards, moving nearly 40,000 voters in the Cabramatta area to Blaxland and adding 41,000 voters in the Cecil Hills, Hinchinbrook, Badgerys Creek and Luddenham areas. These are new outer suburban areas, substantially less disadvantaged than the core areas of the old Fowler. On these boundaries Fowler is a more typical outer suburban mortgage belt seat, with a very high proportion of families with dependent children. Not surprisingly, Fowler has always been a very safe Labor seat. The redistribution sharply reduced Labor's previous enormous margin in the seat, but it is still be perfectly safe. In 2007 there was a 4.8% swing to Labor, with the biggest swings in the new areas in the outer west. Julia Irwin has held the seat for Labor since 1998. In 2007 the ALP vote reached 83% of the two-party vote at Bonnyrigg, and also passed 75% at Ashcroft, Bonnyrigg High, Cabramatta, Canley Vale, Cartwright, Fairfield West, Harrison Street, Heckenberg, James Busby and Miller. The Liberals won nine booths on the outer fringes of the seat, polling 59% at Bringelly. | | 
Two-party vote by booth, 2007
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