| Hotham |
Division of Hughes | Hume |
 Hon Danna Vale (Lib) Her electorate website |  |
Location: Sydney: Engadine, Liverpool, Menai, Sutherland Division named for: Rt Hon Billy Hughes, Prime Minister of Australia 1916-22 Median weekly family income: $1,315 (16th highest) Persons born in non English speaking countries: 17.1% (46th highest) Persons in professional occupations: 25.9% (67th highest) Persons aged 65 and over: 7.8% (134th highest) Couple families with dependent children: 48.1% (7th highest) Dwellings being purchased: 32.5% (31st highest) Sitting member: Hon Danna Vale (Liberal), elected 1996, 1998, 2001, 2004, 2007 Born: 14 November 1944, Sydney. Career: Solicitor. Minister for Veterans' Affairs and Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence 2001-04 1996 two-party majority: Liberal 05.0 1998 two-party majority: Liberal 05.5 Effect of 2001 redistribution: 00.9 shift to Liberal 2001 two-party majority: Liberal 10.5 2004 two-party majority: Liberal 11.0 Effect of 2006 redistribution: 02.2 shift to Labor 2007 notional two-party majority: Liberal 08.8 2007 two-party majority: Liberal 02.2 
2004 enrolment: 87,281 2007 enrolment: 91,175 (+04.5%) (new boundaries) Hughes was created in 1955, as a seat based on the Sutherland Shire and the mining communities on the coast between Sydney and Woollongong. It also usually included some Woollongong suburbs. On these boundaries it was a safe Labor seat, although it was lost to the Liberals in 1966 (when all of the present seat of Cook was in the seat). The 1984 redistribution, however, moved the seat north, making it an entirely Sutherland-based seat and politically marginal. On the 2004 boundaries, it was in the top 10% of electorates for median family income, although on the current boundaries it falls just outside this group. It still has among the highest proportions of families with dependent children and dwellings being purchased of any electorate: it is thus a high-income mortgage belt seat, full of young families with high incomes but high mortgages, which explains why it swung to the Liberals at each election from 1996 to 2004. The 2006 redistribution removed Como, but also extended the seat to the north-west, taking in the centre of Liverpool and Warwick Farm, where Labor polled over 70% of the two-party vote in 2004. This considerably increased the proportion of voters born in non English speaking countries, and reduced the Liberal margin somewhat. Danna Vale has held Hughes for the Liberals since 1996, and had a brief and unhappy ministerial career. In 2007 Vale sustained a 6.6% swing but nevertheless held the seat fairly comfortably. The Liberals polled 64% of the two-party vote at Bangor, and also topped 60% at Alfords Point, Barden Bridge, Illawong and Sandy Point. Labor polled 74% at Liverpool North and over 65% at three other booths in the Liverpool area. | |  Two-party vote by booth, 2007
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