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| Australian federal election, 2016
Division of Blaxland, New South Wales
Western Sydney: Bass Hill, Chester Hill, Condell Park, Milperra
Sitting member: Hon Jason Clare (Labor), elected 2013
Enrolment at close of rolls: 103,539
2013 Labor majority over Liberal: 11.4%
2016 notional Labor majority over Liberal: 11.2%
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Candidates in ballot-paper order:
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1. Hon Jason Clare
Australian Labor Party |
2. Suzan Virago
Australian Greens |
3. Gabriela Zabala
Socialist Equality Party |
4. Felicity Findlay
Liberal Party |
5. Clint Nasr
Christian Democrats |
2013 results
Statistics and history
Blaxland was created in 1949, and has always been based in Sydney's western suburbs, and usually centred on Bankstown. It has one of the lowest income levels of any urban electorate, one of the lowest levels of people in professional occupations and the third-highest level of people born in non English speaking countries. These factors all make Blaxland a very safe seat for the Labor party.
Blaxland used to be aligned roughly east-west, from Lakemba to Bass Hill. The 2006 redistribution pushed the seat further west to take in most of Cabramatta, the centre of Sydney's South-East Asian community, which made it even safer for Labor. But the 2010 redistribution realigned the seat to run north-south, from Bankstown to Guildford, and the 2016 redistubtion has extended it even further north, to Auburn.
These changes have weakened the seat somewhat for Labor.
Blaxland's most eminent member has been Paul Keating, Labor Prime Minister from 1991 to 1996. After his defeat by John Howard in 1996, he resigned his seat. The 1996 by-election was won by Michael Hatton, who had been Keating's electorate officer for eleven years. He was disendorsed by the Labor National Executive before the 2007 election.
Jason Clare, Labor MP for Blaxland since 2007, is a lawyer who was manager of corporate relations for Transurban before his election, and was earlier a senior adviser to Premier Bob Carr. He was promoted rapidly, becoming a parliamentary secretary in 2009 and a minister after the 2010 election. He is now shadow minister for communications.
The Liberal candidate is Felicity Findlay.
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Prospective pendulum, showing all candidates
State and territory maps, showing new boundaries
The thirty seats that will decide the election
Other seats of interest
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