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| Australian federal election, 2016
Division of Cunningham, New South Wales
South of Sydney: Bulli, Corrimal, Port Kembla, Wollongong
Sitting member: Hon Sharon Bird (Labor), elected 2004
Enrolment at close of rolls: 111,395
2013 Labor majority over Liberal: 9.9%
2016 notional Labor majority over Liberal: 11.3%
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Candidates in ballot-paper order:
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1. Cath Blakey
Australian Greens |
2. Nathan Waters
Science Party |
3. Michelle Blicavs
Liberal Party |
4. Michelle Ryan
Christian Democrats |
5. Hon Sharon Bird
Australian Labor Party |
6. John Flanagan
Non-Custodial Parents Party |
2013 results
Statistics and history
Cunningham was created in 1949, based on the industrial centre of Wollongong, south of Sydney. As the region's heavy industry has declined, however, Wollongong has become a signicantly less working- class city, and the creation in 1984 of the new seat of Throsby (now Whitlam) removed some of the most blue-collar parts of the electorate. Today more of Cunningham's workforce work in government services for the Illawarra region than work in manufacturing. This is why the electorate has a higher proportion of people with professional occupations and a higher median income level than most regional city seats.
All this explains the gradual decline in Labor strength in Cunningham, although the seat is still fairly reliably Labor. Its members have included Labor cabinet ministers Rex Connor and Stewart West and Speaker of the House Stephen Martin. In 2002 Martin abruptly resigned his seat, and the ensuing by-election found Labor with a new leader, Simon Crean, whose standing with the public was low, and a candidate, Sharon Bird, who many Labor activists in the seat did not support. The result was a shock win for the Green candidate Michael Organ, a blow from which Crean's leadership never recovered. At the 2004 election things returned to normal and Bird easily regained the seat for Labor.
Sharon Bird, Labor MP for Cunningham since 2004, was a senior project officer with the NSW Department of Juvenile Justice before her election. Earlier she had been a member of Shellharbour City Council. She became a parliamentary secretary in 2012 and was Minister for Regional Development, for Regional Communications and for Road Safety in the last months of the Rudd-Gillard Government. She is now shadow minister for vocational education.
The 2016 redistribution has moved the seat to the south, removing some Liberal-inclined territory in the north and adding some Labor-voting suburbs in the south. This has increased the Labor majority to 11.3%
The Liberal candidate is Michelle Blicavs, a superannuation executive and Wollongong City Councillor.
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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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